- REOLINK Smart 5MP 8CH Home Security Camera System, 4pcs Wired PoE IP Cameras Outdoor with Person/Pet/Vehicle Detection, 4K 8CH NVR with 2TB HDD for 24-7 Recording, RLK8-520D4-5MP

Why did you pick this product vs others?: I was looking at some cheaper ones that were going for like 160 but had some bad reviews so I just spent a little bit more and got these. I'm glad I did. Very high quality. There's some going for so much more. This is all you need. It has 4k video/audio recording. 2tb hard drive. Set up was amazingly easy. You only need to plug one cord into the camera itself and that singular cord (60ft) runs to the NVR. The app is done very well. Night vision is absolutely superb. The cameras themselves look quite stylish. I didn't even have to read any directions it was all so self-explanatory. Now it's only been installed for a few hours so I can't speak on longevity but the other reviews seem to say it works very well in the long term. Which was my biggest concern with going with a cheaper product. If anything ever craps out on me I will definitely come back here and update but for right now I am one happy customer and definitely recommend. Edit - I've now had the cameras installed for 8 months in my business. Over the course of the 8 months, 1 time, the cameras stopped recording and allowing me to view threw the app. I went to the nvr, switched it off, and switched it back on. This worked and brought them back. Other than than that, it's been absolutely flawless. I love that you can view through the app and also on your computer remotely, very easily, and as I said it's set up very nice and intuitive, so easy to use. It's very fast too. Pulls your recordings within seconds remotely. Overall, id say I'm still extremely happy with my choice. I'll come back and update if there's anything that's changed as far as as other hiccup requiring a reboot or it breaking. But overall this thing has given me piece of mind and I'm impressed with the quality.

I've had REOlink equipment for 3+ years now, and have waited until now to review after buying this latest system. Don't get me wrong, REOlink NVRs and computer/phone apps don't play well with other camera manufacturers and has caused me much grief over the years. But when using REOlink-ONLY equipment, their stuff is pretty bullet-proof. My latest system (NVR+8 cams) worked perfectly on the very first power-up. I have 20 cameras now, everything from RLC-423WS, RLC-423, and C1pro PTZs, to RLC-511 zoom, to 4MP bullets, to 5MP turret cameras, multiple NVRs, blah-blah-blah. I've personally wired 2000ft of CAT6 PoE to most of my systems, snaking through walls, attics, soffit, and even buried a few hundred feet of conduit to get all of the cameras and NVRs as inconspicuous as possible. That-said, here's the pros/cons to all of the REOlink stuff together, not just this item: REOlink CONS: - Doesn't play well with others - I think their inclusion of RCA-audio, reset-button, and power-socket is STUPID for an external camera that is made to be PoE (power-over-ethernet). I have to heat-shrink-seal every single one of those connectors on outdoor cameras (that's 54-connections I've had to meticulously seal) - Doesn't support HKvision encoding (used by virtually all of the doorbell cameras on the market) - Technical support is hit-or-miss; 80% want you to go away, 20% want to help, 0% actually do help - Both of my high-end recent cameras (RLC-423 and RLC-511) 4X-zoom cameras seem to have the same internal malfunction with focus... right-side is out of focus when zoomed-in and left-side is out of focus when zoomed-out - Most of their bullet and turret cameras have great quality, but such a narrow field-of-view that its hard to find good mounting locations (they are too zoomed for 8'-12' range use, which I argue is what most houses have indoors and outside for mounting locations) - Their motion-detection is based on pixels changing, not true motion-detection like Ring somehow accomplishes through infrared or other cameras with PIR-detection, so it is constantly going off for shadows and vegetation - The UUID-setup is so simple that it makes internet-security very questionable... if I can sign in from my multiple devices, other countries probably can too - Their cameras require you to turn on the active infrared-LEDs for nighttime use. They are NOT true nightvision like a passive FLIR would be. The problem with the infrared-LEDs is humans can see your camera and bugs are attracted to the lenses - There are plenty of cameras on the market with more optical zoom. 4X is frankly not enough for me in most cases, and most of their outdoor cameras start off with too much zoom to begin-with (no wide angle) REOlink PROS: - Their stuff plays well with their own equipment, better than every camera company I've tried - Their Apps magically work really well, whether on the same wifi-network or cellular or Internet-remote - UUID setup of apps is effortless - PoE setup of cameras with NVR is effortless, so are their WiFi cameras (as long as on same network) - Cameras have really good control of bandwidth-type adjustments (frame size, frame rate, KB/s) - Their motion-detection is fairly-decent; detects all movement (which is a pain with sun/shadow/bushes) - Their cameras have internal memory slots, incase you want localized non-NVR playback capability - I think their night-vision is actually pretty spectacular, but it requires the red-IR-LEDs to be on (and visible) - All of their stored videos have .MP4 codecs compatible with Quicktime and PC/Mac operating systems - All of their systems (NVR, phone, computer-MAC, computer-PC) work the same way, set-up is the same - I've had some cameras outside for 3+ years and they have held-up well to rain and sun I wish their customer / technical service people were more capable. Every time I talked or emailed them, it felt like I was speaking to an intermediary... like they weren't the company that actually designed the hardware. Frankly, I'd pay more and be more pro-REOlink if they gave a crap. Their ultimate response is basically always the same: our stuff works together and if you want to try something else, don't call us. And basically, they're right.

So far the system is working great. I installed it a week ago and no issues since. I replaced an older system and purchased two bullet POE cameras to maintain 6 cameras. The set up was easy in selected, identified/labeled and integrated each camera while plugged into my ethernet. All cameras are wired via POE and NVR is nice since all cameras plug into the back. This freed up 6 POE ports on my whole house Ethernet switch. I have a monitor via HDMI cable just below the NVR for real time monitoring. The app works fine while I am away from home. So far I am very pleased with REOLINK. I found that the turret cameras may not give an adequate view in areas up under the roof facia. This is where I installed the bullet cameras. This is something that should be considered.

We had an old system, so we just pulled the wires through using the old ones. It was easy to set up the cameras with the NVR, and the pictures are clear. It was easy to direct the cameras to capture the areas we wanted. The app, though, is a completely different story. Not at all obvious how to work it. When we set up the cameras we had to set a password, but when it came time to link the cameras to the app we had to create a separate password for the "admin" because the first one wasn't recognized. Then linking the cameras to the app required entering the password for admin. Now we find that the only time the app works is when we're at home on our own Wi-Fi network. We can't access the cameras when away from home and on cellular or other Wi-Fi. We're trying to troubleshoot that now. So right now we're not impressed with the app, to say the least.