CCTV Recorder

[simon_g]

+1 for Reolink on a budget. The AI detection (people, cars, animals) works pretty well in the newer ones, that plus exclusion zones means I can get alerts when someone is on our drive but not on the pavement 8m away. Doorbell works fine although I went for a POE one like the other cameras.

Don't need any subscription, you can record to SD cards in the cameras, or have it FTP recordings to a NAS, use a Reolink home hub or NVR, or even just send ONVIF video to anything that will accept it.

[Marv]

+ another 1 on Reolink. Had one of their wireless cameras for about 3 years now and the first one failed in warranty period and they replaced it no hassles.

Fitted 6 cameras to the house with a POE NVR and it has been really good. I did have one of the cameras fail and again, replaced no hassles.

[Beany]

I've been looking at Reolink cameras, but their battery/wifi ones, cos I rent and can't just drill honking big holes everywhere. There's new doorbells coming along, with double the battery life and a snazzy solar charger which will work with indirect light* (useful as I have an east facing front door) which I'm waiting for.

Getting a bit sick of changing the battery in my Ring camera - with a purported battery life of months - every four days because of how highly trafficked the wee bit of the world I'm in, is the big battery in the current Reolink doorbell should last several weeks, and the one in the to-be-released camera (next week as it happens) should last more like two months.

Or for normal people who don't have seemingly constant foot traffic past their front door, six to nine months

*It's perovskite cells, which are substantially more efficient than regular PV panels, and are just now starting to hit the market outside of major commercial installations as far as I can ascertain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell

Solar-cell efficiencies of laboratory-scale devices using these materials have increased from 3.8% in 2009[3] to 27% in 2025 in single-junction architectures,[4][5] and, in silicon-based tandem cells, to 34.85%,[4][6] exceeding the maximum efficiency achieved in single-junction silicon solar cells. Perovskite solar cells have therefore been the fastest-advancing solar technology as of 2016

The Reolink rep at CES2026 reckoned they were more interested in indirect light harvesting (as opposed to needing direct sunlight), rather than headline power generation (timestamped for relevance)


So it's pretty interesting and very relevant to my interests.

[Gavster]

I also like the idea of binning my Ring doorbell, if only to prevent Amazon logging my daily habits with it.

[Jobbo]

I also like the idea of binning my Ring doorbell, if only to prevent Amazon logging my daily habits with it.

You're not supposed to mount it in the bathroom.

[Gavster]

I also like the idea of binning my Ring doorbell, if only to prevent Amazon logging my daily habits with it.

You're not supposed to mount it in the bathroom.

To be fair, it does beling in the toilet It's one of the most underwhelming pieces of tech I've ever bought.

[GG.]

I also like the idea of binning my Ring doorbell, if only to prevent Amazon logging my daily habits with it.

You're not supposed to mount it in the bathroom.

To be fair, it does beling in the toilet It's one of the most underwhelming pieces of tech I've ever bought.

Yes the Ring-piece (as I think I christened it) was deeply unimpressive for me too. I replaced it with a Eufy which was much better.

So the latest saga with the NVR is that the new one arrive and I fitted the HDD at 11.30 last night whilst finishing off some work... and no images visible. FFS.

Effectively I think all the camera passwords are sync'd to the old NVR - I looked up how to reset them (obviously can't easily do a physical reset now as they're 3 metres up on walls and screwed to junction boxes) and it seemed a right faff downloading some programme to interact with them and then emailing support in China with a downloaded file and then uploading what they send you back...

Thankfully I managed to find the old NVR password from 2019 on an email with the installer so I'm crossing everything that I put that one in when I get home today and it may work...

[Sundayjumper]

Ring doorbell here too, which has been mostly OK but for the battery life. It runs out with no warning and then you have no doorbell - we've missed callers because of that, or left people standing on the doorstep until we wonder what the dog is barking at and go and have a look.

[Mito Man]

Mine give a message when the battery is 20%

[mik]

Ring cameras here - get first app message (plus an email) when charge drops below 30%, reminder when it drops to 20% etc etc

[Sundayjumper]

Huh. Doesn't seem to work here.

