After my tremendous success with the Reolink 4K Duo+Floodlight camera and the Reolink WiFi Video Doorbell (the latter has replaced my original front door video doorbell and has proven invaluable in tracking delivery companies who say they tried to deliver but no-one was home)…. I’m ready for new challenges – I wanted to grab the Reolink Argus PT Ultra and when I contacted the company, they asked me if I’d take a look at their (popular) CX410 external camera.
This blog entry was originally writtten July 13, 2023 – latest update October 26, 2023 at the end.
The 4MP CX410 is a bit of an odd beast (to me) given that it has no WiFi connection. It uses an RJ45 standard network connection which can include POE (power over Ethernet) if available OR you can use their DVR which has POE OR finally a 12vDC supply (not included but thankfully I have several 12vDC plug-in-the-wall power supplies so I grabbed the first one that came to hand and plugged the camera into that and my router).
I should say that setup was really easy – it was – but first a really minor gripe, no optical indicator indicator light – on power up the camera looked distinctly dead – but worked perfectly. The CX410 has 4 built-in LED spots and they can be set to off, manual or auto in the Reolink APP but that doesn’t help a first time user as there is nothing to show that the camera is actually working after power-up. Also – though to be fair this is intended as a security camera so you would not normally use it close up – I found myself looking blurred on first testing the camera (the background of course was sharp).
The CX410 came already with the latest firmware installed and the first thing it did on installing into the Reolink APP (which involved nothing more than having the phone camera – via the Reolink APP – look at a barcode on the side of the camera) was to ask me to add a password to the otherwise unprotected ADMIN user.
I added the password and because I’ve already looked at other Reolink cameras, I then turned on the downloadable PC APP and the new camera appeared automatically – but of course showed nothing until I put the same password into the PC APP – from there, the camera worked as expected in all three quality modes. In terms of features the camera shows a quite reasonable image and has similar features to other Reolink cameras I’ve used in terms of FTP, cloud or SD storage, full access to the internal IP address, MAC, default gateway and DNS etc. I’m quite happy with SD storage.
Maximum resolution is 2560*1440 and you have control over the frame rate and more. You can flip the image vertically and/or horizontally and define if and where on-screen you want time/date and watermark. As far as night vision is concerned you can have colour or mono night vision, push notifications or not, email alerts, there’s a siren you can turn on or off, time-lapse (if you insert an SD card)… and more. In short, nothing wrong with this camera at all – though I’d prefer the option to have WiFi as well as wired – but that’s just me – I believe this camera is more oriented to use in a network of cameras using a DVR such as Reolink’s DVR (which I don’t have).
The CX410 camera of course has full 2-way audio. Picking a price at random, the 4MP CX410 is €79.99 at Amazon.es in Spain.
And with that I’ll move onto the more expensive but also more exciting 8MP Argus PT Ultra.
Very different to the CX410, the Argus PT Ultra has a nice ceiling/roof mount. When I took it out of the box, it’s internal battery was turned off. Behind a silicone seal is an on-off switch – I turned that on and the camera started talking in a range of languages – the first being English – to say “Welcome to Reolink. Install the Reolink APp and scan the QR code in the camera”. Well, I already have the Reolink APP installed, so just a case of hitting + in the APP to add the new camera as with the CX410. I was shown a screen asking me to scan the QR code on the camera…or input UID/IP or connect via LAN.
I scanned the QR code and the camera was accepted. I was then asked to set up WiFi. “The camera supports 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz Wifi” – that’s refreshing. I entered my WiFi information and was then asked to “scan now” i.e. let the camera look at a QR code on the APP screen. I did that and almost instantly the camera let out a beep. “Connecting your device”. “Connection to the router failed”.
I switched to my normal 2.4Ghz (WiFi 6) connection. “Connection to the router succeeded”. Hmmm… “Create device password”. Ok, I did that and gave the camera a name. Done. The camera worked perfectly with a good picture, but by now the battery was showing VERY LOW (I’m not missing any stages out here, this was straight from the box, not charged), so I took the opportunity to site the camera and the separately supplied solar panel on the edge of our outside pool.
