REOLINK 4K UHD PoE PTZ Camera for Outdoor Security, 360° Pan & 90° Tilt for Auto Tracking, 5X Optical Zoom and 3D Zoom, AI Detection, Color Night Vision, 24/7 Recording, 2 Way Talk, RLC-823S1

These cameras are awesome . I am not aware of another home or small business cameras that even come close to these , Have tried other competing company products and was gravely disappointed. For a time I had the major home security company install their cameras and they told me they were installing the same cameras banks use NO WAY/. A huge problem with other cameras is missed video they just do not capture important events so what is the point. Everything on these cameras all advertised features are as advertised . The only consideration that these cameras do not have a person might want depending on your situation is night camera capability these cameras must have some ambient light . Which the built in spot light and infra red do provide . The zoom tilt pan features are top notch . If you are at all D I Y they aren't difficult to install I ran the cable trenching some of it and even though I am not a tech person was able to handle the connections to the NVR which is simple I managed to get hooked up to TV and Computer Have not yet tried phone app. I at one time was a government security officer and can tell you these cameras are very close to the function and capabilities of the cameras used by the government security systems . These cameras do not miss anything with 24 hour recording and the ability to view only alarm points or to literally view every second is fantastic the picture quality is extremely good . For the money paid if you have serious security concerns this is a serious camera and a very good value for the money . Quality is going to cost however I do feel at this price point and the high quality of these cameras it is a great value . I have had this system in use for several weeks now and simply have found them to be a professional level camera and hugely better than so called professional company installs. I do believe the sound quality good however my location presents problems with a high volume of background noise and wind yet mostly can make out voices and what is being said so considering the local I do think good sound quality. Without reservation I can feel very comfortable to recommend these cameras . They have been reliable and are high power . I should add the patrol feature is really a nice feature along with the auto rotate and being able to set schedules a lot of programming choice which is easy to use. The only related subject I am a little uncertain about is customer service Firstly I would highly recommend to them to enclose an instruction book their is a quick start guide .Instructions on how to use the system to me is the one weak point . I went online to website to use chat for help with how to configure the computer set up which for me was the most difficult part . I literally got abandoned during the chat . Waited somewhat over 10 minutes with absolutely no response back from them . In fairness to them the next day I did receive an apologetic E mail explaining they became overwhelmed with customers reaching out so that much is a plus. However still leaves a sour taste . So that brings me back to good old fashion instructions would be a huge asset in my opinion and that is my personal complaint most all tech related companies . Again they did initiate a response to me offering tp pick back up on chat with assistance and I have never experienced that before . So all said I will go 5 star because they have by far the best home owner small business security system I have been able to find the performance of this system is light years ahead of their competitors at least to date that is my experience. Yes you can most def. go cheaper but will have poor quality and if your investing in security this is an affordable professional quality system

I’m extremely impressed with the Reolink RLC-823S2! The 4K image quality is outstanding — every detail is crystal clear, even at night. The 16x optical zoom works flawlessly, letting me see far-away areas without losing clarity. The PTZ control is smooth, and the smart detection for people, vehicles, and animals is very accurate. The color night vision with built-in spotlights really enhances security around my property. I also love the two-way audio for quick communication. Setup was simple through the Reolink app, and the 24/7 recording gives great peace of mind. Definitely one of the best security cameras I’ve owned!

The concept of tracking objects is great, however in our case we have a busy highway across the top of the field of view. We have masked that area out but once it starts tracking an object it'll watch it and start moving around. When it moves up at all the highway becomes unmasked and it'll start tracking cars. It would be nice to do a max-track time or if the mask logic could be applied when it moves around. It's currently fixed and zoomed in on the main driveway of our entrance and it works well for seeing people and cars but the tracking would have been nice. Also another slight annoyance is it does not change zoom/focus when tracking. It would be nice to actually zoom into the object in full screen and remain in full screen as they get closer. In our case we're at like 12x and if they walk closer you end up getting a blurry shirt.

