Reolink PoE Doorbell Camera Wired with Chime, 5MP Super HD Smart Video Doorbell V2 with Camera, 180° Diagonal View, Human Detection, Two-Way Audio, Remote Access, Waterproof, Video Doorbell PoE

Great Quality door camera that JUST WORKS!
I wanted to use this for a couple months before leaving a review. Actually, I very rarely if ever leave any reviews, but I am so pleased with this door camera that I must inform other Amazonians. It arrived all nicely packaged, as expected. The setup was a doddle – you attach a POE cable into it and it works straight out. When I am indoors, I get a gentle sound on my phone to tell me someone is at the door, or if they ring, my phone rings. If I am driving, my car sound opens up and I talk to the visitor while driving (hadsfree of course!! :). As I respond, the response is heard outside immediately. It’s got a few pre-recorded messages (“you’ve knocked at the wrong door” !! :). You can set the size of moving object at the front door to trigger the alerts hence ignoring cats and birds. Picture from the camera is very clear, transferred in real life. Bandwith used is about 200-400kB/s (according to camera). I slotted a 32GB micro SD into it and it records events, overwriting the oldest ones. Playback is available immediately; plays well, continuous stream, with sound, just perfect. AND IT IS NOT FORCING ME TO SUBSCRIBE, OR HAVE ANY “SMART” APPLICATIONS OR ANY OTHER MILKING “APPS”.Just a door camera working for me, controlled only by me, on my LAN. PERFECT!!One single thing to bear in mind is, your POE switch must be a powerful one. My Netgear GS108PE couldn’t power this up. Another one I bought, a GS305EPP, provided enough juice for this to fire up and remain fired and stable for the last 3+ months. BTW the GS3055EPP is powering this camera simultanously with Ubiqiti U6 Pro WiFi dish; both are stable and happy. Also, I connected this through a 16+ years old Cat5 cable (it was buried in the internal walls and connecting front entrance wall to my utility room some 7 meters away).

Upgraded to add more chimes
Unhelpful product comparisons:I’m only reducing 1 star just because of how long I had to search and research to understand all the difference between the various new doorbell cameras and the old one.I should be able to learn everything I want to know on the product page or on the company site. The more time spent on other sites looking things up, the more chance I could end up buying something else.In general I knew the difference but there weren’t specifics about the chimes and what each camera’s limitations are like why does the colour of the camera have to dictate the field of view? (Doesn’t that help a knowledgeable naughty person know the limitations of a camera from a distance just by its colour?)You have the POE doorbell camera, the wired one and the battery powered one. But did you know that the POE one can be powered via wires as well? Did you know that the black POE gives you a wide field of view and the white one flips that 90 degrees and allows you to see more of the ground and the sky, if you want to keep a constant recording on your parcel delivery at the doorstep. So the white one is better if your doorway is kind of hidden because there is no point in having a wide field of view.Background:Any way, I had a version 1 POE doorbell camera and wanted to add an additional chime that wasn’t an Alexa or 3rd party device. Version 1’s can only work with the chime that came paired with them apparently. Thinking about it now, I probably should have physically checked that for myself before spending more money. Who knows what unannounced software updates were made.The V1 system worked fine with no issues but the added chime would be a very helpful addition long term, so I went and upgraded. Now I can have up to 5 chimes.Installation:This device and the old one more or less looks the same, but this one seems a bit more refined, slim and smoother.Installation takes seconds because I was able to just connect it to the backplate from the previous model and as someone with an NVR system and full cameras, the system pick up on the addition of the POE doorbell camera. However, the software on windows and the app lets down the whole process.For me, it found the new camera but won’t let me see the footage unless I got deep in to the settings. The space that the old camera held remains and can’t be deleted. I ended up resolving this nuisance but I couldn’t possibly tell you what specifically worked. I think I logged out of the whole system on the app and logged back in again, but this was after many settings change and deletion attempts and attempts at software updates for the mobile and windows software.As of right now, everything is working fine and it has given me a chance to look at some new settings and really increase the quality of footage that the whole system takes.I would easily recommend this over any subscription based ones depending on the persons specific requirements.Overall, I am still happy with Reolink and the ease of access and freedom from subscriptions that it provides me, but I feel that it just needs refining and some bug removal.

Writing a short review from the experience of having used this device for around 6 months.For privacy reasons I will not be showing any photos of the picture quality in this reviewChose this as a video doorbell because it did not require any cloud integration to work, record footage, and so forth.Camera is powered over PoE, but can also be powered over doorbell wiring (if you want to for some reason). Because it uses a wired network connection the connection is always stable and not affected by your wireless connection.Not having to replace batteries is also a great benefit. Granted, you must be in a place where you can route an Ethernet cable. The way the mounting hardware works the cable has to come through the wall right behind the doorbell and not from the top or bottom. However, if you are a bit handy or own a 3d-printer you could easily work around it if need be.I created a model on Printables that should allow you to guide the cable from the bottom.Image quality for it’s intended use is great, you can see a lot of detail, field of view easily allows you to see people approaching from the side and night vision also works great. I would say perfectly fit for purpose.The software is not the nicest, the app has a store page for other Reolink products / services. Which mostly seems like an ad to me. It is not always the easiest to navigate and I am unsure about how secure the infrastructure is. It does work well enough, push notifications work. And I have had no major issues with it.The biggest upside on the software side is that the camera can record locally to a Micro-sd card or to a file server on the network (have not tested the later) so no need to pay any additional monthly fees. If you set it to only record on person detection, even a small 64GB Micro-sd card should offer plenty of space. Person detection works quite well too.Included chime also works alright does what it should, has a few tunes to choose from, and it should integrate with other chimes too, but I have not tested that. Nor have I tested the home-assistant integration.Overall I would say the doorbell is great. Software could use a little polish, but besides that not much more to wish for.

Very stable and, no issues at all..

Easy installation. Probably not very theft proof though, but I think one of the consumer bells are.Highly customisable, lots of settings.Video is sharp. Detection works great but some false positives, eg when raining at night. This made me disable the forced notifications.The good thing is it never misses an oncoming visitor. This is way better than the Eufy (see review there)The app is great too. You can easily check back on the detected fragments per day. Live view loads fast. You can talk back to the visitor.Linked this to my Synology and for continuous recording.The PoE is great as this means only one utp cable is needed for power and reliable connectivity.Overall I recommend this product. I hope the detection software during night (IR) will be improved.