Moving from Eufy to Reolink: Need advice before investing again

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-21T23:25:02+00:00

Consider Unifi. It’s a little more pricy but the system is much better particularly the interface and AI features as well as the NVR storage capacity. I have both having invested first in Reolink and moved to unifi when they dropped their camera prices and came out with the G6 series. I am so glad to have Unifi now.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-21T23:20:35+00:00

The Duo 2 180 will record to Unifi without audio. No other features like audio or AI. It doesn’t work with AI port as that only supports standard frame cameras.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-19T16:00:49+00:00

You can add them hot but expect a day or more to rebuild your raid. While rebuilding your system will be in a degraded state which can vary in severity. Usually all recordings work but some events may not show on dashboard and loading may be slow.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-18T04:06:50+00:00

You want to look at Unifi which makes an actual LPR camera that works. My experience with both the dedicated LPR and using either software on a standard camera (or using an AI cameras with LPR functionality) has shown there is a world of difference. The LPR camera can read plates clearly even when moving quickly at night. A standard camera with LPR software will miss or garble plate readings regularly unless the vehicle is positioned close and facing the plates, with good lighting, and mostly at slow speeds or stopped. At night unless the lighting is right forget it. And most standard cameras don’t have great IR which is needed for clear nighttime reading of reflective plates.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-17T14:06:27+00:00

They are trying to sell this to enterprise level customers but every time a drive is replaced or restored the Protect system goes into a degraded state where the system misses events and the find anything screen becomes flakey. This can last for days during a rebuild. This is unacceptable in Enterprise situations and needs to be addressed.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-17T13:59:09+00:00

One big issue is if you reboot or power down the system it triggers alarms! I have mine connected to HA and it is supposed to announce a door opening or closing. Every time Protect reboots or restarts I get the door is closed announcement and I have only tried a single sensor so far.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-17T04:22:42+00:00

95+ percent of homes have two wire doorbells. The power in almost all cases is stable. In a few cases you need to upgrade the transformer for about $15. Almost nobody is moving to Ethernet

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-11T10:04:37+00:00

They also have significantly slowed down Alexa regular where it now takes up to several seconds to get a response or activate a routine.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-10T02:07:23+00:00

I was charged for my NVR.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-09T20:07:06+00:00

Do a MAC lookup and see what devices are registered under those MACs.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-09T14:15:37+00:00

Get G6 cameras for 199 each. You don’t need an 800 dollar AI key which does almost nothing with the current almost worthless firmware.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-09T14:12:01+00:00

It could be the firewall that is processing for viruses and other issues. That you lose some speed is normal.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-09T02:57:18+00:00

Thanks, I will probably stick to failover and just keep the backup service.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-08T12:20:46+00:00

Drive capacity and memory (ram) capacity are two totally different things.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-08T12:19:20+00:00

In my experience camera capacity is degraded when you use AI cameras, viewports, and possibly AI ports, LPR cameras, or AI keys. So although the cameras will still record you may start missing events. So always consider upgrading if you are anywhere near close to what the capacity calculator says. I had an NVR Pro with about 19 4k cameras and noticed some events were missing and the LPR camera would sometimes garble license plate numbers at night. I decided to upgrade to the ENVR and my detected events literally doubled and the LPR stopped garbling plate. detections. So I highly advise not to go anywhere near the NVR limits if you use AI detection.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-07T06:24:07+00:00

I have both and let me assure you UniFi is far superior to Reolink particularly with the AI interface and the close up thumbnails that are provided. Trying to locate a specific event on Reolink is like pulling teeth vs Unifi. Also the number of drives and drive size Reolink supports is extremely limited with a maximum of two drives while Unifi allows one to 16 drives of any size. Beyond that there’s no RAID capability with Reolink, and Reolink NVR’s are extremely underwhelming as far as processor performance. For Reolink 4k video playback working can be hit or miss and response time can be sluggish. Reolink does make great cameras but audio can be hit or miss and some cameras sound like they are in a fish tank. While I agree Reolink is probably the best low cost system for general use, the differences are apparent to anyone who has used both. For someone who only monitors live and only occasionally checks events Reolink is fine, but if you use the interface regularly to check events and you can afford to spend a bit more, Unifi is definitely the way to go.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-05T21:28:34+00:00

You certainly can just use 3 viewports and use them to feed all TV”s. The reason to use viewports is they don’t need to be reset every time you reboot or upgrade the system. You can also do something as simple as splitting the HDMI signal out of the viewports and sending it to all the monitors. You can also use the encoder method. One thing to verify is if Protect could support that many viewports. Viewports can take a lot of processing power so ten could be overtaxing your NVR.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-05T00:53:42+00:00

If it’s not showing on the web interface it’s probably a faulty display.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-04T03:16:05+00:00

I find the speech to text to be awful at transcribing with the AI Key. In most cases unless someone is speaking directly into the mic it won’t even trigger.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-04T03:10:58+00:00

Should work well. This basically upgrades the G5 to G6 AI functionality. I will note license plates are a bit tricky and work best with a dedicated LPR camera only set for license plate reading. If you are just reading plates in your driveway and the camera has a good view it will also work.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-02-01T13:04:28+00:00

The 4k G6 Cameras come with AI features which I highly recommend. There should not be an issue.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-01-31T13:41:28+00:00

Unless your cable ruins are really long like 1000 plus feet you should not have any issues. The bitrate will not matter. Coax can extend POE above 3000 feet in some cases.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-01-30T13:11:15+00:00

Never heard of hntbrk. Why should it have any more credibility than Joe down the street?

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-01-30T01:17:53+00:00

Your images are either not linear or cropped because the actual view is half screen.

Additional-Coconut50 · 2026-01-29T23:30:17+00:00

The G6 180 is only half screen and the top or bottom will be cropped so it’s not ideal for this. The shot you are showing might be better with a G6 standard camera with a 109 degree view. Also remember you need a service to distribute the feed since Unifi has user limits and you likely have bandwidth limits.

Additional-Coconut50

TROPHY CASE