The constant strive to improve my security setup has led me to try many different IP cameras. For the most part my comfort level in IP cameras keeps me in the $100-$150 range as I do not want to get into the high end equipment nor do I want cameras with sub 1080P resolutions. When I first moved into my new house I started out with about 5 cameras (mostly garage and indoor) and slowly began adding as my needs grew. I added two Foscam 1080P wireless cameras in the back yard and most recently, two of the Reolink RLC-410 and one RLC-411 which grew the system to 10 cameras.

 

Criteria

The main criteria behind selecting these particular cameras was mainly around 3 key areas. First it had to have at least 1920×1080 (1080P) resolution, it had to be relatively small as I need to mount two side by side, and it had to be PoE as they were outdoors and running power there was going to be difficult.

If you spend some time looking on Amazon, you will quickly find out that meeting all 3 of these requirements for around a $100 is pretty tough. I ultimately landed on the Reolink RLC-410 mainly because of resolution and price. There are not that many cameras out there that have a 2650 x 1440 resolution, night vision, and POE for $79. At first I thought it was too good to be true but the curiosity got the better of me so I had to give it a try. It did not take me long to determine that these are a tremendous value and the performance is much better than I expected. The night vision resolution could be a bit better but it is on par with anything else I have used, however the daytime resolution is extremely good.  The video quality definitely exceeded my expectations.

 

Configuration

As I use Blue Iris, it was very easy to setup and configure once I configured all the network settings on the camera. I reserve a static IP in my router but you can also manually configure the camera itself. To make these work in with Blue Iris (or many other systems) you generally need to configure the camera to work independently first before attaching it to a recording system.

SNAG-0242 SNAG-0243

 

Results

Blue Iris instantly picked up the camera once I gave the IP address/port (I use custom ports on all cameras) and within a few minutes I was recording at full resolution. As you can see from the pictures, I have two installed in one location and have a RLC-411 in the front of the house (not pictured). One caution is that you have to be careful how many cameras at this resolution you setup and how you have them configured to record as it will add traffic to your network, not to mention the extra load on the CPU of the system you are using for recording. Overall, I am extremely pleased with the results an as you can see from the sample video, the result came out pretty good given the $79 price tag.

Completed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actual Video Sample