Hi,
via claude I think I already have the awnser, but love to double check with somebody with more knowledge.
I have an above average bigger house that’s build with a lot of steel making wifi not an option.
I want reliability and quality for my security camera’s but would love to connect it to homey as well.
Reolink seems to be the only option, but it seems to be a bit mid-tier quality.
Are there others with POE, high quality and homey integration that I’m missing?
Do they need to have PoE, or is USB and Ethernet (which can also be converted to PoE with an adapter) also enough? I can recommend Eufy cameras, I have multiple Eufy cameras (solocam S340, Doorbell C31 and Solar Wall light cam S120) and they work very well. Unfortunately, the Homey app for Eufy currently doesn’t work but the developer mentioned that the new Eufy Homey app is almost finished.
Eufy cameras also don’t need a subscription, since all videos are stored on your HomeBase (or the camera itself if you don’t have a Homebase). Rich notifications (notifications with images) are also provided for free (many camera brands charge for this).
Because 99.9% of home users don’t have PoE, there aren’t any PoE cameras designed for home use. Reolink appears to be built for small businesses (f.e. some of their cameras have vandalism protection and tamper alarms, which you normally wouldn’t have in a home security camera).
If you truly want the highest quality and don’t care about the price, there are enterprise security options like Axis. I have no experience with them, all I know is that they are very pricy.
I have numerous ReoLink cameras around my home, and compared to everything else I have tried in the home user market, the ReoLink cameras walk all over the competition (in my personal opinion)
This is an example of a picture I captured with on of my ReoLink cameras. The camera is mounted up under the eaves of a two story house, and the tree the squirrel is sat in is at the bottom of the garden about 25 meters from the house (but due to the downward slope of the garden, the distance between the camera and squirrel is greater than that, possibly as much as 30m)
And at night…
Using the inbuilt LED light at 15-20 meters distance from the same camera just before 2am in a dark garden.
I will admit that the Homey ReoLink app is quite new, and still needs time to mature. But the RLN36 NVR and the ReoLink iOS app are excellent… I have zero complaints there.
I have several Canon EOS DSLR cameras (including a 5D) and although you can’t expect a CCTV camera to compare directly in image quality to a semi-professional DSLR camera with specialised lenses… I have to say that the 4K images and video (including 12 and 16MP cameras) are really very impressive.
Have a look at unifi security line-up UniFi Physical Security - Ubiquiti.
POE seems like the cleanest setup because wifi is not an option, I want reliability anyway and using another source of power seems like an unecessary cable mess to me. So I think it’s a must.
From what I get quality of camera’s is ok, but also read with homey connection sometimes is flakey. Ill probably go with reolink if this is the only option that meets the specs.
I think this is a lot down to the home network they are being used on, the type of camera connection (ie WiFi being flakey) and the technical know how of the user.
Personally I haven’t had that many issues with the app working (I haven’t had the odd issue, but then I am running the latest Test channel version, so the odd little bug is to be expected). I also think that some expectations are the cause of some negative feedback on the forum. I work in IT, I have a pretty solid home network (multi gigabit with fibre optic 10Gb backhaul between switches) and all but one of my cameras are PoE and all cameras are powered by my switches and connected to my LAN, rather than hanging off the back of an NVR or HomeHub.
Was in the same spot a few weeks ago, so here’s what I did.
I used to have a few Nest cams covering the garden/driveway and a Nest doorbell, both on wifi, with recordings in the cloud on a subscription. It worked, but connections dropped now and then, and for security I didn’t like depending on wifi, my internet connection and a monthly fee.
My network was already full UniFi (UCG Ultra, USW Lite 16 PoE, 2x U7 Pro), so I went with UniFi Protect: G5 bullets, G5 flex for inside and the doorbell lite, all on PoE. One cable for power and data, no batteries or wifi issues. Recordings are stored locally on a UNVR instant with 2 TB storage, so no cloud and no subscription anymore.
Homey integration is done with this app: Ubiquiti UniFi Protect and Access | Homey. I use motion and doorbell events in flows.
Honestly the difference in reliability is huge. Haven’t had a camera go offline since.
A few things worth knowing:
Reolink is fine and cheaper, but if you’re already on UniFi, having everything in one app and ecosystem is really nice.
PoE is most certainly to most reliable and cleaner and more versatile than separate power supply.
PoE budget is very import to take in to consideration, also the quality and stability of the power supplied, so avoid cheap PoE switches.
As the cables you tend to only pull once, it is preferable to use STP shielded Ethernet cable rather than UTP. This is probably more of a consideration having a home built with a lot of steel framing, but most modern homes generate a lot of RFI and EMI, so for long runs to cameras shielded cables just makes sense.
If you’re not a UniFi fan (as their kit does tend to be on the more expensive side, so isn’t for everyone) ReoLink is a really solid option. Local storage is highly recommended. That’s why I have a ReoLink NVR, and I just went the whole hog and got their top RLN36 and stuck a 16TB Seagate EXOS HDD in it. With 7 4K cameras and a PoE video doorbell that holds about 4 weeks of constant recordings. As I mentioned, I didn’t connect my cameras to the PoE ports on the back of the NVR, instead using my own switches (Omada) which seems to have afforded me avoiding the problems people wiring multiple PoE cameras direct to the NVR have had. It also means I can connect the cameras directly to my Homey over my LAN, rather than through the NVR.
My setup includes:-
ReoLink RLN36 NVR with 16TB enterprise HDD (the EXOS enterprise drives were cheaper at the time than the IronWolf NAS or Security drives, but it’s important not to use a regular PC drive)
ReoLink Carmers:
RLC-823S2 4K PTZ 16 x optical zoom, with auto tracking (the photos I shared)
RLC-1212A 4K 12MP bullet
3 x TrackMix PoE 4K PTZ dual lens 5 x optical zoom, with auto tracking and zoom & fixed wide angle
Duo 3V 4K vandal-proof dome camera, with 180° field of view
Argus 3 Ultra 4K solar/battery WiFi
PoE Video Doorbell
I have Omada SDN networking for my LAN. The majority of my cameras run off a SG3210XHP-M2 high power PoE switch in a small rack in my office room (high power PoE switches tend to have fans that make noise, so having them out of the way is best) and I have a couple of cameras at the other end of the house running from a lower power fanless and silent SG2210XMP-M2, along with a WiFi AP.
I have zero subscriptions, for both Omada SDN and ReoLink camera system. All storage is local on my NVR. And all but the solar powered camera (that has to go through the NVR) are all simultaneously connected directly to my Homey and NVR. I’ve had zero dropouts in camera recording. And with free Tailscale VPN I can access and control my cameras from anywhere.
