Greetings friends
Since then, the camera has been working for me 24/7 without any glitches and problems, and now another camera from this brand fell into my hands — this time for indoor installation, with a swivel head — Reolink C2 Pro Super HD
Where could I buy ?
Official Store on ALIEXPRESS
The price at the time of the review, with shipping from China is $ 93.79. Shipping from China, Australia, Germany, USA and Russia
Parameters
Sensor — 5MP with a maximum shooting resolution of 2560 * 1920, 25 frames / sec
Swivel head — 355 degrees horizontally and 105 degrees vertically
Wi-fi module with two external antennas with support for 2.4 and 5 GHz bands
Ethernet port
Lens with 3x optical zoom, f = 2.8 ~ 8 mm
Lens viewing angle — 105 ° by 2.8 mm and 55 ° by 8 mm
Night illumination of 8 IR diodes — up to 12 meters
Two-way audio
Support for standard onvif and rtsp protocols.
Record on micro SD cards — up to 64 GB
Ability to synchronize footage to external storage and send by email.
To work with the camera, you can register up to 20 accounts.
Supply
There were no difficulties with sending, everything arrived in about two weeks, it was not damaged on the road. The camera comes in a black box, indicating the brand, model and photo of the camera. On the back of the box, in five languages, the main characteristics of the camera are indicated, by the way, the official store can send, optionally, from warehouses in China, Australia, Germany, Russia or the United States.
The most valuable and fragile is the camera, placed in a special shockproof box that protects it from all sides. Besides him, there was a box with accessories and a package with instructions in the package.
What is in the box
The instruction is available in five languages - in two booklets. There is no Russian, but there is English. Also included is a warning sticker on the video. There are quite a lot of things in the accessories box — this is a patch cord for wired connection to a router, a package with fasteners and a clip to reset the camera to factory settings
The power supply unit is 5 volts and 2 amperes, designed for an input voltage of 110 to 240 volts, which allows you to use it around the world. The plug at the power supply is removable, I got the British BS 1363 and the European one, so you can do without the use of adapters.
The manufacturer added a thick three-meter USB / Micro USB cable to power the camera — which makes it easy to install in the right place. The camera can be mounted on a wall using the complete mount on which the camera is held with a screw.
Appearance
The camera has an egg-shaped shape and a body made of white plastic. The camera module itself is made in the form of a ball mounted on a rotating platform. Ahead on the bottom, under the brand are two openings for LEDs. On the sides are round covers with holes, under which the speaker and microphone are obviously hidden.
There are two antennas at the back, the camera supports MIMO technology — which allows to increase the channel bandwidth. At the bottom there is a connector for a wired network connection, a slot for a micro SD card and micro USB for connecting power.
The lower part contains the serial number, a QR code for connecting the camera, and a default login / password.
The camera has a rather bright blue LED that is constantly on, the second diode is activity, red. LED IR illumination — clearly visible in the dark with the naked eye. How to disconnect the diode, I did not find in the software, only disconnection through the electrical tape will probably help here.
application
After connecting the power, the camera calibrates for about a minute — this makes it possible to see firsthand the progress of the rotary head (see the video version of the review). From the playmarket you need to install the Reolink application — but I already have it, with my first camera. We click the add button, we give permission not to take photos and we point the scanner at the QR code located at the bottom of the camera. I recommend first connecting the camera via a wire with a router.
After that, a connection is made to the camera, the first login using the admin account without a password, asks for a password for the administrator’s master record immediately after that.
The next step is the name of the camera and the option to enable daylight saving. Then you can choose a wi-fi network, including from the 5 GHz range, which are less busy and has a higher data transfer rate.
Available cameras are displayed in the main screen of the application — I already have two of them. Clicking on the gear in the upper right in the window of the desired camera — we get into the long settings menu.
For example, the wi-fi menu allows you to select a network from the list of available ones and test the quality of the connection before saving the settings. The SD card menu — shows the total and available volume, the 64 GB card — was recognized correctly. In the quality menu — you can select the main and stream parameters for preview.
For the main stream, you can choose one of four Super HD resolutions, frame rate from 2 to 25 / s and bitrate from 1024 to 8192 kBit / s
For the preview stream — only one resolution is available, from 4 to 12 frames / sec and bitrate from 64 to 512 kBit / sec
The level of sensitivity to movement in the frame can be changed depending on the time, for example, reduced in the afternoon. There is a useful pre-recording option when the moment preceding the appearance of the movement is saved on the card — 15, 30 seconds or a minute.
