Dahua & Reolink Domes compared

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Dahua PC-HDBW4300R-Z
Reolink RLC-422

Format: Dome
POE
Variable Focal Length 2.8mm to 12mm.
Autofocus
4MP
Approx retail price £100

NAS TS-453A

Following on from my questions about suitable cameras for the Surveillance Station I think it is more appropriate to move my review/impressions about my two new cameras to a separate thread here. I hope this may be of some use to people - in fact people like me who have no expertise when it comes to network cameras. The review is also to some extent a response to a particular bad review that Reolink cameras in general had. After I have set them up properly and 'fine tuned' them I will upload some actual footage to the web. I should point out that I have no connection in any way to anyone who sells or markets these type of cameras.

As a quick bit of background, my new Dahua dome arrived last week and now yesterday the new Reolink arrived. Although I have had the Dahua for only a week I have been impressed with it's picture quality. The major downside when it arrived was the difficulty in actually seeing any kind of picture from it. I am now getting a bit more of a feeling as to how the world of security cameras work but at the time felt unsupported. There appears to be a large amout of protectionism within the industry and most manufacturers do not encourage sales direct to the public via platforms like Amazon. I did not know this at the time and I think the Dahua camera I bought (although a UK model) must be a grey import. As such it did not come with much support material - in fact all I got was a small slip of paper with the URL of the PSS software. Even when I loaded this software it took more than an hour before I could see any image at all ! I now realise that had I bought through an official reseller I would have had someone to hold my hand (at a price

What a difference it was yesterday when the Reolink arrived. The box had a Quick Start guide and even a CD ! I loaded the Reolink Client, connected the Powerline starter kit and plugged in the POE injector and hey presto - an image appeared in under 30 seconds However my initial euphoria did not last long as the IQ was not so good. After a bit of manual focussing that was improved. Connecting this second camera to the Surveillance Station went reasonably smoothly after a bit of the usual (in my case anyway !) confusion over IP addresses.

So how do the two cameras compare ? Firstly the software (PSS vs Reolink). I don't anticipate using these much as I will be using the SS through the NAS and it is also early days but I think the Reolink feels nicer. Secondly, the picture quality. Having read all the glowing reviews about Dahua and also quite a bit of negativity towards Neolink this has been a surprise. So far both the cameras are at the 'out of the box' settings (25fps). Of the two images the Dahua is the most pleasing to the eye with natural colours and a cinematic feel but when it comes to sharpness the Reolink is the clear winner. I am a keen amateur photographer and do not like it's contrasty appearance however when you consider it's use which is to identify a person or some action it is not such a bad thing. Over the weekend I will tune in each camera and am confident we can produce two excellent quality images and of course there is the all important low/no light scenarios to compare.

Any questions, please just ask and if there is any advice you can give me or you see me going off in a wrong direction, please say. As I said at the start I have no expertise at all with network cameras.

[AlastairStevenson]

Thanks for the initial review, and for sharing your experience so far, that will certainly be useful to others.

am confident we can produce two excellent quality images and of course there is the all important low/no light scenarios to compare.

Looking forward to your experience there as well.
Do you intend to do continuous or motion-based recording to the NAS?

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Thanks for the initial review, and for sharing your experience so far, that will certainly be useful to others.
.....
Do you intend to do continuous or motion-based recording to the NAS?

I should imagine I will just record the motion triggered events. On that subject, I was tickled when reading one of the option parameters. The dialogue asked me how many seconds did I want to record before the event. "uhh - recording before the event ?" Then I realised it must be buffering footage in memory and so able to save from the buffer - quite a nice touch.

[AlastairStevenson]

Then I realised it must be buffering footage in memory and so able to save from the buffer - quite a nice touch.

Yes indeed. Which can be a reason why some users seem concerned when there is steady disc and network activity when not doing continuous recording.

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Apologies for the tardy updates but I have been away and unfortunately the new Reolink installation has/is not as straight forward as the Dahua one was. In short I am unable to get a consistent connection either to the camera app or Surveillance Station. I am not sure exactly why as it may not be a problem with the camera but with the network. The way I connected Birdcam (the Dahua) was to use a wifi extender (Tp-Link). This unit is designed to re-broadcast a wifi signal but it also has an ethernet port and I used that to connect the camera to. It is great and stable even though it is an relatively old (2 years !) one with only 2.4Ghz wifi. Whenever I launch Surveillance Station the camera is always online but to be fair it does have near line of sight to our main router and is about 25 feet away.

