REOLINK Video Doorbell PoE Camera – 2K IP Security Camera Outdoor with Chime V2, 4:3 Aspect Ratio, 180 Degree Diagonal, 2-Way Talk, Plug & Play, Secured Local Storage, No Monthly Fee

I had bought into the whole Blink infrastructure, yea I know. Which was comically bad. The doorbell didn't work as a doorbell after one of their many updates, which is kinda an inexcusable fail. The only person that could hear it "ring" was the person that pushed the button. Recorded video and detected motion OK, but was the worst of the Blink products at that. I had one on every outside door (5). Between that and their Floodlight, that doesn't reliably work as a floodlight, I gave up, all going in the bin.That was a Black Friday impulse buy, and bought more of it, as it worked pretty well for what it costs for a while, then they updated it into uselessness. So, a little research this time around, and came across the Reolink, and well, by comparison, it's night and day. As a doorbell, it does what you'd expect a doorbell to do, push the button and it rings, and with the Alexa skill, it rings everywhere, and in my house that's a lot of places. It's like noon in an old clock shop when someone pushes the button. Given that the problem it was intended to solve was a vendor who felt their product was so valuable that it required an in-person direct adult signature to deliver, and the old doorbell gave the false sense than I heard that there was someone at the door, well the Riolink was ordered, delivered and installed before that delivery was re-attempted the next day.So the Riolink costs a lot more than the Blink, but still, not all that expensive. I have also worked with Axis which is the polar opposite. The Riolink is cheap in comparison to those. But the Riolink has a whole lot more in common with Axis than with Blink. I mean it's just a doorbell, but that doorbell has all the same kind of camera configuration options as the Axis cameras had. Not least of which, and maybe this sounds dumb, but the ability to just bring up the camera and watch it if you are expecting something. I don't know how common that is for all the consumer doorbell cams between the bottom of the barrel Blink and the Riolink, but NOT being able to just camp on a cam seemed pretty ridiculous to me. And i can do this on a real screen, on my PC and not be restricted to a smartphone app.All this makes it way better, BUT that's just the tip of the iceberg. It has some pretty impressive integration with Home Assistant, it has actual Ethernet conductivity, and PoE, and it has a pretty impressive image quality. Yea, I had to drill a hole because it wasn't just batteries and WiFi, but I'd rather have wired or wireless any day, worth the effort. Oh and support for local storage.So, the nit picks...The included angle bracket isn't enough and additional one to stack them up aren't available, and unlike a lot of the doorbell cameras there is no aftermarket for such things. I ordered some made for the Arlo cam that many have adapted for this cam, we'll see how that goes. Yea there are a lot of people selling 3D printed ones, but I'd rather just buy something manufactured, even if I have to adapt it.The included chime is a 1 to 1 thing, apparently you can pair to more than 1 chime but you can't pair multiple doorbells to the same chime. It would be nice to have multiple chimes and multiple doorbells and they all just work with all, but I guess not. However the Alexa integration really makes that not so much of a deal as I have an Echo or a FireTV Cube in every room, so honestly the chime doesn't matter so much. The down side of that is that you are no longer local if you are using that skill, from either side, you have to join the cams to the Riolink cloud service and then pair that service with Alexa which is also cloud.Oh and I had initially bought 2, the PoE version and the WiFi version, not really realizing that the WiFi version still needs to be externally powered. It does however also have an Ethernet port, which I wish also did PoE but it doesn't. I had bought a bunch of 24V PoE injectors a while back hoping they would power my EcoBee thermostats (they didn't, AC only apparently) but they work fine on the WiFi version of the Riolink, I guess even the included power adapter is actually 24V DC (not the 24VAC that is typical for doorbell wiring). So apparently AC/DC doesn't matter, though did read somewhere that it's 24V DC or 12-24V AC, so guessing that much more commonly available 12V PoE adapters wouldn't work.Anyway, like I said I had 5 Blink doorbells, which are all getting replaced with these. I have tons of PoE ports in my house, so it's just a matter of getting a cable from A to B. I will be trying Their cameras as replacements for the rest of the Blink stuff as well, so far I am impressed, a few minor gripes, but overall meets and exceeds...

This is the POE version, not wifi. Some basics- for poe, you need to wire the doorbell using Cat 6 cable to an nvr or injector. If you don't know what that is, hire someone to do the wiring and figure out which nvr to buy. If you want home security with nvr capabilities, i.e. many cameras, secure recording to a hard disk, etc. then become familiar with nvr and wired cameras. POE cameras simply mean one Cat 6 cable is used to both power the camera and send its signals to the NVR. Older systems use two cables.So, if you are in the right place and you have a POE Cat 6 cable at your door, this camera is terrific. I had a professional do the wiring and sell me an NVR and 4 cameras plus a doorbell. NVR and cameras are from Dahua. Doorbell was from Aukvox. The latter was very sophisticated, could unlock two locks remotely, had provision for a security card, etc. But its night vision was zero even with infrared, its motion detection was zero and you could only hear but not talk back. Good for business maybe, not residence. $500 device useless to me as a homeowner/residence. Wanted service fee of $175 to come out each time and tinker with it. Had enough and bought this POE reolink.Installed it and it has great night vision and motion detection, 2 way intercom, great features.The rub is how to install it so it shows up on my nvr monitor? It has NVIF capability and my Dahua nvr has nvif ability as well so I gave it a shot. Bought it from Amazon because they have a great return policy and if I was not able to set it up I would return it.The reolink support documents did not help. I did not bother to call tech support. I googled Dahua nvr and Reolink POE camera how to connect and got a lot of good info that way. I will not go into all the detail. Too long already. But, they say get into the camera interface through the URL address. I got in but that didn't help. So if you are trying to connect to nvr, you have to enable NVIF on the camera. How? Do the following on the APP, not the interface or Reolink client on the web.Go to Settings, hit the device name (first item), another screen opens Device Info, go to Network Information, then Advanced, BOOM, the screen gives you choices to enable RTMP, HTTP, HTTPS,RTSP and ONVIF. I enabled them all.Plug the camera into POE. The NVR will now be able to add the camera to its list of cameras. Add camera, initialize, do whatever your nvr manual says to do and it will appear in your phone app as well along with all your other cameras. When you add it, you will have to enter username and pw. I am skipping the nvr steps. Figure those out.I see some negative reviews here but I am very satisfied with it. You also have to pair the chime. My old battery chime ate batteries every 3 months. This is plug in and quite loud with choice of rings.Overall, one week later, very happy. Lets see how it performs over time.