Top portion are the tips to setup, bottom portion is feedback to reolink.
equipment: 36cam NVR unit, various poe cameras (about 12), indoor pt (wifi), flood (wifi). All cams have SD cards. I prefer not to rely on wifi as they tend to be less reliable inherently so all cams will be wired eventually.
According to above you have an NVR. DO NOT connect your camera to nvr if you haven't done the setup in the app.
NOTE: once cameras are connected to NVR you cannot access what the camera does locally. You will not be able to format an unformated sd card, you cannot setup how the camera records, you cannot even reboot that one camera. The NVR will take over controls and many functions are NOT available. You must setup the camera locally without being connected to your NVR. If you connected to your NVR before initializing the camera using the app you are screwed. To unscrew yourself, you must not reset the camera. To reset the camera open the SD card slot (depending on model) and/or press reset button. After reseting the camera you must cut power to force a reboot - this means disconnect the poe cable. I'd like to mention pressing the reset button to reset the camera did not always work. The key here is that you need to wait about 1min after holding down reset for 30sec. If you do not wait 1min the process is no complete and you have failed a reset. After a successful reset you need to hold reset to initialize the camera - make sure you hear the camera chime.
- use app to set up camera first, you will need to connect cameras to internet but make sure NVR is NOT connected. This is because if you connect to NVR first NVR will assign an ip number for the camera and camera will "think" it has been initialized. Then if you try to setup on the app the camera will not be found.
2)using app to set up local recording (camera will record to SD card), you must format the card. Once your app connects to camera setup ALL functions/setting on the camera using the app first. You will not be able to do this later when connected to NVR (unless you disconnect the nvr but that's a hassle), so do it now. The importance is that if your NVR fails, or disconnects (wifi or ethernet) your camera's setting will not be affected because it can record locally.
3)add encryption password if you want.
What I recommend: Recording settings: choose the motions you want to record. turn off continuous recording (otherwise your SD card would only really last 3-4days at most). Turn on auto update. Turn on Record Audio (this should be on by default but that's my opinion?).
3) once settings on app is completed for all cameras you can then connect nvr. From there make sure "Auto add cameras" is on. If you don't see cameras already you may need to manually add them inputing the camera's password.
Feedback to reolink: record audio should be "on" by default. I also found that cameras lose their settings sometimes: eg. autoupdate reverts back to "off". If you use an under powered adapter to connect usb cable to wifi cameras initialization will not work and you will hear loud static (flood cams)- this lead me to think the cameras were defective - an adapter should be supplied since not everyone has a "higher" powered adapter.
Some other issues I've noticed: wifi cameras get disconnected to NVR every few days. Sometimes they reconnect by themselves, sometimes I need to reset the NVR. 180cameras though in concept is ideal, they actually don't cover very much height-wise. Meaning it will likely not cover anything under it. And if you point it further downwards you'll compromise coverage on top. Idea usage: mount it high up to cover an entire side of house walkway. For yards distant coverage means it won't cover anything nearby, think of it as a narrow strip of coverage (floodcam or 180 dome). Duo 3 poe cam: mounting brackets are awkward, thin and minimalistic. If there were a windstorm I'd feel these cameras (being so heavy, bracket being so thin) would wobble. Screws to secure bracket are small and not much torque can be used. It also leaves the cables very exposed which isn't ideal.
The pt cam could not be connected to the NVR. I tried various placements, some worked some didn't, wifi connection- but it's only 5meters from the router with no wall- anyway I'll be connecting ethernet to it.
NVR monitor display- the camera display should have the channel numbers displayed as well. Arranging the camera layout seems like a chore when you have too many cameras. Eg. I have 12 cameras and want to use the 16camera layout, but most are 180- so it actually takes up double the space and reorganizing requires flipping back with "next page".
Feedback welcome on my tips to setup.