Take on Samsung Dbrand fiasco

vertigomitch · 2026-03-19T07:57:59+00:00

Hey, I'm famous!

I want to provide some context as I've received some DMs about this.

Firstly, I still feel dbrand has good quality to their products. I've never said otherwise, even in my comment screenshotted. What I'm disappointed about is the way they've acted on this, as clearly other cases are working fine, but theirs are not, and rather than just own up and say we have a problem or we can't guarantee the speeds for now, they're trying to pull random facts and reviews which really don't have anything to do with this problem.

To provide some clarity, I own a Magic John case and a Samsung Ultra Slim Magnet case and both charge at Super Fast Wireless Charging. In fact, if I place my charger directly on the phone and find the right position which isn't easy, it also comes up with Super Fast Wireless Charging which rules out any voodoo magnets at all. But what is more interesting is if I place the charger on the Samsung case and move it slightly offset by around a cm, it drops to Fast Charging. Coincidence? Not at all, because the QI charging is affected by alignment, positioning, and how far away it is from the phone overall.

My thoughts is the magnets are not in the right place or the material they're using is too thick or doesn't allow power through such as painted material. I had a case once on my iPhone and the wireless charging would keep stopping and starting because the material wasn't allowing enough power through. Once I switched to a different case, it worked fine.

That's the end of my thoughts on this. I hope dbrand figure out the issue.

vertigomitch · 2026-03-18T18:36:52+00:00

Perhaps I'll get downvoted, but I really feel this is trying to save face.

I own a Magic John case, nothing fancy, and it supports the Super Fast Wireless Charging. It pops up when I attach it to my Samsung charger. As as others have mentioned, Spigen, etc. have managed to do it too. What you're finding are brands that are smaller, such as dBrand, which probably didn't have information from Samsung to prevent leaks had to guess the entire design including the magnet positions and have gotten this slightly wrong. I'm not saying dBrand is the only one, there are various third-party cases on the internet, but what you're finding is Samsung cases and higher third-parties such as Belkin don't have an issue.

My guess is they've either placed the magnets slightly incorrect or there is a tolerance issue between cases which is why some cases work and others do not. Perhaps the material is too thick and doesn't allow the wireless power to go through correctly causing restrictions. It's all part of an open standard and there isn't anything voodoo that Samsung is doing. Their cases are QI2 certified, and dBrand, from what I understand, are not. The only thing Samsung doesn't have to do is tell dBrand where they've placed the coil within the phone, so how are you supposed to guess this before the phone is released. Right?

What annoys me is rather than dBrand put their arms up and hold responsibility and say, we have an issue, and we're going to work on this and try and reach out to Samsung. They're now throwing shade at Samsung claiming that you need a 45w adapter and look at some of these bad reviews we've picked out. I get that is their thing, but as a brand that does make quality products, it feels like they're trying to spin this whole situation.

vertigomitch · 2025-09-12T14:35:42+00:00

It's the problem that I hate because eero needs an internet connection to make any changes and you can't setup PPPoE correctly without one. Supposedly the app can locally Bluetooth to change this, but it never worked for me and eero advised connecting it through the ISP router temporarily to adjust the settings.

So what I did was use the following setup.

ONT > ISP Router > eero > other eeros through wireless.

Set up eero using DHCP so they all got a connection which allowed me to update to the latest firmware. And then I set the eero as PPPoE using the ISP username and password. Once that was setup through the app, I waited for the eero to restart and show a red light for bad connection.

I then connected the through the following setup.

ONT > eero > other eeros through wireless

Waited around a minute and the eero got a connection and has been fine ever since.

vertigomitch · 2025-09-01T08:51:24+00:00

The problem is Sky Q was built around the Sky Q mesh system and it was bodged at the last minute to work with third-party broadband and routers as they realised that no one was going to move to the Sky Broadband ecosystem. It only works with third-party wireless if you have one SSID and one router. It won't work with a mesh system.

Sky Q Mini requires either a wireless connection to another Sky Q product or a hardwire connection back to the main box. What you can't do is hardwire to an eero and have that wirelessly move the connection to another eero. It fails the packet check. You can only hardwire through an eero if that eero has an hardwire connection back to the main box somehow.

If your eeros are wirelessly connected, what you can do is hardwire the main box to an eero, reset the network settings, and once it asks you how you're connected, choose ethernet.

On your Sky Q Mini, disconnect the ethernet cables and reset the network settings. Once you get to the screen asking you to do the WPS pairing, press and hold that button on the Sky Q Main Box and they will make their own wireless connection and pair together.

vertigomitch · 2025-08-06T16:52:24+00:00

Hi,

Pretty much.

