So far not warm at all. They feel like they are at ambient temperature. The one outside warms up in the morning when it’s in the direct sun for an hour. The one inside not at all.
you can buy otg cable with 2 that you can power the bridge from separate power supply yet it can communicate to v2. less stress to Vw pwr
Below is a motion (person detection) video and shortly after the video starts you will see the camera pans and tilts slightly to track motion (person). I was sitting 10 feet from it and could not hear it.
3 Likes
I have 2 Argus 2 (with Solar kit) and one Argus PT and I’ve never had a more bitter sweet relationship with a device, lol. YMMV, I wish you the best of luck.
TL; DR -
They’re notoriously unreliable.
My story -
They’re nice because the video is clear and looks nice, especially at night. The outside of my home is semi lit so the camera stays in color mode and uses all of the little lighting to boost the color night vision .You can adjust the bit rate, which is great. Pulling them up through Alexa is fine and in general, the controls are nice. It does get some good software boosts. In the time I’ve owned them, Reolink added Alexa, and I think Google integration (I haven’t checked Google), connectivity to the cloud (free for 1 cam), a privacy mask and the ability to turn push notifications off.
The issues I have are mainly because good grief can they be unreliable! I had them mounted on the outside of my home, at about 8 feet, just out of reach so someone can’t reach and just take it down. The expectation was 10-15 feet, enough to capture anyone getting into my driveway, coming towards my porch or through the front yard. The camera(s) went from detecting reliably and catching whatever you need it to to catching maybe 1 or 2 events for the entire day when nothing has changed (variables, that is). At 8am today, it could detect my wife walking to her car, getting into it and leaving and at 8am tomorrow she could do the same thing, at the same speed and it would miss all of it. Worse than that, it could miss someone coming into the driveway 10m after she’s gone. So, I said, maybe my expectations were a little high and moved the camera into my garage and powered it with an adapter. Same thing. It would sometimes catch me getting into the vehicle and leaving and at other times miss everything. This time it was mounted at about 7 feet. I just could not use it as a security camera.
They were replacements for my Blink XTs because I wanted a “not have to get on a ladder to change batteries every 18 months or so” solution and on that they failed big time. I did give them a big chance too. I’ve had to put the Blink XTs back and purchased some 3rd party solar panels for em’. I can’t max them out at 2048 kbps for some reason, even though I have a mid end router (Archer 5400) and 1 gig internet. I don’t really understand why they’d put the setting there if it can’t be achieved but, meh. I have tested the camera sitting 10 feet from the router and it’s still laggy. At the default settings, it’s fine.
I now use them mostly for my back yard, which is fenced. There’s a Blink XT back there too, just in case the Reolinks miss something serious. I use one of the Argus 2s inside my home a wireless camera. If I knew then what I knew now, I would not have purchased them. I’d have gone with something more tried and true like Netgear.
I would not buy the battery powered Reolink Argus cameras. I am looking at their wired (for power) WiFi cameras. Any battery powered camera is a non starter for me for the exact reasons you mentioned.
No homekit out of the box and not until July it seems.
I’m impressed with my indoor and the indoor Pan/Tilt otherwise. The wider view really helps the image, in my situation where I need to capture my entire living room without panning. The clarity of the video is awesome as well. The built in person/pet detection does work (although it has once identified a load of dirty dishes as a person) and the camera audio is pretty good. The Pan Tilt is wicked quiet, especially. vs. the Wyze. I’ve ended up replacing the Wyze Pan in my living room with it (sorry Wyze, I enjoy and buy your products, but credit where it is due, right?). I wish there was an ability to identify the person, I thought this was a feature but misread it and it is not. All it does is pop up a little circle with what it detects as a person.
I def. won’t be replacing any of my other Wyze cameras though, at least not until I see how Homekit integration works and what trade-offs there may be.
I am also waiting on any further purchases until I see the promised HomeKit integration materialize. I got bit by Ring on promises not kept so while I am hopeful I won’t really believe it until it ships.
very nice pic quality.
are theu h265 or h264?
what frame rate?
Wyze only give me 15fps when record playing.
not sure frame rate if get out of the sd card.
one thing is Wyze does not allow copying file from the camera is quite unusual.
so it is h265.
Wyze needs to catchup big time.
2 Likes
Good comparison video just released.
3 Likes
Thanks for sharing; this vid is great! Looking more and more like I will be replacing my cams. After my own assessment (if they work as good as they appear to), I’ll be recommending family and friends make the change (we’re all iOS users and would LOVE HomeKit support) and potentially have a new, top recommendation.
1 Like
Oofy Oofy Oofy. Clearly he’s never been to England or the rest of Oorope.
Anyway, thanks, nice video. The audio quality and notification speed differences were marked. Interesting that the one feature advantage Wyze has is the smart motion rectangle, which I use all the time to find the stray animal it has identified as moving.
2 Likes
Actually I find several ways Wyze is ahead of Eufy.
Wyze Advantages
- Motion Tagging (Green rectangle).
- Ability to turn off IR lights but keep night vision on.
- Ability to schedule Notifications, motion detection etc (Rules engine).
In those 3 areas (probably others) Wyze is ahead of Eufy. However as the video points out in terms of video and audio quality Eufy wins hands down. Notification speed also goes to Eufy. The Eufy app does not yet have 2FA in the US but it’s coming.
So in many, but not all, ways Eufy is ahead. In terms of their respective apps I would give the lead to Wyze.
The deciding factor for me is the forthcoming HomeKit integration. That’s game, set, and match for me.
3 Likes
Admittedly, I really do like the motion tagging in Wyze.
As for the rule engine, it too is a “nice to have”, but I don’t know it offers me anything compelling that I can’t get with HomeKit Automation.
Perhaps most importantly - HomeKit Automation lets all my devices do essentially the same thing and unlike the Wyze rule engine, it can be used with all my HomeKit devices from various manufacturers.
I was just reading an old Wyze Home Server thread. In it you mentioned Alexa and I quickly realized that my off grid dreams are poppycock. Alexa is in fact my primary / only way of interacting with my various smart home devices, mostly via voice but also via the app. The last I heard the main open source voice recognition engine for home automation (Sherlock? Something like that) was really, really primitive in its current state of development. Without voice control I am not going to get much personal or household traction with any new platform. So I’m still in a shotgun marriage with da cloud.
I do agree that the HomeKit automation is a great thing. That said I have yet to find a HomeKit camera that allows programming of simple things like turning notifications on or off via a time of day or geolocation.
But WWDC and iOS (iPhone OS?) 14 debuts today so maybe all of that is about to appear? I should be running the developer beta by tonight!
But even if that particular feature never shows up I will be happy just to get native support for HomeKit!
1 Like
As much as I may have joked and complained, these are three incredibly useful Wyze features that I count on every day. 
It still blows my mind when I encounter a ‘security’ cam where the hardware/software has no apparent way to disable the on-camera IR. Have some engineers never heard of nighttime insects or filming through glass !?! 
1 Like
Apparently not. Eufy for instance is an all or nothing approach. You want night vision? Fine, let’s throw in our onboard IR lights. Don’t want the IR lights? Fine but we also take away the night vision. Arrrgggghhh!
1 Like
WTF? And I was just getting all interested in Eufy. Next thing you’re gonna tell me they have alexa toilets…
Actually, I was trying to imagine the commands one would want to give to a commode when I found this…
Now I am wondering who needs to spend almost seven grand on a toilet… before shipping, taxes and installation 
Well, it is “comfort height” - must be mighty damn comfortable!
Yet people still think night vision and IR must be linked… 
1 Like