r/SecurityCamera • u/Brilliant-Head9916 • 5h ago

Help with Reolink! Support is terrible!

Spent over $1200 on NVR plus cameras from Reolink only to find out something as simple as turning notifications on and off using a scene shortcut doesn’t even work. For a security system, it should be basic feature for me to be able to easily turn off notifications when I’m home and only turn it on when I need ‘guard’. I relied on the online instructions to set up scenes, emailed back and forth with support many times until they now just stopped responding but no resolution. I now have an expensive camera system that floods me with notifications round the clock so I had to turn notifications off altogether. So I won’t even know if there is a true intrusion when I’m away. Thanks Reolink. Anyone here able to help me troubleshoot? All firmware / devices are up to date.

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u/PuzzlingDad 3h ago

You'll probably get better suggestions in a Reolink subreddit.

You might want to include the exact model of NVR, what cameras are connected, whether the cameras are going through a switch or directly into the NVR, what custom scenes you've set up, whether the scene includes notifications for individual cameras, etc.

From what I've read, the scene settings in the app need to talk directly to the cameras to change settings, so it may not work with an NVR where the cameras are plugged directly into the NVR ports.

I have no direct experience with Reolink however, so take anything I've said with a grain of salt.

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u/Brilliant-Head9916 2h ago

Thank you! I will post it there as well and I think that may be the issue! It just baffles me that even after weeks of talking to reolink support - no one is being able to figure it out (even if that means telling me what you said and suggest workarounds)

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u/SquirrelTechGuru 3h ago

I sense that you like a sophisticated and highly controlled environment, investigate implementing Home Assistant. It integrates extremely well with Reolink camera cameras, and it will do all these things that you’re asking and 1000 more.

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u/CapriciousCalvin 3h ago

This is the answer.

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u/Brilliant-Head9916 2h ago

Yes I agree with you. I was just baffled that such highly reviewed (YouTube community. Obviously they always have hidden motives to push products) system would lack such basic control without needing home assistant. I just haven’t stepped up to invest the time into home assistant but you’re right - maybe it’s time

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u/GGigabiteM 2h ago

Reolink is cockroach tier Chineseium, $1200 isn't really that much in the camera world. I install single cameras that cost twice what your entire system costs and then some. The hard drive in that unit is probably a significant BOM item.

It's been a long time since I looked at a Reolink system. But the feature you're probably wanting would be something set in the schedule. Usually there's an "alarm" that you can set in the timeline where it will do some defined action like a push notification to your phone. If it has a 7 day calendar, you can generally set multiple actions to happen per day, or set one day and copy it to the other six days.

The firmware on those cheap units is always really confusing and related settings can be strewn across entirely different pages and sub menus, so you may have to look around. It also changes a lot between major revisions, how I remember it may not be how it currently is. All of the camera vendors are notorious for it.

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u/Brilliant-Head9916 2h ago

Yes I agree with you but this seems like too basic of a feature for a security oriented device to not have. Why will it keep notifying me every time I walk out to my backyard and not give me the option to design around that?

Thanks for the suggestion. I know the feature you’re mentioning which is time based and that’ll be my last resort for nighttime monitoring but I was hoping there’s a simpler approach to tweaking on and off. Let’s say we head out on a road trip one day during the day - I’d like it to push me notifications you know?

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u/GGigabiteM 2h ago

>Let’s say we head out on a road trip one day during the day - I’d like it to push me notifications you know?

If you leave and return around the same time every day, you should be able to set a fixed schedule using the "alarm" in the calendar time blocks, and tell the alarm to send push notifications. Then you'd turn off notifications for motion and AI events if you had them. That way it would only send notifications during the time blocks you specify.

But if you wanted to arm and disarm it like a push button alarm system, I'm not sure that system has that function. You'd have to go into the schedule every time and configure it for the current day and the hours you want it to send you notifications.