This is the brand new Reolink E1 Outdoor Pro PTZ Security Camera. Let’s see what it can do and how we can integrate it into Home Assistant!
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Ed
Introduction
Reolink did it again! They created this new flagship camera which is the REOLINK E1 Outdoor Pro. This Pan Tilt Zoom Camera is an Outdoor camera that can record up to 4K. From the outside, the camera looks a lot like the Reolink E1 Outdoor that I also own, and it has been upgraded to 4K and has a wider field of view.
Unboxing the Reolink E1 Outdoor Pro
The box contains a manual in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. And it contains the security camera itself. There’s a cable attached to the camera to connect a network connector and the power adapter. The camera is designed to hang upside down, so a wall mount is also included. Next to hanging it on the wall, you can also place the camera on a flat surface. Mounting material is also included with which you can attach the network cable and adapter cable to the camera in a watertight manner.
Plus Reolink has added a few plugs and screws to fix the wall mount to the wall. A 12 Volt power adapter has been added to power the camera. This camera needs this separate power adapter and is not a Power Over Ethernet camera. A CAT-5e patch cable with a length of 1 meter plus a power extension cable with a length of 4,5 meters is included. I’m not sure why the power extension cable is 4,5 meters and the patch cable is just 1 meter, but okay. It does support Wi-Fi as well and I will explain in a minute what the technical specifications of this security camera are.
Connecting the camera
The camera cables are protected against moisture with caps. So, if you only use Wi-Fi, the Ethernet connection is nicely sealed. If you use the Ethernet connection, you can use the extra connection material that is in the box to connect it watertight.
You can easily screw the wall bracket onto the camera and then click it off via a slide on the wall bracket. This way you can simply attach the bracket to the wall and then click the camera onto it.
The SD card slot is a bit hidden in the camera. You have to push the lens all the way up and then you can remove a rubber cap under which the SD card slot is.
In total, Reolink delivered a very complete product so that you can set the camera up in minutes. The only negative point I could find is that the patch cord was very short for me, forcing me to use another patch cord.
Specifications
The specifications of this camera are as follows:
- The image sensor is a 1/2.8″CMOS Sensor.
- The video resolution is 3840×2160 at 20 Frames per second.
- The lens has a focal length of 2.8 to 8 mm. The maximum aperture is 1.6. You can zoom in with 3 times optical zoom.
- The horizontal field of view is 94 degrees.
- The vertical field of view is 53 degrees.
- It has infrared night vision up to 12 meters.
- And it has Color Night vision as well.
- This Reolink E1 Outdoor Pro camera supports two-way audio using an inbuilt microphone and speaker, so you can talk to whoever is in front of the camera using the Reolink App.
- The camera supports ethernet and Wi-Fi over 2.4 and 5 GHz.
- It contains a micro SD slot that can handle an SD card of a maximum of 256 Gigabytes, but no SD Card is included in the package. Bummer…
- The pan range is almost 355 degrees and the tilt range reaches from 0 to 50 degrees.
- The camera weighs 415 grams.
- The diameter of the camera is 85 mm and the height of the camera is 118 mm.
- And it’s IP64 waterproof.
Setting up the app
The camera comes with the Reolink App which can be installed using The Google Play Store or the Apple Store. When you turn on the camera, it welcomes you with a message that you have to install the app. After you’ve installed the app, you have to scan the QR code on the back of the camera. After scanning the QR code you can choose to connect the camera using a network cable or through Wi-Fi. I installed the camera using Wi-Fi first and connected it to a network cable later. In this way, the camera will automatically switch to Wi-Fi as soon as the cable is not connected for any reason.
Enter your Wi-Fi credentials first. You have to scan the QR code that is shown on your phone with the camera itself. The camera will connect to the router after that. After the camera is successfully connected to the router, you must enter a username and password for the camera and now the camera setup is completed. Now that the camera is installed, you can use the pan, tilt, and zoom functions to control the camera.
The App Interface
The app supports a lot of functions. First of all, you can control the pan, tilt, and zoom function of the camera. When you zoom in, the focus of the camera needs some time to autofocus, but after that, the image is clear and crisp. There are three video quality options: clear, balanced, and fluent, where clear is the sharpest image, but it might have an impact on the frame rate of the camera.
Display
In the settings menu, you have multiple settings to set up the camera. The display menu has various options to tweak the display settings, like quality, day and night mode, and where to show the camera name, date, and watermark. You can also apply a privacy mask so that certain regions are not being recorded.
You can choose if you want to record audio and set the audio volume level in the audio menu.
Light
In the light menu, you can enable or disable the status LED and you can set up the infrared lights and choose when the spotlight should turn on and off. In the detection alarm menu, you can set up a detection zone by simply painting over the area that you do not want to receive alerts about. Furthermore, you can set the sensitivity, alarm delay, and object size. And, you can set up auto-tracking so that the camera will follow someone when he walks past the camera.
Recording
In the camera recording menu, you can enable and disable camera recording and customize recording options, such as scheduling when recording should be on or off. Furthermore, you can toggle notification settings and send the camera footage to an FTP server that you might have set up on your NAS. You can also activate the siren on the camera so that it sounds a siren as soon as movement is detected.
Timelapse
Next to all this, there is an option to generate a timelapse of moving clouds, traffic, sunrise, sunset, etcetera.
The recordings are saved on the optional Micro SD card inside the camera, or on the FTP server that you defined. You can playback the recordings in the app and choose the date and time in the timeline in the app. There’s also an option to sound the siren on the camera manually if you want to scare people away.
The web interface
Next to the app interface, there is also a web interface for this camera. When you visit the IP address of the camera, you can view all the settings and recordings of the camera just like you can in the app. The web interface supports some extra options. For example, the network options where you can enable and disable RTMP, RTSP, and HTTP.
The web-interface cannot stream in 4K due to the limitations of the browser. This is not a camera limitation.
Video Quality
But, you can record in 4K and the quality of the camera image is very good. The recordings can be downloaded from the SD card or sent through FTP to your NAS. As I said before, when you zoom in and out, the camera needs some time to autofocus, but the image is crisp and bright during the day. The night vision is also very clear. It will record in color as long as there’s enough light or when the flashlight is on. Otherwise, it will record in Black and White using infrared.
I’ve found that panning and tilting aren’t very smooth when the camera is set to 4K, but setting the camera to a lower resolution will give you a smoother panning and tilting experience.
Here are some photos and recordings I took with the camera.
Pricing of the Reolink E1 Outdoor Pro
This camera currently costs € 152.99 or $ 119.99 and can be ordered using the affiliate links that you can find in the description of the video below.
Integrating the Reolink E1 Outdoor Pro in Home Assistant
Integrating this camera in Home Assistant is a breeze with the native Reolink integration in Home Assistant. As you can see, you can use all the controls of the camera in Home Assistant, you can view the camera streams and sensors, and you can configure a lot of the camera’s options in Home Assistant.
Conclusion
I must say that I am impressed by this new 4K outdoor camera from Reolink. I own more Reolink cameras and I am very satisfied with all of them. One of those cameras is the Reolink Video Doorbell, which is the best Video doorbell on the market in my opinion. Check this video to see my review about the Reolink Video Doorbell as well!
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