NEW! Officially launched October 1 October 1 but available from late September when I originally published this blog entry.
If you read this blog regularly you will know that I’ve reviewed several ReoLink cameras and loved every one of them – in the end however the only one I’ve kept here in Spain up to now is my Reolink Doorbell – which is WONDERFUL and which works no problem not only in the Reolink APP but also in the PC APP and in Home Assistant. So – the (powered) doorbell – the Argos 4 Solar, the Argos Track, the PT Ultra and CX410, the 4K Duo and NOW the Atlas PT Ultra solar camera with “Solar Panel 2”.
In a word – impressive, here are a bunch of photos to start the ball rolling while I read the manual.
Boxing as always, rock solid – full instructions, all the fittings you could want for both the camera and the solar panel. On opening the lot up, rather than diving in as usual, I plugged the solar panel into the camera (USB-C – which can also handle not-supplied USB power from the mains, though I’ve never seen the need to charge a Reolink solar camera from a mains USB supply) for 5 minutes (sunny day as you can probably see)… then started up the camera – which began to babble in a range of European languages including English, telling me to download the free Reolink APP to my phone (I already have that of course) and pair the camera using the QR code on the bottom of the camera.
Before anyone says “what if you can’t scan QR codes?” – I remember late last century, some manager at work telling me that QR codes were old-hat (I didn’t believe her)… then along came mobile phones, then APPs, then Covid etc., QR codes have never been more alive and will stay that way for a LONG time.
But I digress.. why am I holding the camera up in one of the photos above? It falls over if left on a flat surface not mounted or fastened down as it is top-heavy.
So, camera on solar, set up WiFi – I’m pleased to say they offer both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz options unlike some (probably ESP-based) cameras which only operate on 2.4Ghz. The WiFi is apparently WiFi 6. Camera now running in the APP, At this point initially I disconnected the solar panel after maybe 7 or 8 minutes of charging – and went into the house, leaving the camera on the bench.
Half an hour went by as I struggled with an unrelated review – I came back to the APP – “disconnected”. Now, that’s not unusual with Reolink solar cameras – you simply press the on-screen start button and the camera video comes up – not this time – clearly it was not pre-charged at the factory – so I plugged the solar panel back in and lo and behold – working again. I left that plugged in on the pergola bench for the rest of the day to be sure.
Daylight imagery is hi-def and clear. At this point I decided to switch to the Reolink PC APP – only to find an update was available – time for coffee.
I returned shortly thereafter, armed with coffee, to see how the upgrade was going. Done – and now I had to add the camera to the PC APP. The PC program wanted the camera UUID which I got from the phone APP settings along with the password I’d given the camera when setting it up.
Seconds later – the Atlas PT Ultra appeared on the PC (I’m pleased to say they’ve improved the (optional) title resolution compared to previous models though as before, image resolution on the PC APP is no-where near 4K). You’ll have to take my word for it that the screenshot below is from a smooth video image in the PC APP – I’m guessing 10fps or higher.. 2 modes – “clear” and “fluent” (why they don’t call them HI-RES and LO-RES or similar is beyond me).
Isn’t that neat – clear, crisp title and time/date. Among the controls I quickly noticed – pan and tilt… it can pan 355° and tilt 90° and so provides a nearly 360-degree view without blind spots. Microphone on/off (the mic was on by default), time lapse, audio alarm, light on and off (pop-up info appeared the first time I pressed that light control – but weirdly not after the first time).
And of course the abillity to capture video and take snapshots. You have full control over date format and language, select hardware or software decoding and put a password on the PC APP lockscreen. So for downloading recordings you have full control over which folder to use etc. You can also choose to save recordings locally instead of in the camera (not supplied) SD. Of course, even if you’re not using an SD, you can do continuous recording if need be via FTP or the Home Hub if you have that – more later on that subject…. the Reolink Home Hub can support up to 2 SD cards and multiple cameras – see update at the end.