I had a problem with the controls on this camera, one camera out of 7 and a NVR - 3 PTZ and 4 stationary. While getting support took a lot of troubleshooting with the Reolink team to make sure it was actually a faulty PTZ camera, they sent me a replacement camera in the end. The cameras are very well made and have pretty stunning picture quality, tracking quality, and great notification abilities. There are many great settings such as painting exclusion zone for unwanted areas and pet, person and vehicle detection. You do have to keep spiders away from the cameras or you will get false person and animal detection from the webs. It would be nice if the cameras could somehow differentiate spider webs but I understand this would probably be very difficult from a software perspective. Great system overall and you are not required to purchase cloud storage to get advanced features like a lot of the other camera systems like Blink which is a big deal for me. I hate spending a ton of money on a camera system to get totally extorted with a monthly fee just to use all the features like Blink does to you.

Where to start... The pendant mount is innovative that you can adjust two screws and rotate it from a 90degree elbow to a straight hanging pendant, BUT it is very loose and the screws don't lock the mount firmly, so when the PTZ is moving the rotational mass of the camera causes the camera to jiggle. Wrapping the post in packing tape made it more rigid, but will fail over time outdoors. The camera has issues with auto tracking, unlike the TrackMix PoE. The trackmix does an EXCELLENT job tracking objects within the FOV of the camera and not losing tracking. This camera routinely lets cars slip by. It makes one PTZ movement but not far enough and the car speeds out of the FOV of the camera. Even with the camera at minimum zoom, it struggles with cars. People and animals move slower, but I have noticed walking up close to camera a person can escape the auto tracking (same object thresholds in ReoLink settings), where the TrackMix looks down and pivots to track them much better. The sound of the PTZ servos is very loud in the audio stream vs TrackMix that is very quiet. The camera zoom is slow, and the camera object tracking does not zoom onto objects unlike the TrackMix that zooms the framing of the image (albeit a digital zoom). The zoom level on this camera remains fixed. Camera focusing is slow and inaccurate. It has a tendency to zoom and then HUNTS for focus much longer than Sony or other CMOS CCD's. The image quality is worse than the TrackMix in dark lighting with more artifacts, DCT blocking, video noise, etc. I am using H.265 at max quality and 1x iFrames with CBR, so it "should" be the max quality the camera sensor can provide. I will try H.264 to see if it's a CODEC issue and update review if I find anything that improves the video. As it is, there are strange buzzing patches where the image looks like strange pools of shimmering / random noise artifacts in areas of the image depending on the lighting condition. I have a TrackMix mounted 20' away and it is very good quality and none of these issues other than the fact the TrackMix is a fixed focal length camera, this camera has analog zoom but it's slow and has trouble maintaining focus through the zoom range until zooming is paused. Given the excellent performance of the TrackMix PoE I was hoping for more with this camera. The video artifacts and inability to maintain track on passing vehicles basically kills my recommendation for purchasing this camera. I would recommend the TrackMix unless you absolutely need a higher zoom level. UPDATE: Switching to H.264 CODEC helps with the quality of the video and restarting the camera seems to have removed some of the artifacts. I am running the clear stream only now vi blue iris as the fluent sub-stream always looked too blurry even for the preview video. Maybe it puts less load on the camera only sending one HQ stream. Also during the focusing the camera clicks and chatters very audibly while it hunts for focus. If you are using blueiris, you should set the key frame interval (i frames) to 1x, max bit rate, and CBR to improve motion detection in blue iris. I am running the latest available firmware which was already on the camera. The auto tracking PTZ function also disables the tracking if you send a PTZ zoom change, so if you see something you want a closer look at you will have to track it entirely manually if you need to adjust the zoom during tracking. Another difference from the TrackMix is this camera doesn't return to a "home" position after auto tracking, it returns to the last manually set position of the camera, not a PTZ preset though, its just wherever the camera was pointing when you last sent a manual PTZ command. The low-light quality of this camera is much more sensitive than the TrackMix. I don't know what the lux rating is, but surely the larger camera sensor and large lens brings in a lot more light than the diminutive lenses on the TrackMix. With the two cameras covering overlapping zone and both sending IR illumination, the usable distance exceeds 100' which is pretty good. The RLC-823S2 might have more powerful IR emitters as well. I hope ReoLink can fix some of these issues with firmware updates. The focusing algorithm needs an update. The auto tracking needs to have a return to "home" after delay setting like the TrackMix, and the auto tracking needs to do a better job of tracking faster moving objects when the camera is at anything above 1.0x zoom level.