It is possible to flexibly, depending on the day of the week and time, adjust the recording mode — fixed rollers, or by movement. Similarly, you can configure the time for sending push notifications through the application. If necessary, you can turn off the infrared light.
In the display menu there are options for setting watermarks — camera name, date and time, their location. Image can be flipped or mirrored. Anti-flicker mode — helps to remove flicker from fixtures, and in the Advanced section you can adjust the exposure, white balance, day and night switching mode, backlight and 3D DNR mode — reducing video noise in the frame
The preview window has a toolbar with buttons for recording a video, a screenshot, changing the quality of the video, turning it on in full screen. If the system has more than one camera, like mine, you can display several images. The Playback option, if there is a memory card, opens a timeline where recorded videos are grouped by date and time.
In the PTZ menu — in addition to controlling the rotary head, there are options for zooming, manual adjustment of the focus of the lens. Auto button turns on the camera head rotation mode. Very convenient is the ability to save points — by turning and zooming once the desired position, you can save it, and then go into it with one click.
In horizontal mode, you can switch between cameras by scrolling — by swiping your finger across the screen, or switch to viewing mode from four sources by selecting an option in the upper right corner of the screen
The pull-down menu has options for pausing viewing, taking photos and videos, switching image quality — one of three options, depending on the connection to the network.
The lower right menu option gives you access to control the camera head — horizontal and vertical rotation, zoom and manual focus options
Reolink for windows
There is also a windows version of the application for Reolink cameras, using the same credentials, which contains several more settings for cameras.
Some of the tinctures — duplicates those that are in the application for smartphones, for example, setting the quality of the main and stream for preview
Similarly, in its functionality and the menu in which the cyclic dubbing and prerecording of an event is activated, or the sensitivity level
And from what is not in the application, here you can configure the mode for obtaining the IP address — I prefer manual mode in such cases. There is a section in the network settings menu where the ports of all the main protocols are registered, including onvif and rtsp.
Another feature is the option to automatically reboot the camera at a specified time, save and restore settings, and update firmware. There are menb scanner wifi networks
Another interesting option called the privacy mask is available from the program. It allows you to fill part of the image with a black square, and all further entries will already go with it.
In principle, almost all other options are similar to those that are already in the application, so I will not dwell on them in detail. Here, someone likes it — as for me, setting up from a computer is simply more convenient and faster.
Of course, in the Reolink program there is a multi-screen mode — there are even more options for arranging windows there and a control panel for the rotary head and zoom.
In the playback menu — time-line recordings are available, and from here you can download recorded videos in the resolution / quality of the main stream and preview. From the application on the phone — only 30 second previews
Reolink cameras have a built-in web server that uses Flash — so you can do without an application for viewing from a computer, but there is no multi-screen mode. But there is a menu for viewing and saving recorded videos
Video recording
The clips are written to the root folder of the SD card — two for each time interval, for each stream — a separate clip.
This is how the properties of the video recorded as the main video stream look like. The file size depends on the recording time, and may exceed 100 MB
The quality of the material can be assessed by test videos — in the video version of the review. I tried to demonstrate both the zoom and the movement of the head of the camera, shooting under bright artificial lighting and in IR shooting mode. It should be noted that during installation, the video resolution is reduced to 1920 * 1080.
Video review
Home assistant
In the Home Assistant, the camera integrates very simply, I use the mjpeg option — in which the path with the updated snapshot from the camera is indicated. The second and fourth cameras are Reolink.
This is how all my cameras look in the already standard Lovelace interface, for image display I use picture-glance cards with switches that send a screenshot from the selected camera to telegrams
And this is what my script looks like, which is called by the automation performed during the event — opening the front door. A message is sent about the date of the event, then photos are taken from all four cameras and after 10 seconds — the time that everything has been saved, all the photos are posted in telegrams.
Conclusion
Like my first Reolink camera, the C2 Pro model — I really liked it, excellent quality and resolution, stability, easy integration with third-party systems, intuitive controls.
In this price range — a very worthy choice. More expensive than Xiaomi cameras, but cheaper than the untwisted Dahua and Hikvision with similar parameters.
Given the almost one-year use of the first camera, I can safely recommend it as a home video surveillance system.