Harsh conditions for it’s first outing to be sure but the camera is going to have to get used to the idea. Immediately the PT Ultra sprung to life, displaying an excellent image in the APP. The image you see above was taken from my phone just after connecting to the solar panel outside.
And as it is currently WAY too hot for me to stay outside (43C+) I’ve left it out there and I’ll now try the PC APP. Now I was cooking. Via the PC APP I had my first play with the 8MP PT Ultra and of course it is full pan and tilt (ignore the faded “Monster – connecting” below – that camera is not actually turned on). The image you see is live video from the new PT Ultra – sitting on our pool, charging in the devastating heat of the mid-afternoon summer 2023 Southern Spanish sun.
And here, the live image from the phone APP.. next I think we’ll look at the phone on full screen view..
The full screen image normally has the controls showing along the bottom but a quick 2-finger stretch and the whole screen showed image without watermarks etc.
I’m well impressed by the quality and it just works – no messing about, it just works. That’s a good start.
There’s enough resolution so that even with the watermark and date zoomed out, the imagery from the Argus PT Ultra is still extremely sharp and that is in the “fluent” or lower quality setting..
Ok, if it’s going to sit on the pool charging until it’s cool enough to mount the camera somewhere – may as well be pointing at some decent scenery (other side of the pool facing outward).. less than 90 minutes later, the internal battery charging on solar alone is at 36%. Incidentally the maximum possible resolution is 3840*2160.
Update July 21, 2023
The PT Ultra has been moved around frequently and sometimes left in the office while I figured out where to put it – and of course every time I moved past it the spotlight came on. At no time did I have to worry about charge or revert to using a power supply – this afternoon I finally sited the camera on an outside (sheltered from extreme rain) wall and it’s working perfectly. The solar panl is just sitting on the sloping roof. I’ve enabled email alerts – sadly, being battery driven it does not have the FTP storage option.
Update August 13, 2023
I’ve been on holiday in the UK for 2 weeks and part way through the Ultra stopped working. Nothing I could do from a distance so I had to wait until returning to Spain today. I soon realised that I’d never plugged the solar panel in properly and so plugged it in. Nothing happened and I got sidetracked into doing other jobs. An hour or so later I checked and the camera had indeed come back to life. A lesson there to check connections properly on installation – and when charging a flat camera (for whatever reason) give it time for some charge to build up before panicking and running off to tech support. Lovely. I remain very pleased with both the PT Ultra and the video doorbell.
Update October 26, 2023
The CX410 camera is fully up to date, added image for it above and below. Ok, wired but works great – you COULD use it with their NVR or stand-alone as I do. I took this picture in the absense of any light apart from my my computer monitor.. looks as if normal lighting was on..
Meanwhile both the doorbell (separate blog entry) and PT Ultra are working flawlessly outside.
Update April 7, 2024
The PT Ultra has performed flawlessly over the months since I last wrote. Interestingly I now have the Argus Track – another 8K Solar camera – this time with 2 lenses. The latter does not seem to have the charge length of the PT Ultra but DOES have FTP and SFTP ability. A little lateral thinking here, I may well run the latter off USB power so I can reliably store movement data on my server, while having the PT Ultra with it’s SD storage as backup. See the PT-Ultra blog entry for more…
BTW I heard that Aqara finally got a firmware on their FP2 Multi Person Detection Sensor that it is worth the money.
Right now many companies seem to buy „AI“ to sell products with it but have no real knowhow to set it up properly. Yet.
But the progress other AIs have done in the last year is impressive. Time will fix that issue.
Hi Pete. I just received my CX410 and I am impressed. This has not happened often with Reolink lately (except Doorbell).
I will do a little test side by side with the old RLC410 and if anybody is interested I will write about it.
Well, I absolutely love the doorbell though Im must way, in common with every other camera company I’ve checked (lots), their “human detection” is utter nonsense – there’s a plant on the wall next to the doorbell and it triggers the doorbell sensor all night – same with my other security cameras, one is fooled by insects, another by a tent cover in front of our pergola – no humans involved… makes you wonder how genuine AI products are ever going to be trusted long term by the public when a camera can’t tell the difference between a moth and a person.