I knew that the new Reolink camera would be more difficult as it is on the front door which is at the other end of the house to the router. I bought a more powerful wifi extender (2.4 & 5 Ghz) and also as backup a Powerline adapter which conveys the network over the mains wiring. As suspected the wifi extender is not able to maintain a stable connection. So therefore, before I went away I connected the camera to a powerline adapter (the other adapter being connected to the router). I was very disappointed that whenever I connected to the NAS & Surveillance Station when I was away it reported that the camera was idle. I now suspect that the powerline adapter may go into standby and so break the connection. The next step is to reprogram the wifi extender and 'dasiy chain' it from the old wifi extender which is closer to the camera rather than connecting it to the router. I will report back. It is a shame because the Reolink is a nicely made bit of kit with an excellent picture (when it works!).

How do other people connect your cameras - do most run network cables back from the camera all the way to the router ? Or is there another way I have not thought of ?

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Latest update:

Am still struggling with the Reolink ! It the same story - when I load up SS the Dahua bird feeder cam is always faithfully online immediately but the important camera (from a security standpoint) is not there however it does usually appear after 30 seconds or so. All is not right though as it drops out frequently. I think it may be a combination of problems which includes network error/s and Surveillance Station itself. Things have improved after I increased the strength of the WiFi signal and then I found a setting in the Reolink software to specify that it has to have a fixed IP which I have duly done and also told the router. One of the major problems is that I have never really understood Windows networking !

I am now at the point that is is nearly always present when I load up the Reolink software and now have to find out why SS has a intermittent problem with it. I should really give up and get another Dahua but I am determined to go on a bit further (and it was a pig to install with me drilling holes at the most awkward angles from the top of a ladder by our front door).

I feel I am making progress. I have just loaded the latest camera firmware and I have hope that it will further improve things and am also going to email Reolink and Qnap support and see what they say.

Watch this space - I will get everything working smoothly somehow

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Here is a screen grab from my tablet of the two cameras side by side. The Reolink is on the left. The images from both cameras look a lot better on my monitors but this image does go to show how much more contrasty and sharper the Reolink is. I prefer the cinema like look of the Dahua but this is not a photography competition - for the purpose of identifying somebody the Reolink would do a better job imo

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As the quality of the previous screen grab is so poor here are a couple more from my monitor that give a better impression of the quality. The Dahua (first one) usually looks a bit better than this but it obviously feels a bit grumpy on this grey, wet & miserable morning

DAHUA ABOVE

REOLINK ABOVE

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Latest update

I have now got both cameras up and running and these are my conclusions.

Dahua - A very easy plug and play solution - from the moment I first plugged this into the range extender it has just worked. I am no expert in Windows networking but I suspect it is set up differently to the Reolink as it does not appear in the list of connected devices when I quiz my router whereas the Reolink does. It does of course get allocated an IP but I don't know how ! The picture quality is a little soft but pleasing to the eye.

Reolink - Much more of a handful to connect. Once it has settled down it is quite stable but can be slow to respond to ping tests, Surveillance Station reports numerous dropped connections but only for milliseconds. It has not (to my knowledge) missed any motion alarms when It should have done. In fact I am very pleased about the way it has ended up being setup. Using the guard zones I have only asked for motion events on my front path. I had to turn down the sensitivity to stop it being triggered by falling leaves and now only humans walking up the path activates it. The Reolink software sends a still image to my email on any motion. This is so fast that when I walk up the path and get to the front door, as I am getting my keys out of my pocket my phone alerts me to an email which is a picture of me walking up the path just 5 seconds or so earlier ! The Qnap software then receives the alarm by FTP and record 15 seconds of video before the alarm and 15 seconds after it. It is really neat ! It does give me a feeling of security that I know who is walking up our path when I am not at home.
Image quality is definitely quite a lot better than the Dahua. To be fair the Dahua is 3MP and the Reolink 4MP but even so the difference is more than would be expected.

I will report any other significant info if and when it arises.

PS. I have had superb service from Qnap. I asked them by email about the compatibility of the Reolink cameras with SS as the firmware that Qnap had tested was quite old. Within 24 hours a Qnap representative was logging onto my computer remotely (from Germany) to conduct a series of tests and then answered all my questions - very impressive.