I’d been at this for half an hour and noted that the camera battery was up to 61% charge. And then 2 hours later (in sunlight) 65%. Reolink solar panels are usually pretty good so it looks like the battery originally wasn’t flat after all (by next morning the battery was back down to 61% but now I had the solar panel connected, I guessed a full day of sunlight should bring that percentage right up – I’m determined not to plug the camera into mains USB power – matter of principle).
The phone APP still has more setup options than the PC APP, indicating that the latter isn’t a high priority. I noted in the phone APP, under spotlight, the ability to adjust spotlight brilliance acording to ambient lighting – that’s good – handy for anyone using the camera on the battery only without solar top-up. Full control over PIR motion sensor… detection alarm allowing for zones, sensitivity control, object size and auto tracking. Hopefully that means this camera will ignore moths at night 🙂 On the main screen for the camera I note a PIR icon – turn on, turn off but there’s not much info about IR otherwise. As I just found out mid-October – there IS no IR lamp as the camera is equipped with “ColorX night vision with F1.0 super large aperture and 1/1.8” sensor”.
Push notifications, email alerts, FTP – sadly missing from some cameras – always been a shame as I have a huge NAS in my office going to waste not to mention effectively unlimited storage with my website provider (not unlimited resources but unlimited storage). The former is now hooked up to the Atlas and because I left the camera overnight pointing directly at our bamboo plants, I have a TON of short videos on the NAS 🙂 Example below… next day I mounted the camera properly, well above the bamboos and pointing toward the house.
Note that the ad claims “seamless integration into your smart home system”. Already I know enough to know that this camera like other Reolink solar+battery cameras will not, stand-alone integrate into Home Assistant – but with the Home hub – yes – more later. Finally night images – despite lack of IR, using the spotlight the camera gives great night colour and without it, the colour is still usable. That’s a plus.
And as if to prove it works well, I’ve just taken a look at my NAS from the time I was testing the Argus Track camera – I set up FTP access on the NAS and never thought about it again – result – countless video and thumbnail files – I’m deleting them now – something like 200 folders full of subfolders all dated. Now in the camera I’ve simply ticked on FTP with the address of my NAS, a folder name and user name and password – it’s working… I didn’t need to insert an SD into the camera (I’ll have that back).
I’ve often wondered about that – having an SD in the camera itself is handy but doesn’t make a great deal of sense – unless you have two cameras – anyone breaking in could easily remove the SD.
Back in the UK I have an AQARA video doorbell which sensibly has the SD in the indoor speaker unit. The Reolink doorbell has it in the actual camera – but then it also has the FTP option (and also 5Ghz WiFi option, read the doorbell entry link above for more on that – and note that the AQARA doorbell currently won’t entertain Home Assistant at all, unlike the Reolink doorbell)..
Not much else in the manual (it’ll all be online) – but I do note a section on fastening the camera to a tree with the mounting bracket and a rubber band. Must admit I’d not thought of that.
Before leaving I’ll point out that my Home Assistant detected the camera immediately but then on setup – no port 443 available – so it looks like RTSP (in common with other Reolink solar cameras) will not be supported on the camera running stand-alone – shame as the camera CAN be powered by USB – but see comment about the Hub.
My Reolink doorbell referred to above went straight into Home Assistant, no problem. Update – apparently the Atlas camera supports RTSP protocol when connected to the Home Hub (presumably as the mains-powered hub does not have to be as tight with power usage as the potentially only internal battery powered camera). I’ll comment once my Home Hub arrives. Had I known about this earlier I’d have kept the other Reolink solar cameras.
Unlike the Argus 4 Pro (5,000maH battery), the Atlas PT Ultra claims to have a 20,000maH battery – the camera is certainly substancial enough in size and weight for that. There’s a promotional video which states ‘8+ days of 4K Continuous Recording’. Personally I’ll have the solar panel connected so recording time won’t be an issue. I’m dying to connect it to my NAS to see just how much storage continuous 4K recording takes. I suspect a LOT.