[Gavster]

My gripe with Ring doorbells (aside from the data gathering) is that mine only seems to work 95% of the time, it requires recharging, leaving me sans doorbell, plus it can be quite laggy too, with a pause between pressing the bell and the chume/notification. That all seems like a regression compared to my £17 Tecknet doorbell which worked 100% of the time with zero lag for 10 years.

As for being able to speak to people, I've used that about three times in 18 months, none of which were important.

[Beany]

LOL, that's assuming that the mic works. The fix for not getting audio is "remove the doorbell, hard reset and set up again" which is a bit pish.

I do get the battery notification emails, I guess check your spam folder or something, SJ.

I've got the model that takes batteries, so I have two - I have one charged while the other is in use, so can swap them in two minutes.

But yeah, I've also had the "no video available" problem on motion detected, notification lag, etc - all because it *must* go through their cloud infrastructure, poor video quality (most of my videos have about five seconds of motion, then lock for the rest of the file) and they'll blame your wifi signal - which given I have a mesh system with a 2.4ghz signal specifically for the camera ten feet away, is rather unlikely to be an issue.

Basically they are the easy option, but definitely not the best option if you're prepared to spend a bit of time looking into things.

[Mito Man]

You shouldn’t use them for security, on the local Facebook group a garage got burgled. The thieves just cut the phone line going to the house, totally disabled the cameras. And even then if you do have a secure underground cable a WiFi blocker costs £40 from aliexpress.

Basically you need something like an Ecoflow powering the NVR/DVR and cameras. And then you want 2 independent systems located in different places, with the cameras facing each other.
That decent stuff should all be Hik, I think the rest is shit. And none of this buying black cameras so they blend in better nonsense.

[Beany]

I mean, you shouldn't use the Ring cameras for security, per se - due to them running through the internet.

The reolinks can run on the localnet entirely, so if you're concerned about wifi jammers, you can hardwire them, and set the hub for them up to be hooked up to a 4/5g connection. Jam that, and you have far more capable investigators looking into you because that's considered national infrastructure interference or suchlike, and that equipment is harder (but not impossible) to get a hold of so they take it a lot more seriously.


Fact is, if someone's dedicated enough, they'll be coming with shooters and balaclavas - the average crim will walk away as soon as they see cameras.

[Mito Man]

Is this a Met Police sting website or are they really that easy to get hold of?
https://www.jammer4uk.com/
Mind you I remember reading that anyone can buy those illegal car relay theft devices for £22,000.

I don’t think being slapped with an extra few years of prison is much of a deterrent when you’re armed and willing to kill someone.

[Jobbo]

Fact is, if someone's dedicated enough, they'll be coming with shooters and balaclavas - the average crim will walk away as soon as they see cameras.

To be fair, whenever I've seen camera footage on Facebook of people committing petty crimes or stealing cars, they've always been wearing face coverings. So I'm not sure how much of a deterrent cameras are these days.

[GG.]

Yes they're not a deterrent to hardened criminals (my range rover was stolen from right beneath the cameras) but it can be helpful evidentially with claims.

Equally we have a large group of early teen kids on the street that like playing football in a mid century private estate behind the house so it would / should be a deterrent for them (or again identify if any damage is done to anything).

[GG.]

Thankfully I managed to find the old NVR password from 2019 on an email with the installer so I'm crossing everything that I put that one in when I get home today and it may work...

So - latest update is that I can get 6 of the 8 cameras to work. Well - more accurately - I can get all of the cameras to work but not anything plugged into ethernet ports 1 or 2 on the NVR. Very strange (well not strange - I'm presuming its some settings on the NVR I've f-d up).

I'm corresponding with a nice lady (or man who knows) called Jane in China on the Annke support desk but any suggestions gratefully received!!

[mik]

I'm corresponding with a nice lady (or man who knows) called Jane in China on the Annke support desk but any suggestions gratefully received!!

Just use "they/them". HTH.