Reolink PoE CCTV Security Camera Outdoor 5MP Super HD Home Surveillance IP Camera with IR Night Vision, Waterproof, Audio, Motion Alerts, Remote Access, Built-in Micro SD Card Slot, RLC-520

This solidly built, metal-housed camera can be mounted on any surface and positioned accordingly. It's very easy to install - just a hole for the cable and 3 screws (supplied). The biggest benefit for me was that it can be connected using PoE (Power over Ethernet) meaning you just need a single network cable - as long as you have a PoE switch - to provide both power and data. 12v tail is also provided of you're replacing another cam which already had power in that location. This is NOT a wi-fi camera.There is a microSD card slot in the camera body to store video/images on board which means that you can run this camera completely standalone without additional recording equipment. Although bear in mind that if your cam gets stolen, you lose your video data too. Constant FTP upload to a NAS is supported as well as connection to a DVR or software (e.g. BlueIris) for external recording.Once you are connected to the network, you just browse to the ip address of the cam and setup/view using the onboard webpage. From here you can view the cam feed, watch recordings and access settings for a host of features:- Network settings- Motion detection- User management- Video quality- Sensitivity- Brightness/Contrast/Saturation/etcThe night vision is excellent with a long range although be aware of close proximity to light surfaces that can reflect light back and blow the exposure. A ring of red leds are visible around the lens which can act as a useful deterrent in itself by making the cam visible at night.Motion detection is very sensitive but can be adjusted in the setup page and you can mask off areas to be ignored which seems to be quite effective.If you're using the microSD card for storage, a 32gb card will provide around 10 days of recording before it overwrites but this can be automatically saved to a remote location using scheduled FTP uploads.Integration in Home Assistant (or other home automation software) is very easy using an RTP feed direct from the cam and email/mobile push notifications can be quickly enabled to receive alerts of motion detection. I would make sure you have your trigger sensitivity setup correctly before you do this though as you don't want your phone going mad over every twitchy blade of grass!Overall, this is an excellent cam. Either as a replacement for an older unit or as your first dive into home security if you don't have other recording on your network. Highly recommended.

Bought to use with a synology diskstation - works perfectly with brilliant picture quality, and a very good mobile app too. Night vision works very well out to about 40 feet away from the camera.Notes:- it’s a metal camera body and base (with plastic mountings instead - really solid look and feel, I was surprised how weighty it is).- I used a TPLink POE injector to supply power so it only needed a single externally rated Ethernet cable run out to the mount point.- There’s a single cable out of the camera that splits into 3 - power, Ethernet and reset. A small cheap junction box allows you to conceal all of these in a 4in by 4in box.- Get the camera set up on the app first so you can check the position before you mount it. Then tack the cable back into the house.- On the synology Reolink is selectable on the Surveillance Station but doesn’t work - use ONVIF and it’ll detect it no problem. I don’t know why!- I had planned on only using the synology for the alerting but the app / alerts are almost instant, so have ordered a high endurance Micro SD card to install in the camera so I can get playback directly from the app (no card limits you to live stream only)

Installation was a bit fickle, as the mounting equipment didn't work great with the ceiling but got there in the end with a bit of fiddling. It runs warm but hopefully this has no impact on the longevity of the product. I really hate the bulky dangling bits as I call them which give you an option of how you want to power it and the reset button. I do wish they made this modular, so you could interchange which cables you want/need and so reducing the overall size of it, as it looks hideous indoors and have yet to come up with a way to cover them up.I am powering this over PoE with the TP Link SG1008P V4. Ethernet on the camera is only 100 mbps, so if you plan to make a cheap NVR set up with a used PoE 10/100 network switch, you'll be fine.It has only been a day of usage but I am happy with the video quality for its use case. Audio isn't great but is reasonable given the price. The zoom on it isn't particularly great but at 5 MP, it's not going to be. Night vision is really good, even in an area which gets minimal to no light gets picked up by the camera indoors.If looking for a good indoor camera or what I think would be an ok outdoor camera, then this is for you but those dangling extra cables may be worth it to some to spend extra to get something modular. Setting times to record is annoying. It would be nice to have something that allows you to just simply enable or deactivate a schedule, for when on holiday, Etc. What Reolink have instead is either keep a schedule or delete it. You can have multiple schedules but you can't just turn them off or on when you need to use a particular set schedule, you only have the option of using them all or deleting the ones you don't want to use currently which is an oversight.You can also view this camera with a Google device, such as a nest hub but it will stream for about 10-15 min before it just cuts out but it's a nice feature to have nonetheless.Would I buy this again or recommend it? Probably, especially given the price. I am looking to get the 4K variant of this for outdoor use when able.