REOLINK Doorbell Wired 5MP WiFi Camera

Further update: After 2 weeks the memory card is unreadable and I cannot View my recordings. It was a 256Gb Amazon basics memory card. I swapped the same card to a Reolink PTZ wifi camera and it works just fine for over a month then I put a 128GB sandisk in the doorbell and it's been working just fine. Their support claim of 256GB is unwarranted. Second issue is that I have it connected to Alexa so that the Alexa Hub can theoretically display the doorbell. I tried to answer a ring in coming onto my phone but when I do it says that the connection is already in use or the speaker is already in use. So I was unable to communicate with the person at the door. I believe it's because Reolink is trying to establish the connection to the hub and then will not let my phone connect. After attempting to connect the device then went offline and I couldn't view the doorbell at all as stated below there's all kinds of strange connectivity issues. Basically rendering the doorbell not a doorbell. Guests ring and I cannot answer. If I try in person, I notice the device actually loses connection and flashes white light. The engineering on this device is so bad maybe you get lucky with it working but I highly do not recommend these unless you have a direct ethernet connection because the Wi-Fi radio on this is garbage (see video). Their support is useless people over in China trying to use ChatGPT responses that don't even make sense. Then if they can't help you (they never can) they just suggest a discount or replacement. My goodness it's torture. Update: After using this device for a few weeks, I found it randomly goes offline. I set up the device to have a priority connection to my TP-Link Wi-Fi 6 router mesh Network, and the signal is very strong. I've been back and forth with Reolink support, which is basically non-existent because they don't speak English and have some weird interpreting where they don't read my responses, asking the same questions over and over again. They tell me to put the device closer to my router and reset it a million times - they even said that I shouldn't mount it against a wall LOL. I reminded them that it is a doorbell. From other Wi-Fi Reolink devices that I have I also observe a similar problem with their connectivity issues. Periodically and I have to go reset the Wi-Fi or reboot the power to the router. I had the ring doorbell and the same location for 4 years straight with zero connectivity issues so I may just have to return back to ring unfortunately. If they can figure out how to design proper Wi-Fi receiver transmitter in their devices I would consider purchasing but for now I would not recommend. Setup An undesirable design choice for all Reolink cameras is connecting to your wifi by the camera reading a QR code from your phone. You have to play this game with the phone in front of the camera, moving it in and out, but the cameras struggle to read the code. Most other devices use Bluetooth or a temporary wifi hotspot to connect. The key is to set up the camera right next to your router so it has a great signal and is indoors before mounting so the lighting is just right. I had a hell of a time connecting to my AT&T Wifi 6 router just about 10 feet away through the exterior wall and into the attic. The Wi-Fi reception is excellent from the street, so it has nothing to do with my router. The Doorbell would connect on and off sporadically, making it difficult to complete the setup process. I had to keep resetting the device maybe six times. I noticed that the wifi signal was weak once connected, according to the doorbell (2 of the 3 bars). The only explanation is that Reolink could have done a better job designing their antennas for the doorbell. My Ring doorbell had no issues for 5 years. I thought the doorbell was an instant return because I could not connect until I changed the configuration to the "Use 5GHz band only" option, and then it's been solid for the last few days. I appreciate that the cameras are dual-band, but they don't seem to be designed to use both bands. All of my other Reolink cameras have connectivity issues if left on Dual Band mode, and I had to set my router to only use the 5GHz band for the camera specifically, on top of the camera being set to use 5GHz; otherwise, the camera would be inaccessible. Mounting: The mount is unsuitable for walls, and there is no place to fit their large electrical connectors. I changed to a smaller connector, which the Ring doorbell came with, and was able to shove it into the wall. They do not have a vertical angle mounting plate for hardie-board siding with a vertical tilt, so your camera will be pointing up towards the roof. They only provide a left/right angled bracket. Field of View: I don't like the field of view of this device as it appears to be designed to view vertically instead of horizontally. I do not need to view my porch roof but do want to see traffic across my front lawn to the driveway. The ring doorbell had a 360 fish eye, allowing me to see almost across my whole front lawn. The Reolink doorbell probably has a 90-degree FOV horizontally, which is unacceptable. You should plan to have other cameras to cover your property as this is meant just to cover your porch area. You cannot even see a person directly in front of your door knocking on your door, but don't worry they designed it so you could see the sky. Video: The quality is on par with Ring doorbell. I appreciate being able to select the quality mode to save on bandwidth while viewing over the phone. Detection: Like all Reolink devices, they can detect any motion (light changes or movement, vehicle, etc) and humans and allow you to filter on the event when viewing the timeline. This is a key differentiator from so many cameras that made me select Reolink (that and the on-board storage with free viewing). Like Ring, Reolink also has a Package detection. At first the package detection was going off repeatedly thinking my porch chair was a package. I turned down the package detection setting and it stopped the false detection and successfully captured an envelope dropped on the porch. Like all Reolink cameras I appreciate the detailed configuration options in smart detections. There is overall Motion Detection setting from 0-100 and then on top of that you can adjust whatever smart detection (pet, human, package) the device supports. It takes a few days of monitoring and tweaking those settings to get things optimal for your environment. For the most part it's pretty good and I opt to increase the false detections with more recording vs miss an important event. The great thing is that you can playback only the filtered events you wish to see and when you receive a phone alert, selecting the alert will load up that event directly. Ring doesn't do any of that. Motion event recording at detection of the event. You can set the post-motion recording time before it stops with 15, 30, 60 seconds, but not pre-event marking. Their cameras record before human detection to ensure you get the full footage even before detection. Ring doorbell would show me an event recording only when a person was basically at the door and turning away already unless they were walking slowly. Storage and Playback: The seller of Reolink devices is the subscription-free on-board device storage. Now, you can purchase a cloud storage plan if you like, but these devices also support FTP and standard NVR streams, so you can always back up your NVR. I used a 256GB SD card and so far I'm using 1GB/day which means I'll have 9 months of storage. That's insane. Bye-bye Ring subscription plan for $4/mo to see 10 days worth of "events". Playback allows you to pick a date, filter by Visitor, Any Motion, Person, and Package, which will remove all other detections in the timeline so your playback only shows those events. There is a "tile view" option showing you a sampled preview of frames for each tile and it has an icon on each tile as to which types of motions were detected (motion, person, package, etc). You don't have to scan through and watch endlessly each video (like Ring), you can quick scroll through the tiles to get a view of what occurred without watching. Playback speeds of 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16x are available saving time reviewing footage. Audio Quality: There is less background noise than Ring. Ring had so much background noise it was hard to hear almost, however, it could detect whispering at the edge of my property almost. This device picks up audio clearly. Chime: The doorbell comes with a chime that is configurable for different tones, unlike Ring, which makes you purchase a chime. Alexa Compatibility: This is compatible with Alexa, and all the supported motion alerts can be announced on your Alexa device. When pressed, the doorbell ring will also be announced on your Alexa hub/echo, and the live video will be shown. On the Echo/Hub doorbell tile, Amazon leaves their Ring device with the additional feature of displaying the last image but no image for Reolink, unfortunately. It would be nice to have the tile preview the last image on your Echo/Hub. My most significant issues are the field of view and the device setup difficulties.