RLC-823S1 4K PoE PTZ Camera, 5X Optical Zoom for Outdoor Security

These cameras are awesome . I am not aware of another home or small business cameras that even come close to these , Have tried other competing company products and was gravely disappointed. For a time I had the major home security company install their cameras and they told me they were installing the same cameras banks use NO WAY/. A huge problem with other cameras is missed video they just do not capture important events so what is the point. Everything on these cameras all advertised features are as advertised . The only consideration that these cameras do not have a person might want depending on your situation is night camera capability these cameras must have some ambient light . Which the built in spot light and infra red do provide . The zoom tilt pan features are top notch . If you are at all D I Y they aren't difficult to install I ran the cable trenching some of it and even though I am not a tech person was able to handle the connections to the NVR which is simple I managed to get hooked up to TV and Computer Have not yet tried phone app. I at one time was a government security officer and can tell you these cameras are very close to the function and capabilities of the cameras used by the government security systems . These cameras do not miss anything with 24 hour recording and the ability to view only alarm points or to literally view every second is fantastic the picture quality is extremely good . For the money paid if you have serious security concerns this is a serious camera and a very good value for the money . Quality is going to cost however I do feel at this price point and the high quality of these cameras it is a great value . I have had this system in use for several weeks now and simply have found them to be a professional level camera and hugely better than so called professional company installs. I do believe the sound quality good however my location presents problems with a high volume of background noise and wind yet mostly can make out voices and what is being said so considering the local I do think good sound quality. Without reservation I can feel very comfortable to recommend these cameras . They have been reliable and are high power . I should add the patrol feature is really a nice feature along with the auto rotate and being able to set schedules a lot of programming choice which is easy to use. The only related subject I am a little uncertain about is customer service Firstly I would highly recommend to them to enclose an instruction book their is a quick start guide .Instructions on how to use the system to me is the one weak point . I went online to website to use chat for help with how to configure the computer set up which for me was the most difficult part . I literally got abandoned during the chat . Waited somewhat over 10 minutes with absolutely no response back from them . In fairness to them the next day I did receive an apologetic E mail explaining they became overwhelmed with customers reaching out so that much is a plus. However still leaves a sour taste . So that brings me back to good old fashion instructions would be a huge asset in my opinion and that is my personal complaint most all tech related companies . Again they did initiate a response to me offering tp pick back up on chat with assistance and I have never experienced that before . So all said I will go 5 star because they have by far the best home owner small business security system I have been able to find the performance of this system is light years ahead of their competitors at least to date that is my experience. Yes you can most def. go cheaper but will have poor quality and if your investing in security this is an affordable professional quality system

I have MANY 823A cameras. They're NOT perfect - but they're a good value for what they are; PTZ, POE, IR Blasters for night vision, LED Blasters for security as well as an alarm with scheduling, 2-way audio, Auto/Pet/Human tracking (regardless of how good/bad it may be). I was looking to get a couple more but cannot - unavailable. So I got these. Two of them. Next generation, right?! Should be better right?! Welp,, I suppose they are in most ways WITH THE EXCEPTION of one very, very, very fundamental way. This next generaton camera USING NO ZOOM yields an image that's equivalent the 823A at 50% zoom. Essentially, the field of view at 0% zoom is too narrow. You can't see much under normal circumstances. Now,, if your intention is to mount this camera somewhere super far away - then that's probably okay, however, this does NOT work for monitoring the perimeter for the avarage home. You're simply zoomed in too much at 0% and can't see much of an area. Now, if you want to zoom in on a fleas butt - it's perfect for that - but I don't think that's what most people are looking for. These are expensive - I'd send them back if they still made the 823A. Not sure what I can do now. ** EDIT 12/14/2024: Currently working w/Scarlett at Reolink regarding somehow swapping out the S2 units for S1 units (with a FoV close to the original 823A's). I don't remember the S1 units being an option when I first placed the order back in October - but perhaps I missed it?? Regardless if it was my issue or not, if Reolink can help me out here, that would put them squarely at "6-stars".. ** EDIT 12/24/2024: Reolink had me return the S2 that was still returnable (due to the time frame) and gave me a $30 credit for the other S2 that was too old to return. This was likely "my bad". As I said, I don't remember the "S1" being an option when I ordered the S2 - but it very well may have been. In the end, the S2 FoV is too mag'd for my use, the FoV on the S1 is slightly more mag'd than the 823A, but usable. If the 823A was still available, I'd have opt'd for that instead. REOLINK customer service was VERY on top of this. VERY. Probably the BEST Customer Service I've ever seen. The polar opposite of Tesla. Thank you for your prompt attention REOLINK.