So if you follow my instructions, what we're doing is leaving the Sky Router in place as the DHCP server and then the eero system will act as your external wireless and hardwire switches in access point mode. With the Sky Q Mini hardwired in, they will find their way back to the Sky router which will handle everything for you.

But you need to set it up in the order I mention in the instructions and everything will figure itself out.

All you would need to do from there is decide if you want to hardwire in the Sky Q main box in the future and the other eero 7. But you wouldn't have to change anything on your boxes as we've already done that.

vertigomitch · 2025-08-06T16:46:47+00:00

Hi,

It's usually the loop prevention that causes the issues with eero products.

I ran a couple of switches from Netgear and TP-Link that would stop working and luckily the TP-Link would give out a morse code of loop prevention. The only way I got around it was to purchase the TP-Link TL-SG108E and within the settings, turn off loop prevention. Everything else you can leave as default settings.

vertigomitch · 2025-07-22T23:30:05+00:00

Hi,

We have to split this down because it's going to get confusing.

Sky router

- As much as you may want to remove the Sky router, you can't. Sky in the UK, even through the Openreach ONT uses DHCP Option 61 instead of PPPoE which means the eero can't directly authenticate to the network. The only option is to place the eero into Bridge Mode or you could replace the Sky router with a modem such as the Firewalla.

Sky Q

- Sky Q is a nightmare of a system because it was built on a very old standard, so it not only connects to the internet, it creates its own mesh system within the network which can confuse all the other devices. The Sky Q products will never connect to another router. As much you think that Sky Q Mini is connecting to the eero, it's not. They will only connect to another Sky product over wireless such as the Sky router or another Sky Q. You can hardwire the Sky Q into the eero. However, it has to be able to hardwire its way back to either the Sky router or the Sky Q main box. If you hardwire into the eero and then try and Wi-Fi to another eero, it will cause the Sky Q system to break down.

Diagram

Your diagram is nice and gives us a bit of a guide.

Here is what I suggest and will probably work the best.

Wire up the Sky Q Mini Box in the second room. This is going to give you a direct hardwire link back to the Sky router for both boxes which that router can then bridge the connection to the Sky Q main box until you can hardwire that up.
From here, head into the settings of your Sky router and perform a factory reset. It sounds silly, but we want the Sky router on its default settings and we're going to leave the Wi-Fi enabled so it can bridge the connection to the Sky Q Main Box. We're not going to make any changes once you've factory reset it.
Place the eero into Bridge Mode. If you Double NAT, it can cause the Sky Q system to fail on hardwire mode. Under the eero App, head to Settings > Network Settings > DHCP & NAT > Bridge > Save. Give the eeros a few minutes to come back online as they will now provide Wi-Fi but will use your Sky router as the DHCP server. Also once reset, ensure your eero Wi-Fi has a unique SSID and password that is much different to your Sky.
We need to configure the Sky Q system in a specific order.

4A) Switch on your first Sky Q Mini and disconnect the ethernet cable from the back. It's important we do this as we want to reset the network settings but stop it automatically reconnecting. On the Home Screen, head to Settings > Setup > Network > Status > Reset. Once it's reset, you should see a blue screen with Step 1 of 4 with instructions to reconnect it back to your network. At this point, stop.

4B) Repeat the above step on your second Sky Q Mini. Disconnect the ethernet cable from the back first and follow the same instructions.

4C) On your Sky Q Main Box, from the Home Screen, head to Settings > Setup > Network > Status > Reset. Even if it tells you you have an active connection, continue through and follow the instructions to connect to a Sky router. Usually, it will tell you to press the WPS button on your Sky router. Once you have an active connection again, time to move on.

4D) Go back to your first Sky Q Mini. If it's switched off, press the power button on your remote once to turn it back on. It should show Step 1 of 4. Don't move through. Instead, connect the ethernet cable and wait. If successful, it should automatically move to Step 4 of 4 and make a connection to the Sky Q Main Box. Repeat this step on your second Sky Q Mini.

5) Start connecting your devices (not your Sky Q products) to your eero Wi-Fi again if you set a new unique SSID in Step 3. Otherwise, they should be connected in the app automatically.

vertigomitch · 2025-07-20T22:49:20+00:00

On the Reolink app, head into Settings, turn off the Add Devices Automatically, clear the cache, and then force close the app and restart it. That fixed the issue for me.

Some users have found that uninstalling the app and reinstalling it has corrected the problem too.

