Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I decided to take a chance on Reolink despite mixed reviews across their product line. I upgraded from a Foscam FI8921W v2 camera; a mere 1.3 MP camera. The E1 Zoom is a huge step up in video quality. However, I found the setup, to put it kindly, awkward. Its fairly simple, but I didn't appreciate the loud distorted sqwaking voice that sounded like a broken NJ Transit speaker in the late evening. The provided documentation is rather sparse. The Good: The picture quality is very good as is the video. The audio leaves something to be desired but it is a feature I wouldn't really plan on using anyway. I used Reolink's tech support and they were very responsive and helpful, but didn't resolve my issue that is a deficiency in their firmware and I address that below. I found the camera to work well in the dark too. The Bad: I found a lot of aspects within the firmware to be entirely mediocre. Here is a list of firmware issues I have encountered:: 1) I am surprised that the microSD card only purpose is to store vdeo when motion is detected. In every other brand of IP camera I have used, one can select the camera to take a picture and store it on the camera at regular intervals often between 5-65535 seconds. This is highly desirable because the camera is Wifi only. Its incredibly lazy of Reolink to do this since the base functionality is there in the firmware. You will either have to use FTP or 3rd party software; this reduces the value of the camera. A 5 min clip at full resolution of 2560 x 1920 at only 2fps the lowest you can go, it consumes about 155MB. The max capacity microSD you can use is 64GB. You'll run out of space really fast so why the heck not store photos at 5, 10, 30, 60 intervals. The jpeg photos of same resolution are under 500kB. 2) Reolink states the Wifi is stable. I adamantly disagree. My shed is approximately 200m away and it is connected via single mode fiber to between two Cisco 3560CX switches. I have a Cisco wireless environment: a WLC 5520 with older 2702i APs. I see the AP's algorithm is to choose 5Ghz. There is no option on the client to choose a band; that would have been nice. This is annoying. Take this into account in your environment. Most prosumer/consumer dual band APs do have seperate SSIDs for 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz. Since my shed is far away its not a big deal for me to have it on 5Ghz but I wouldn't want that running in your home environment. Why you ask? Because this is camera operates at 802.11n and it will slow down 802.11ac devices; not something desirable if you put in the expense of of having an AC router with AC clients. I typically reserve 2.4Ghz for low priority devices and that is what this device is to me. I would not entrust my security to this device for anything critical. I have experienced multiple wireless drops with a SNR of -51 dB which is excellent. I have included pictures where these drops occurred I lost connect to the camera on multiple occasions using the Reolink client and Blue Iris v5 demo. On my WLC and Spectrum analyzer I have no wireless interference whatsoever my noise floor is around -97dbm - My shed is far away from any neighbor's home so there is no 5 Ghz interference. I noticed a significant amount of duplicate packets and data retries. This device purportedly has MIMO antennas which should cut down on multipath. It is the sole 5Ghz client on the AP therefore I conclude there is an issue with their wireless driver. I noticed several of my photos missing data. Again saving it directly to the microSD card would mitigate this issue altogether. Here is my wireless environment: (Cisco Controller) >show AP auto-RF 802.11a SHED-in Number Of Slots.................................. 2 AP Name.......................................... SHED-in MAC Address...................................... 84:b2:61:45:a4:98 Slot ID........................................ 1 Radio Type..................................... RADIO_TYPE_80211a Sub-band Type.................................. All Noise Information Noise Profile................................ PASSED Channel 36................................... -95 dBm Channel 40................................... -98 dBm Channel 44................................... -95 dBm Channel 48................................... -98 dBm Channel 52................................... -97 dBm Channel 56................................... -97 dBm Channel 60................................... -95 dBm Channel 64................................... -95 dBm Channel 100.................................. -97 dBm Channel 104.................................. -95 dBm Channel 108.................................. -95 dBm Channel 112.................................. -97 dBm Channel 116.................................. -97 dBm Channel 132.................................. -95 dBm Channel 136.................................. -97 dBm Channel 140.................................. -95 dBm Channel 149.................................. -97 dBm Channel 153.................................. -95 dBm Channel 157.................................. -97 dBm Channel 161.................................. -94 dBm Channel 165.................................. -97 dBm Interference Information Interference Profile......................... PASSED Channel 36................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 40................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 44................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 48................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 52................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 56................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 60................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 64................................... -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 100.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 104.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 108.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 112.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 116.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 132.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 136.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 140.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 149.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 153.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 157.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 161.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Channel 165.................................. -128 dBm @ 0 % busy Rogue Histogram (20/40/80/160) ............................................. Channel 36................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 40................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 44................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 48................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 52................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 56................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 60................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 64................................... 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 100.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 104.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 108.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 112.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 116.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 132.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 136.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 140.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 149.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 153.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 157.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 161.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Channel 165.................................. 0/ 0/ 0/ 0 Load Information Load Profile................................. PASSED Receive Utilization.......................... 3 % Transmit Utilization......................... 0 % Channel Utilization.......................... 8 % Attached Clients............................. 1 clients and client stats.... Client Statistics: Number of Bytes Received................... 48560034601 Number of Bytes Sent....................... 402302231 Total Number of Bytes Sent................. 402302231 Total Number of Bytes Recv................. 48560034601 Number of Bytes Sent (last 90s)............ 317411 Number of Bytes Recv (last 90s)............ 49210943 Number of Packets Received................. 41491709 Number of Packets Sent..................... 5409841 Number of Interim-Update Sent.............. 0 Number of EAP Id Request Msg Timeouts...... 0 Number of EAP Id Request Msg Failures...... 0 Number of EAP Request Msg Timeouts......... 0 Number of EAP Request Msg Failures......... 0 Number of EAP Key Msg Timeouts............. 52 Number of EAP Key Msg Failures............. 0 Number of Data Retries..................... 390543 <--- way too much I've observed levels from 7-15%! Number of RTS Retries...................... 0 Number of Duplicate Received Packets....... 149552 Number of Decrypt Failed Packets........... 0 Number of Mic Failured Packets............. 0 Number of Mic Missing Packets.............. 0 Number of RA Packets Dropped............... 0 Number of Policy Errors.................... 0 Radio Signal Strength Indicator............ -45 dBm Signal to Noise Ratio...................... 51 dB Given these issues I would really be nervous about firmware upgrades and the system had better check the file integrity otherwise the chances of bricking the device are increased. Data retires happen but 7-15% is an unacceptable level. 3) No QoS/WMM - I would have expected the device to mark packets but it doesn't. Again not a difficult thing to do but the firmware. If you don't have carrier grade equipment like I do you're SOL prioritizing packets. Since this is wifi only camera 4) FTP: Only FTP is allowed and this is not a secure file transfer protocol. This is a security camera right? How about securing communications from the camera to the upstream sever. Lazy. 5) The CPU on this device barely up to the task. Consistently high CPU averaging ~77% never going below 56% and often spiking to >90%. The Ugly: Even if the firmware operated in the desired fashion I seek, the microSD card placement is absolutely bizarre and not at all user friendly. But why bother sacrificing one after what I explained the issues. Its apparent Reolink put this in just so they can say they have it too. It practically serves no purpose. Oh if you do manage to overcome the issues above, there appears to be no means with which to access the files on the microSD card so that will be really fun accessing it instead of having the card easily accessible in the base. Based upon this experience I am totally reconsidering the Reolink brand. I purchased two; opening one to test. I am returning the unopened box and looking for a better value camera because this ain't it.