Good (and affordable) PoE Camera recommendations

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networkn

Networkn
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#2754213 3-Aug-2021 08:48

I bought the Reolink 822a from Amazon for about $150 landed, after seriously fluctuating between Amcrest and Reolink. It has been a breeze to test and get operational and the picture is pretty good I have to say. Quite a considerable upgrade on my 4MP Dahua which I have hated since I bought it.

jonathan18

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#2758917 12-Aug-2021 09:33

While the PoE Amcrest cameras installed easily (other than the cruddy bracket ‘holding’ the SD card in - note to self: do not attempt to put in SD card in a fascia-mounted camera from 3m up a ladder) and are working brilliantly (why didn’t I do this earlier?!), I’m having a damn frustrating time of it with my single Reolink wifi camera. This seems to cut against the experience of others here with this brand, so not sure if anyone’s experienced these problems…

Anyway, it initially installed ok, and while a bit more fluffing about was required to get it working with Surveillance Station (compared to the Amcrest), I managed to get it connected; but it soon stopped responding at all (in Surveillance Station, the Reolink client app, or just via the IP-based login), and a reboot didn’t bring it back online. So tried a hard reset, and from then on have never managed to successfully reconnect it.

Initially it did show up in the Windows client app, but had a different subnet; changing my laptop’s Ethernet to the same subnet allowed me to connect ok, but then changing the camera to a static IP within my own network’s subnet wouldn’t stick, so it never became visible to the wider network. And now nothing shows, whether scanning via the Windows client or Android app.

Does anyone have any idea as to what I can do to see if I can bring this back to life? The screenshot below shows the Ethernet status when the camera is connected to the computer, if that’s any help.

Thanks in advance.

networkn

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#2758922 12-Aug-2021 09:42

Funny, like you say, my Reolink was in and working in 5 minutes from opening the box, connected on my desk, however the issue you describe with the not responding even after a reset and restart, I am having the same with my old Dahua. I wonder if Synology is blacklisting the IP or ethernet mac address or something? I can get to the web interface of the camera so I know it's up.

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#2758929 12-Aug-2021 10:05

When you change the IP address on some cameras they will restart network service, i.e., change IP address, but they don't store it to flash so would be lost on reboot, power cycle. You specifically have to connect to the knew address (which obviously may involve changing address on computer) and save settings on camera.

Your capture simply shows that your computer is not able to get an address from DHCP server as computer not connected to your network so it gave itself an address. Camera in default state most likely does the same thing.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

jonathan18

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#2759486 13-Aug-2021 09:00

Thanks for the feedback.

I ended up connecting the camera (via the same USB Ethernet adapter) to a different laptop, and clearly there was an issue with the original laptop as this time it was immediately assigned an IP address within my subnet and I was easily able to log in and complete set up. Great to have it working, though I’m glad I went for PoE cameras where they were feasible as they just seem that much more stable vs WiFi (even something as basic as the length of time live video takes to display).

I’m still fiddling with things to get all the cameras working as intended, in particular the settings for recording events - I’d like to get to the point where I record only events on the NAS and have 24/7 (or at least night-time) recording on the SD cards, but won’t do that until I’m confident all key things are being captured by triggered recording (eg, early this morning I walked around my wife’s car as it I was going to pilfer the charging cable, and it wasn’t captured; will fiddle more with the sensitivity/threshold for that part of the image and try again...)

Are there any good sites or videos people would recommend that provide quality guidance on determining appropriate settings for event recordings, video resolution, image adjustment etc?

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