ReoLink RLC-511 Everything you need to know (Giveaway Closed)

1. As always, a user manual.
2. A drill template.
3. Surveillance sign which could act as a free ad for ReoLink.
4. Weather sealing coupler to protect your RJ-45 connection from the elements since this camera can be installed outside.
5. A pack of screws for fastening the camera to your install location.
6. A short network cable for testing the camera before setting it up in a permanent location.
7. A star wrench for adjusting the camera angle and accessing the micro SD card slot.
8. An Alan key for tightening and loosening the camera mount on its base.
9. A Philips screwdriver is required to open the micro SD slot door, which is not included.
10. And the camera itself.

I like the size of this camera.  Much bigger than the small mini-bullet cameras I have demoed on this channel in the past.

The weight is great.  It’s IP66 weatherproof and feels pretty hefty and well built.  Very nice first impression!

1. On the end of this lead, we have a reset button. Next to it, we have a 12v plug-in.  As always, no power adapter is included because most people power their cameras using PoE or Power over Ethernet.  This is where your video recorder or PoE switch take advantage of the unused wires in your network cable and sends electricity through them to power the camera.  This means you only need to run one cable to your camera and no need to worry about positioning your camera near a power outlet or running extension cords.  I’ll add links to a power adapter and this PoE switch in the description below.
2. The install mount feels very sturdy. This won’t budge in high winds.
3. On the back of the camera, there is a waterproof door for an SD card. The maximum capacity is 64gigs and can only be used to record motion events and not full-time continuous recording.
4. On the front, we have a sunshade. This helps prevent glare from an overhead sun or from light fixtures around your property.  You don’t want lights within 10 feet shining directly on the lens, otherwise you could get some glare.  This is especially true with dome cameras.  Also, this area under the shade is a frequent hangout for bugs and spiders who may make a little mess on your lens with webs and droppings.  I like to clean the lens every 2-3 weeks in the summer just to keep things spotless.
5. Around the lens you have 24 IR LEDS for night vision. We’ll test out the advertised 100ft range here soon.
6. There is a little light sensor in the bottom corner here so the camera can switch between daytime and nighttime modes depending on the lighting conditions.
7. Here in the middle, totally segregated from the IR lights to prevent any glare from its own lights, we have the optical zoom lens. You can control the zoom using the app, recording software or NVR.  The viewing angle goes from 90 degrees to 31.  This compares to a 2.7mm lens, up to a 12mm lens.  There is no pan or tilt functionality… just zoom.

1. If you don’t know what size of lens you need. You can set your camera up and adjust the scene you are framing in to meet your requirements.
2. Secondly, if you are going to be using the camera in various locations. Some places might need a wide view and some a more zoomed in view.
3. Lastly, if you have a scene which has both wide and narrow areas of interest. For example, if you have the camera mounted in a parking lot and you want to see the entire lot, you can use the 90 degree view.  When you zoom in, you can see the entryway to the lot to capture more details of people coming and going.  The only catch is, the zoomed in area has to be in the center of the wide angle shot.  I’ll show a couple examples below.

My first location is here, my gazebo.  I want to keep an eye on the back of my house 125ft or 38m away.  I also want to zoom in and see my patio.  Here is a quick timelaspe of the install.  The Alan key tightens and loosens the ball joint and the base.  Pretty straight forward.  Using the app, here’s the daytime view.  I’ll up the image quality to 5mp.  Let’s zoom in using the PTZ options.  The camera does hunt quickly for a sharp focus as expected.  Very impressive and very responsive.  Awesome colors and perfect detail.  My network cable is 200 feet long and there is little to no lag here.  I wish there were 4 buttons however for each level of zoom so I wouldn’t have to push the plus or minus button 20 times.  At night, it’s pitch back and all my property lights are off.  No streetlights or moon light.  Again, an awesome picture, a little noise but the IR lights are able to reach me here at this distance.  Let’s zoom in.  Again, it did take a bit for the camera to find me at night but overall, an impressive image.

To playback the video from the app, go to the live view page and click playback.  Use the slider on the timeline to find each instance where motion was detected.  Great layout here and super easy to use.

To activate push notifications so you are notified when the motion sensor is triggered, click on the push icon.  Push only works when the app is closed.

1. The next location is here, on the corner of my house, looking out my driveway.  Let’s set this one up on BlueIris and check out the footage there.  ReoLink’s cameras are compatible with BI as they support the ONVIF protocol allowing them to communicate with other systems.In BlueIris, I’m going to edit a camera placeholder.
   1. Enter the IP address which we just saw earlier (found in the app on the setting – info page)
   2. Enter the credentials from when we set it up in the app.
   3. From the Make dropdown, select ReoLink.
   4. You’re done. Click Ok

   The fence is 75ft away or 23m.  Again, the daytime footage is perfect.  Check out this license plate with the camera’s wide angle.  To control the zoom, there are buttons at the bottom of the screen.

   When I zoom in, the plate can easily be read.

   At night, lights from neighbor’s garage is making my image dark as it tries to compensate for the brightness.  Everyone’s situation is different depending on their neighborhood.  Since, my area is so dark, I’m going to manually push the limits of the camera’s gain and shutter.  This may not be necessary if you have streetlights.  As you can see, the IR lights are reflecting on the plate’s surface making it impossible to read.  This is expected.  You can easily see me though, standing in the driveway.  Once I get too close to the camera, those powerful IR lights blow out the image.  When I zoom in, again it takes a bit for the camera to get a good focus and the IR lights do a great job lighting things up.

   This camera supports audio through the app BlueIris and the NVR.  Here we test the distances of 75ft, 50ft, 25ft and 10 ft.

In this last example, I’ll quickly show how to setup the camera on my Hikvision NVR.

1. Make sure the camera and NVR and connected to the same network.
2. Find an open channel.
3. Click edit.
4. Enter the IP address and port.
5. Select ONVIF.
6. Enter the credentials.
7. You’re finished.
8. To zoom, scroll the mouse.
9. I’ll approach the camera from 100ft away.
10. Let’s zoom in and do that again.