Refreshing to see Reolink NOT going down the “buy our cloud storage” route that so many other camera manufacturers do. Thinking about this cloud vs SD vs FTP thing – SD uses no internal bandwidth until you want to view imagery/video.. FTP uses no external bandwidth if you have a NAS…. and external connectivity failure won’t stop recordings being made but there’s the possibility of someone stealing the NAS or just turning the power off. Cloud needs power and connectivity but presumably is more secure – can’t be stolen. I’m thinking the solution for me might be internal NAS or Home Hub and keep the SD in the camera as well.
One more night shot on the bench – 7:30am, still quite dark. Note the colour image – and note that the only significant light is coming from a quite dim wall mounted orange flicker light.
The glossy version of all of this is of course on the Reolink website. I shy away from putting prices on the blog as they vary depending where you are in the world, but note that this is NOT a cheap, cloud-based throwaway camera, it’s not priced like one and it doesn’t perform like one.
Night shot with the camera in final position…
And finally – “the day after”… in the early hours my wife told me the camera spotlight had been on and off all night – turns out that by default, sensitivity was set near maximum – and note the white umbrella flapping all over the place – below – well, it did that all night far more wildly than I’ve captured here – not my best positional planning… despite all that, the battery still showed 62% first thing. I’ll get a band around that….
Update October 3, 2024
Ok, so a few days later, the camera has won me over – initially the white light had been on slightly more than I would have liked at night due to our bushes – but to be fair it has been windy here and I’ve not setup exclusion zones yet. I’ve now turned the white light off as our doorway orange flicker light referred to above proves enough illumination to get a colour image out of this excellent camera in the dead of night – and typically I’m just getting the odd false trigger while picking up every single occurance of human movement during the day (us going in and out – postal deliveries etc).
After a short break at the coast, we returned to find the Reolink HUB waiting. I would not be that interested as our Reolink doorbell works just fine with Home Assistant but the solar camera doesn’t – at least not without the hub. I guess I’m about to find out if the hub makes a difference. Nothing wrong with the Reolink phone and PC Apps but I’m trying to get everything integrated into HA.
Usual nice presentation..
And so, with the box opened up, a single handy 256GB microSD inserted into the lower SD socket, Ethernet and power connected – I’m pondering what’s next. Given a choice of adding devices in the Reolink APP by QRCode manually or by LAN, I chose LAN and you see the result below – easy enough…
I simply hit ADD and was asked to give HUB a user name (default ADMIN) and password. The hub then noticed I’d inserted an SD and offered to format it. I accepted. Then a statement of compliance… I skipped the offer to encrypt data and to extend the warranty (“extend your warranty – extend it to 2.5 years and more benefits for FREE”).
The next page showed that I have no devices attached to the Reolink Hub. I have the new Argus and doorbell attached to the APP but I guess I have to add them to the HUB. “+CONNECT DEVICE”…
Choices are: Enter UUID, LAN or Device List – easy choice in my case. LAN – “Bedrock Doorbell” and “9527 etc etc etc” – I decided to go by Device List instead. As I knew both devices were working I skipped through any settings and just did the ADD DEVICE for both the camera and doorbell – in each case a voice piped up “device added successfully”. That was easy.
I guess I’ll now remove SDs from the camera and doorbell ring and let the HUB handle local storage.
The HUB is now successfully integrated into Home Assistant – but I’m concerned that the doorbell which WAS displaying in Home Assistant was now NOT – failure of integration. All is of course working in the Reolink APP.
I now had a new pretty box but I’m not yet seeing any improved access despite enabling RSTP and other features in the HUB… turns out I was missing the point. HOLD – despite confusing messages – entities for both the doorbell and new solar PT Ultra have now appeared in Home Assistant. Not tried control yet but I can view both of the cameras in HA – more than I could do before the hub.
Another day.. SO much to add…
