Reolink RLC-823A working with latest firmware

boisy

Hi all,

I just wanted to drop a line and say that I just got a Reolink RLC-823A in. It's working great with SecuritySpy using the latest firmware (v3.1.0.956_22041511_v1.0.0.30). After upgrading it, I had to go turn ONVIF on in the camera settings. After that, everything works.

I know Reolink isn't a favorite here, but this camera is pretty full featured for its price, so it's hard to pass up.

fishpick

Better off with any Amcrest IMHO

but good on you for getting it working!

Ben

This is very useful to know - many thanks @boisy. It seems that newer Reolink cameras work much better than than older models, many of which had big problems producing valid RTSP streams.

boisy

I've been playing with this camera for a few days and have it set up remotely at a construction site that I'm monitoring.

It continues to perform pretty well with SecuritySpy. The only issue that I seem to have is that I am unable to hear audio (the camera is a two-way system with both a speaker and a microphone). The speaker icon doesn't appear at the top right window of the video for the camera. Ben, is this something that would be possible to support?

Ben

Camera-to-computer audio should certainly work, but not computer-to-camera audio (this is currently supported for Axis, Dahua, Hikvision and Amcrest cameras only).

Do you have audio set to "This network device" in SecuritySpy under Preferences > Cameras > Audio?

Are there any audio settings available on the camera? Is this turned on? What audio encoding settings are available (e.g. G.711, PCM, AAC etc.)?

boisy

Hi Ben,

The Audio device pop-up is set to "This network device" for this camera.

I looked in the camera settings and sure enough, the audio recording was turned off. Flipping that switch did it, and now I can hear audio :)

Thanks for the suggestion!

Ben

Great to hear that, I'm sure this information will be useful for other users too.

boisy

Thanks Ben. I also sent you a PM regarding this. Please check.

Gus

Just a 'me too' post:

I bought a RLC-822A in the fall of 2021and it was terrible at first. Once I got a newer firmware, it worked great with SecuritySpy. The camera view is a second or two behind the others, but I think that's just due to the higher bandwidth or maybe the H265 processing time.

That said, I might try out a Hikvision next instead of getting another Reolink. The ColorVu feature looks impressive.

Ben

Hi @Gus great to hear that, thanks for the useful feedback.

jay

Thanks for posting information about this camera. Have you used the patrol function? Are you able to kill the spotlight feature ?... I would prefer to get a camera that has a dark cover over the dome so it's less conspicuous… I plan to use this in my alley, turning back-and-forth continuously basically along 180° angle of the alley. Did you have any trouble discovering this camera? It looks like you can control it through an app on an iPhone, programming the petrol points, can you also go to the IP address in safari and configure the camera? Thanks very much. Jay

Ben

@jay - in terms of auto-patrol, the best way to set this up is in SecuritySpy: define a few presets, include these in the patrol sequence via the settings panel in the PTZ drawer, and then press the play button in the PTZ drawer to start the patrol.

jay

Ben-thanks, I am aware of the patrol function within the app, but it is a bit rudimentary. Delay is the same for all stations, and speed between stations is always the same. The patrol functions of cameras are more sophisticated. Thanks. I would really like to see an AI for animals. Jay.

Ben

The problem with using the camera's auto-patrol is that any camera movement that is not initiated by SecuritySpy can trigger SecuritySpy's motion detection. So using the camera's own auto-patrol would only be viable if you are using Continuous Capture rather than Motion Capture in SecuritySpy, with no Actions.

You will be pleased to hear that the latest version of SecuritySpy now has an AI that detects animals! If you don't have it installed yet, you can obtain it from the SecuritySpy download page.

jay

Thanks Ben, I really appreciate all your ongoing efforts and the priority you place on listening to your clients concerns.

With regards to PTZ, for me, it comes down to speed.

For my application, I want a nice slow pan of a street, I cannot set the PTZ speed slow enough with in SS, to get this desired effect. With my camera, the only way I can achieve that is by setting the camera software to the slowest speed for PTZ… On a scale of one to five – one. Then the SS patrol function, with regards to pan speed, is OK… I'd like it to be slower… But it's OK. However, if I then want to jump to a preset, its cripplingly slow… Unusable. From my camera, there is sort of a workaround, it actually will let you adjust for a different speed when you change the preset with the keyboard stroke, but that is within the browser interface of the camera… But that's not really practical most of the time for me.

I think it would be good goal, of instead of having a global setting for both speed and patrol delay, to parse those out for each preset… Which is pretty much with the firmware does. Again, decreasing the speed by several factors, and unless there's a reason the delay can only be five minutes, I'd like to see that doubled... But seconds should remain the increment.

Thanks very much for the animal AI, I'm not sure my cats like that I am stalking them now. I believe I saw that at some point in time we will be able to sort captured footage by AI on the app?

I have a 50' CAT 6 line running to a POE switch, cameras are 4K, 12 FPS… how many cameras can I hook up to the switch with this single CAT 6 line going back to the main switch? If I can get the PTZ patrol to work, I want to add an additional camera, so I need to step up my license to 9+ TIA!

As home automation moves to IP-based devices, I hope that'll allow for some integration to Apple HomeKit down the road for our cameras.

Thanks Ben, be well!

Ben

I understand what you are describing and why you might want this, but it's very usual to want different speeds for different PTZ functions, which is why this functionality isn't built into SecuritySpy and why we are unlikely to add it - this would clutter the UI significantly and would not be useful for the vast majority of users.

One thing we might be able to do is to enhance the AppleScript command that SecuritySpy offers for controlling PTZ, to add a speed parameter. This way, you might be able to write your own AppleScripts to achieve what you want. If you are not familiar with this, see the SecuritySpy AppleScript Examples page - there is a PTZ example on this page. What do you think?

The other issue you should be aware of is that all the time the camera is moving (e.g. slowly panning across the street), it is effectively blind to motion, so you may want to use Continuous Capture recording rather than Motion Capture recording.

Yes, we are planning to add the ability to search captured footage by AI object in a near-future update to our iOS app.

In terms of the bandwidth question: assuming a gigabit switch and H.265 video at normal quality, you are going to run out of ports on your switch before you run out of bandwidth. Your real-world maximum throughput is going to be 100 MB/s or somewhere around there; check the bandwidth of your cameras, as reported in SecuritySpy's Camera Info, and then divide 100 by the average bandwidth in MB/s to get the maximum number of cameras. 0.5 MB/s would be expected for a good-quality H.265 video stream with those parameters, which gives you up to 200 cameras over this link. H.264 would be roughly double this bandwidth, so half the number of cameras.