I use this camera to monitor a remote work site in the mountains. It allows me to keep an eye on the entire site. The Pan-Tilt-Zoom features make this a real stand out. The zoom capabilities are amazing, as it allows me to zoom in for small details. Night vision and AI tracking are also quite good (though it does occasionally mistake rain or snow for a person...). My only complaint is that it doesn occasionally need to be reset to maintain connection.

Update: So after filing a complaint against them they somehow got ahold of my personal email and started harassing me there instead of Amazon messaging. They are really angry about this review and though they offer to help, they never follow through with any action and just continue to claim I'm just upset. I have been clear that I have moved on and purchased a replacement brand and don't care anymore however, they clearly want this review removed and continue to harass me. Update: beware when dealing with these snakes: After leaving this review Reolink made several attempt through Amazon messaging asking for my personal information under the guise of helping me out. I have dealt with them outside of Amazon and they will do everything they can to not warranty their product. Do not give them your personal info through amazon messaging. 2 cams purchased and one showed up doa. The issue is customer support which is nonexistent for the most part. It has been several weeks waiting for a replacement for a brand new cam. The other cam is ok, though forget using tracking and night vision is dismal. Note, it has been my experience that they will do anything they can to not honor their warranty. You will be run around in circles while they read from a script and giving you things to try that don't even relate to the issue and then just dump you on a warranty dept that will give you a run around to. If you just give up and leave a negative review they will start to harass you.

I have MANY 823A cameras. They're NOT perfect - but they're a good value for what they are; PTZ, POE, IR Blasters for night vision, LED Blasters for security as well as an alarm with scheduling, 2-way audio, Auto/Pet/Human tracking (regardless of how good/bad it may be). I was looking to get a couple more but cannot - unavailable. So I got these. Two of them. Next generation, right?! Should be better right?! Welp,, I suppose they are in most ways WITH THE EXCEPTION of one very, very, very fundamental way. This next generaton camera USING NO ZOOM yields an image that's equivalent the 823A at 50% zoom. Essentially, the field of view at 0% zoom is too narrow. You can't see much under normal circumstances. Now,, if your intention is to mount this camera somewhere super far away - then that's probably okay, however, this does NOT work for monitoring the perimeter for the avarage home. You're simply zoomed in too much at 0% and can't see much of an area. Now, if you want to zoom in on a fleas butt - it's perfect for that - but I don't think that's what most people are looking for. These are expensive - I'd send them back if they still made the 823A. Not sure what I can do now. ** EDIT 12/14/2024: Currently working w/Scarlett at Reolink regarding somehow swapping out the S2 units for S1 units (with a FoV close to the original 823A's). I don't remember the S1 units being an option when I first placed the order back in October - but perhaps I missed it?? Regardless if it was my issue or not, if Reolink can help me out here, that would put them squarely at "6-stars".. ** EDIT 12/24/2024: Reolink had me return the S2 that was still returnable (due to the time frame) and gave me a $30 credit for the other S2 that was too old to return. This was likely "my bad". As I said, I don't remember the "S1" being an option when I ordered the S2 - but it very well may have been. In the end, the S2 FoV is too mag'd for my use, the FoV on the S1 is slightly more mag'd than the 823A, but usable. If the 823A was still available, I'd have opt'd for that instead. REOLINK customer service was VERY on top of this. VERY. Probably the BEST Customer Service I've ever seen. The polar opposite of Tesla. Thank you for your prompt attention REOLINK.