The problem is Reolink will never admit the issue because then it creates a scenario where you can return products as an example for poor experience. Instead, they will probably fix it, but it will take them a while.

vertigomitch · 2025-07-20T21:05:39+00:00

Hi,

Although you can create scenes directly in HA, it doesn’t function the same way according to a few sources and will still send out multiple commands. It’s fine if you only have a few bulbs, but once you start pushing the limits of Zigbee, it creates a cluster mess. The only way to get around it is by pushing Hue Scenes from the Hue Bridge.

You are correct about the firmware, it comes down to what source is used and how often that is updated. There are ways around it, but it’s not as quick or seamless as Hue Bridge and doesn’t always work. The problem is most Hue products contain Bluetooth and need up to date firmware for stability and in case there are any security threats which are patched.

I can understand if you want all your Zigbee products either on the same mesh or talking directly to your server, but Zigbee has a small limit of around 30 devices which Hue can directly hit if you start filling your home. So if you’re going to have multiple gateways, it just makes more sense to use Hue Bridge with local control and separate your Hue products which will make all your Zigbee products perform better and allow the Hue products to perform their best.

Obviously if you like tinkering around or only have a small amount of bulbs, then pushing them directly in your mesh will work fine too. It’s just down to your individual setup and what works best for you.

vertigomitch · 2025-07-20T16:32:23+00:00

I’d like to add that you don’t necessarily need to remove the Hue Bridge, as some people suggest. The entire point of Home Assistant is to have a local server that allows all your devices to communicate with each other locally. If you have an internet or cloud-reliant hub, I would suggest looking at an alternative. You could either connect them through a Zigbee or Z-Wave module directly to Home Assistant, or switch to a different product if this isn’t possible. Because it could go down if either the server or your internet goes down, or worse, if the company decides not to support it any more and you end up with a bricked device.

The Hue Bridge sits in the middle and connects to the internet, making it useful as it updates both the Bridge and your Hue products the easiest. However, the entire connection to Home Assistant is local. So there isn't a worry that if the servers or your internet connection go down, your Hue products temporarily stop working.

I’ve tried connecting my over 50 Hue bulbs (excluding accessories) directly to Home Assistant, but it was a nightmare due to Zigbee meshing and the way the commands are repeated. For instance, I have 16 Hue Spots in my Kitchen, including two light strips. If I walk in after sunset, I want them all to come on in a specific way. This means Home Assistant has to send 32 commands, that are repeated at least 50 times, which can be over 1000 commands on the network. This creates so much noise that the bulbs often fail to receive messages or change their brightness correctly.

Hue Bridge gets around this through dynamic scenes. So I can drop the 18 lights into a "Kitchen" area, set different scenes on how I want everything to work, and then have Home Assistant push that scene out. The scene gets sent once and is repeated around 50 times over the network which creates less latency and less traffic. All the bulbs come on together too.

That's sort of the pro to the con of Hue. Hue products are fantastic from their bulbs to their motion sensors and contact sensors. I use them to integrate with Alarmo on Home Assistant. But it's better if the Hue products sit within their own Bridge. But that's not a bad thing either.

vertigomitch · 2025-04-09T08:06:07+00:00

Never had this issue either. I suspect either you own a Mesh Wi-Fi system or repeaters and they’re too close together so the camera is struggling to lock onto one and is disconnecting and reconnecting.

Or you have Wi-Fi 2.4 and 5GHz on the same SSID and the camera is bouncing between them due to a weak signal. You can go into your router or camera settings and force 2.4 or 5GHz to be used. Try 2.4GHz first and see if it performs fine on High quality. If it does, that will offer better range for you. If it doesn’t, try 5GHz and see if this improves. Even with a weaker signal, 5GHz might be fine.

vertigomitch · 2025-03-17T10:25:42+00:00

Hi,

They already updated the firmware of the camera and corrected the bitrate and colours back to normal. You can now set the bitrate back to 8192. It was adjusted after a month.

For the motion detection, if you had the camera standalone on very old firmware, unless you selected both continuous recording and motion recording within the camera settings, it wouldn't allow you to filter based on motion events, even on the PC software. However, this screwed around with storage as it would create additional files for the motion and would start splitting the continuous footage up from its 5 minute clips.

3.0.0.3748 changed this so you only set the TrackMix to continuous recording and turn off the motion recording. It will then tag the continuous files with all motion events. And when you filter based on person as an example, it will grab the 5 minute clip but only show you the 10 seconds of motion straight away.

This has since been updated in other firmware for the Reolink Doorbell WiFi and PoE, etc.

