Reolink Argus 3 Pro solar security camera

Ok, security camera take 2 … The Dekco I last reviewed missed the mark with no light and terrible night time vision … So based on a recommendation from my buddy Lance I looked at Reolink. The Dekco cost me $67.79, and the Reolink $153.67 so a BIG jump in price. Looks wise I would have preferred the black over the white, but I was impatient and the white was more readily available. Looking at the camera you immediately notice the lack of antennas for the WIFI, and this translated directly into a noticeably weaker WIFI signal compared to the Dekco in the exact same spot. The Reolink clearly identifies the solar panel as 3.2W, no clue how big the Dekco’s was.

The mounting bracket for the camera, which includes a strap you could use as a trail cam, is more solid than the Dekco one, but it’s also a LOT more fidgity, with a short thread to the base that’s not easy to get in, and a knobby edge that catches on things as your trying to tighten it. The solar panel mount is solid and well done.

The camera includes a light you can choose to disable that can be used like a security light. The light also improves the night time vision. In addition to the improved night vision the camera includes the ability to send you an email with the pic from a motion trigger. Setting this up was challenging, but we will get to that in a sec … Initial setup was relatively easy, download the app, and point it at the QR code … BUT, I got caught and wasted a good amount of time because as well as a tiny QR code on the back of the camera there is a much larger barcode on the side of the camera and I was scanning that instead and the app didn’t give any hints to NOT use the bar code. Once past that little annoyance you add the WIFI configuration and off you go. This camera supports both 2.5 and 5GHZ.

Setting up email requires you to know an SMTP server, which might be challenging for some. I tried Yahoo and gmail which they recommend, both of which didn’t connect at all. I suspect my account is not setup to allow it. I tried mailgun that I use and that got dubbed as spam by gmail and thrown into the spam bin. I couldn’t get it to work with my MS IIS SMTP server because the camera insists on using a userid in the form of an email address and password to authenticate, but I couldn’t figure a way to set that up on IIS, and it would not allow anonymous. Finally I got it working with SMTP2GO which is free. I still get a warning from gmail questioning whether it’s safe, but the mail at least comes through.

Now comes the question, what happens if your camera is offline when an alert happens. Now this is where it gets REALLY BAD. First of all you will be oblivious to it being offline. Unlike my WIFI thermostat that informs me when the thermostat hasn’t checked in, you get nada … zippo … zero … And any motion triggers that happen while the camera is offline go into the bit bucket, not to be retried when it comes back online. So your blind to the fact anything occurred. It is recorded and stored on the micro SD card if you know to go looking for it.

The camera worked ok other than the unreliable WIFI, ok motion detection etc. If they had only designed in an antenna … Ah well … next …