REOLINK Video Doorbell PoE Camera – 180 Degree Diagonal, 2K IP Security Camera Outdoor with Chime V2, 2-Way Talk, Plug & Play, Secured Local Storage, No Monthly Fee

OK I am impressed…
I had bought into the whole Blink infrastructure, yea I know. Which was comically bad. The doorbell didn’t work as a doorbell after one of their many updates, which is kinda an inexcusable fail. The only person that could hear it “ring” was the person that pushed the button. Recorded video and detected motion OK, but was the worst of the Blink products at that. I had one on every outside door (5). Between that and their Floodlight, that doesn’t reliably work as a floodlight, I gave up, all going in the bin.That was a Black Friday impulse buy, and bought more of it, as it worked pretty well for what it costs for a while, then they updated it into uselessness. So, a little research this time around, and came across the Reolink, and well, by comparison, it’s night and day. As a doorbell, it does what you’d expect a doorbell to do, push the button and it rings, and with the Alexa skill, it rings everywhere, and in my house that’s a lot of places. It’s like noon in an old clock shop when someone pushes the button. Given that the problem it was intended to solve was a vendor who felt their product was so valuable that it required an in-person direct adult signature to deliver, and the old doorbell gave the false sense than I heard that there was someone at the door, well the Riolink was ordered, delivered and installed before that delivery was re-attempted the next day.So the Riolink costs a lot more than the Blink, but still, not all that expensive. I have also worked with Axis which is the polar opposite. The Riolink is cheap in comparison to those. But the Riolink has a whole lot more in common with Axis than with Blink. I mean it’s just a doorbell, but that doorbell has all the same kind of camera configuration options as the Axis cameras had. Not least of which, and maybe this sounds dumb, but the ability to just bring up the camera and watch it if you are expecting something. I don’t know how common that is for all the consumer doorbell cams between the bottom of the barrel Blink and the Riolink, but NOT being able to just camp on a cam seemed pretty ridiculous to me. And i can do this on a real screen, on my PC and not be restricted to a smartphone app.All this makes it way better, BUT that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It has some pretty impressive integration with Home Assistant, it has actual Ethernet conductivity, and PoE, and it has a pretty impressive image quality. Yea, I had to drill a hole because it wasn’t just batteries and WiFi, but I’d rather have wired or wireless any day, worth the effort. Oh and support for local storage.So, the nit picks…The included angle bracket isn’t enough and additional one to stack them up aren’t available, and unlike a lot of the doorbell cameras there is no aftermarket for such things. I ordered some made for the Arlo cam that many have adapted for this cam, we’ll see how that goes. Yea there are a lot of people selling 3D printed ones, but I’d rather just buy something manufactured, even if I have to adapt it.The included chime is a 1 to 1 thing, apparently you can pair to more than 1 chime but you can’t pair multiple doorbells to the same chime. It would be nice to have multiple chimes and multiple doorbells and they all just work with all, but I guess not. However the Alexa integration really makes that not so much of a deal as I have an Echo or a FireTV Cube in every room, so honestly the chime doesn’t matter so much. The down side of that is that you are no longer local if you are using that skill, from either side, you have to join the cams to the Riolink cloud service and then pair that service with Alexa which is also cloud.Oh and I had initially bought 2, the PoE version and the WiFi version, not really realizing that the WiFi version still needs to be externally powered. It does however also have an Ethernet port, which I wish also did PoE but it doesn’t. I had bought a bunch of 24V PoE injectors a while back hoping they would power my EcoBee thermostats (they didn’t, AC only apparently) but they work fine on the WiFi version of the Riolink, I guess even the included power adapter is actually 24V DC (not the 24VAC that is typical for doorbell wiring). So apparently AC/DC doesn’t matter, though did read somewhere that it’s 24V DC or 12-24V AC, so guessing that much more commonly available 12V PoE adapters wouldn’t work.Anyway, like I said I had 5 Blink doorbells, which are all getting replaced with these. I have tons of PoE ports in my house, so it’s just a matter of getting a cable from A to B. I will be trying Their cameras as replacements for the rest of the Blink stuff as well, so far I am impressed, a few minor gripes, but overall meets and exceeds…

Solid Performance and Easy Integration
It just works! I love that I can use it offline with Home Assistant, making it super easy to integrate into my smart home setup. The hardest part was running a POE cable to my doorbell, but once that was done, it was smooth sailing. The night vision is amazing, and the image quality is clear. There’s a bit of a delay when talking through it, and the sound is a little quiet, but I rarely use that feature. The remote doorbell is fantastic— I can place it wherever I want, which is really convenient!

The hardest part of installing this was running the cable to where I could connect it to my network and also install a PoE switch to provide power. I already had an Argus Eco camera set up on my network, and the doorbell connected to the Reolink app on my phone automatically, and also on the Reolink client on my PC. Now I can view both cameras at once on my phone or PC. Awesome wide angle view, and responses to motion detection or when someone presses the doorbell are almost instant, and it prerecords several seconds before an event so you get to see the visitor’s approach as well. Intercom only has a 1 sec delay, and the chime was pre-synced. Very easy to set up and so much more responsive than Wi-Fi battery doorbell cameras, and no more recharging to worry about either.I had a little trouble getting it connected to my Alexa Echo Show 5. Following Reolink’s instructions, when I tapped on “Smart Home” I kept getting the error “Failed to obtain configuration information”. Eventually I figured out that I needed to log out of my Reolink account on my phone, then log back in. After that, it worked and pretty much added itself. Now I can say “Alexa, show me the front door”, and I can see the live feed on the Echo Show within a few seconds. I can also use the intercom from the Echo Show. However, I cannot get alerts or view recorded events. For that, I need to use the phone app or the Reolink client on my PC.

PoE version is perfect if you already have the PoE infrastructure at home. Simple plug and play operation and hasn’t missed a beat recording to Synology surveillance station, HomeKit (via Scrypted) and to an internal microSD.Just make sure you have a way of getting the Ethernet cable to where you need. If your doorbell is on a distant gate down the driveway then this product may not be ideal for you.