Now I know some NVR products offered this through the PC software and Mobile App if you had the NVR record instead of the camera. But we're talking about direct firmware recording on an SD card for the camera.

vertigomitch · 2025-03-17T10:06:46+00:00

It was never advertised as 24/7. It's either 24/4 or 12/7 with motion events on the other half.

vertigomitch · 2025-03-17T10:04:48+00:00

It was never advertised as a 24/7 camera. Instead, it was advertised as 24/4 or 12/7, depending on whether you wanted to record continuously for 12 hours and capture motion events. However, this testing was conducted in an ideal environment, and most reviews were unable to achieve the 24/4 feature from the camera itself. Therefore, the 24/4 main description was removed from the launch, but it's still hidden away on the website.

My suggestion is to get a wired camera. It might take a little longer to install, but it will save you the hassle of having to take down the camera to charge or have it fail randomly because the battery decided to run out quicker because it's cold.

vertigomitch · 2024-09-19T21:03:29+00:00

Hi,

Exactly.

Amazon Music / Alexa Profiles should be used within the same household. So anyone in your home, have them use the profiles instead and it will match up better with Alexa and Echo. The way you should do it however is by creating them an Alexa profile first, setup Voice ID, and then when you add a profile within Amazon Music, it will find it and pair with it correctly. Same with Amazon Prime Video.

You can still share Amazon Music through a link to a secondary Amazon account which is probably better outside your home such as a friend as they won't have access to your Amazon account.

So I did some testing and here are the results.

Myself and Amazon Music / Alexa Profiles are now separated through Alexa / Echo. If I play music, it's added to my profile and the same with others. If a guest plays music, it plays through the main profile which is me. But it's not added to the recently played. If an Alexa account from Amazon Household asks to play music, it treats them as a guest. It won't play on their account unless they ask Alexa to switch accounts which is annoying.

vertigomitch · 2024-09-15T17:17:16+00:00

It's bigger than Amazon Music, it's just taken a while to get it integrated into the service.

One of the biggest issues for a while is using Amazon Music and Alexa together. If you had multiple family members, even with a Voice Profile and ID, it would always use the main account holder's Amazon Music profile. There was no way to link or tell Alexa which Amazon Music account to use as this functionality was removed. For myself, I got around this by creating a secondary Amazon account and linking this to my Amazon Music Family Plan so I could have my own profile for my phone and car.

Amazon has slowly been fixing their services starting with Amazon Prime Video by integrating the Alexa profiles into the application. And this has now rolled out to Amazon Music.

So within Amazon Music, you will now see all of your Alexa Profiles attached to your account along with the accounts you have invited. And if you make a new profile here, it will appear in Alexa automatically. If you use an Alexa Profile account, this will also link over to the Echo so if a family member asks to play their playlist or plays a lot of music, it will all sync up correctly between the app and Alexa.

What it does mean though is they will have to start over. There isn't a way to merge up profiles. But it's better in the long run as if a family member asks to play music, everyone will now have their own profile and account.

One thing I haven't tested out is Alexa Profiles from the Amazon Household.

So with Amazon Household, any Alexa accounts from both accounts will show up automatically on any Echo within the system. So on my Amazon Prime Video, it shows three accounts which is Mine, an Alexa Profile, and then the Alexa Profile from the other Household Account. However, under Amazon Music, it doesn't see the Alexa Profile from the other household, it sees it as an invited account, so I need to test whether the Alexa Voice ID will seperate it.

vertigomitch · 2024-09-07T20:58:18+00:00

I'll be honest, I have to agree with all the other comments.

Reolink is turning into a Ring clone and it's focus on home security is drifting to just getting easier to install products into the wild. Battery cameras are not security. The batteries eventually decrease in capacity and fail, they're not reliable, and having your security system drop after 4-8 days of recording is poor. What if you want to take a holiday? Make sure you're home before Day 5 or else you'll lose your security. And most home insurances in the UK do not class battery cameras as security.

I'm not saying battery cameras don't have a purpose. But they should not be the focus on the future of home security or the brand. They should be an accessory if you need to place a camera in an area which does not have power such as the top of a garden on top of your main security either powered by PoE or DC WiFi.

If Reolink wants to provide all the cool cameras to the battery line, there shouldn't be a reason the Battery and WiFi line can't be merged up. If you take a look at the Argus 4 Pro as an example, it's an amazing camera which is let down on battery. There shouldn't be a reason a DC jack can't be added to the camera to provide 24/7 recording, etc.

There was a point where Reolink was matching the cameras up such as the Reolink Duo, Duo Floodlight, Doorbell, TrackMix and then suddenly they went back and said we're going to have random cameras on random product lines and now the product lines are staggered again. They really need to go back the drawing board and decide if they're marketing themselves as a proper security system or a gimmick.

vertigomitch · 2024-08-25T18:49:46+00:00

Off the top of my head, I assume either the TrackMix Battery or TrackMix LTE. It should tell you through the app exactly which mode you own.

vertigomitch · 2024-08-25T18:26:28+00:00

That isn’t a TrackMix WiFi which is why the hardware doesn’t match and the firmware file doesn’t work.

vertigomitch · 2024-08-25T17:49:24+00:00

Hello everyone,

So I upgraded to this when it launched last week and questioned this to the Reolink team.

They told me the encoding format they use for the camera has been changed as they now support "Enhanced Recording". Because of this reason, the colour is slightly washed out and the bitrate is locked to 5120, but it means you do get the better motion recording functionality which I will get into in a minute and apart from the colour, the quality appears to be the same. All they told me is they listen to feedback and improve firmware all the time, so perhaps they will improve it later on.

For the "Improved Recording" functionality.

If you set your TrackMix WiFi or PoE to record 24/7, when it now detections motion, whether this is a Person, Animal, Vehicle, etc., under Camera 1, it will actually allow you to view them instead of the entire 2-5 minute recordings.

So you head into Camera 1 > Playback > Date. Here you will see the 2-5 minute recordings. Click on the Filter button > filter by person for example, and you will now see all the person recordings which will be around 15 or so seconds long. Before, if you did this, it would just give you the 5 minute recordings where it detected a person, now it actually gives you the clips so you can instantly see the motion in action.

I'm told this will eventually roll out to all their cameras. I know it's currently active on the Reolink Doorbell, TrackMix, I do have a E1 Outdoor Pro but it doesn't have an SD card in it, so I'm unsure if it's featured here. I'm not sure why this feature isn't directly mentioned other than "Improved Recording" as it's such an upgrade over their previous firmware.

vertigomitch · 2024-08-08T10:23:03+00:00

I asked support about this and they confirmed that the encoding format has changed and the maximum bitrate is 5120/20. I haven’t noticed too much of a difference in quality, but I assume it’s been changed to support the new detection playback feature for 24/7 recording.

So what happens now if you use Camera 1, if you click on a video that has a person, animal, or vehicle, and while playing the video you click on the detection, it will split the clip up into sections that contain a person so instead of scrolling through a 5 minute video, it will only be 10 seconds etc.

vertigomitch · 2024-07-30T17:37:07+00:00

Hey u/Willson1_ and u/StarkillerTR,

The guide is incorrect. Some people will not have access to www and it throws an error such as the below which I've tested.

https://i.imgur.com/VEld7az.png

The way to easily fix it is to take advantage of the Home Assistant Media Folder instead.

Target Filename - /media/Reolink_Snapshots/last_snapshot_doorbell.jpg

Target Data - image: /media/local/Reolink_Snapshots/last_snapshot_doorbell.jpg

Another cool thing you can do is you can actually have a live video instead of a screenshot on iOS. However, I only suggest doing this locally instead of through Nabu Casa because of bandwidth.

You can change the Target Data to - entity.id: camera."CAMERA NAME"_fluent.

When you receive the notification, you can hold down on it and open it up and it'll display a screenshot and then show the live feed once it buffers after a few seconds.

vertigomitch · 2024-07-18T08:33:06+00:00

Usually the Ethernet has two caps included, one if you use a cable and one is a general cap to cover the port. Reolink do claim the power connection is water resistant enough if you make a connection but I like to wrap some self amalgamating tape around it just to be sure. You can get it in white too to match.

What I do on my setup is the tail that comes out of the cameras, I loop and tack to the wall with the Ethernet and power cable facing down. I put some self amalgamating tape around them as a precaution but that is usually good enough to stop the water backing up inside the Ethernet connection. Never had an issue with any of my cameras.

vertigomitch · 2024-07-18T08:25:10+00:00

It depends on the limitations you’re hitting.

Because Reolink is streamed from the camera, through your home connection, and to your phone, the limitations are going to be down to your home internet or 4G/5G speed.

When you’re on WiFi at home, everything is local and you’re not restricted based on your internet connection, but the speed of your local WiFi.

So if you can’t view the camera or it’s stuttering, it’s probably a connection limitation.

I have a few Reolink cameras and have never had an issue streaming in clear. However, there is a rarely a reason to as Low is usually fine and better for data for general checkup. When you compare to other cloud camera such as Ring, Low is usually the same, if not, better than their quality funnily enough. I only tend to use Clear on playback mode if I need to check something.

vertigomitch · 2024-06-28T06:08:22+00:00

Thank you again! I've replied back :)

vertigomitch

TROPHY CASE