It's rare that any tech device wows me these days, but the Reolink had me genuinely impressed with its 16x OPTICAL zoom and high quality video and image capture. This is a true license-plate reading surveillance camera for the home consumer. I don't think there's any other surveillance camera targeted for the home consumer with a 16x optical lens right now, and that high-powered, true optical (not digital) zoom gives this camera many potential uses. If you have a large yard and want to capture wildlife, for example, or if you want to surveil your entire block, this camera can do it easily. My criticisms of the camera mostly stem from a few oversights in its design, which can make installation unnecessarily challenging. I had an electrician help me install the camera, and it still took about 3 hours to do the installation. The main challenge stemmed from the ethernet cable connector, which is coupled with the power supply connector. To power the camera, you can either connect an ethernet cable using Power Over Ethernet (POE), which I did, or you can use the power adapter to connect to an outlet for power and connect to the internet wirelessly. The problem is that if you want to thread the cable behind the camera and through a wall, you have to deal with the fact that the ethernet and power connectors are coupled, i.e. very bulky. In addition, the ethernet connector has a weatherproof shield permanently attached, making it even bulkier. We ended up having to drill a 1-inch hole through our exterior wall, which I was not happy about. Given the permanently attached weatherproof shield on the ethernet connector, it seems Reolink expects people to leave the cables dangling on the outside wall. This was my original plan, to attach the cables to the outside wall, but the electrician insisted not doing it that way. Anyway, I think it was a design flaw not to have the cables with a slimmer profile for threading through a small hole in the wall. My only other criticism of the camera is that pan/tilt has a bit of a delay and the app is often unresponsive to my finger presses on the pan/tilt dial. As others have noted, focusing is not something you want to do while you're actively capturing an event, but in my experience, I've only needed to set the focus once and I can pan/tilt 360 degrees without needing to refocus. So focusing, while slow, hasn't been an issue for me. Prior to getting the Reolink I was in the Tapo ecosystem. I prefer the Tapo app for being more user-friendly, but the Reolink definitely feels like an upgrade in every possible way. I have the top-of-the-line Tapo camera at the moment, the C660, but that feels like a cheap toy compared to the Reolink. The Reolink is a very impressive, no-playing-around camera for people who are serious about surveillance.

I have no regrets purchasing this camera. The setup and configuration are straightforward; however, I suggest updating the firmware immediately if you intend to use FTP, as I struggled to get a connection until the camera firmware was updated. The other issue I noticed was with auto-tracking; if the subject being tracked moves diagonally towards the bottom corners, the camera fails to continue tracking more often than not. I think that the patrol function is great and very useful; however, the ‘panning’ motor noise is quite noticeable. I also noticed that when the “Auto return to monitor point” is disabled to use the “Time Lapse” feature, it sometimes doesn’t function even though the app shows that it is enabled, which requires a reboot to restore the auto return function. Other than these minor bugs, the image quality is great even at 16x zoom, and the build quality is fantastic. I rate this item as a recommended buy.

I own multiple Reolink products including the OMVI 3i, E1 Zoom and Trackmix and find the company's products to be solid. This camera has an excellent lens and does a great job when manually zooming from the Reolink app day or night. Night vision is excellent. Focus is a bit slow but usable. Point it at a fixed position where you are zoomed in to a far away point like a driveway entrance, bird feeders, outbuilding, and it does a great job. Field of view up close is very narrow as you would expect from a 16x camera like this at zero zoom. Where it completely falls down is tracking moving objects. Even at the highest motion / tracking sensitivity it is so inconsistent that it is unusable. Hopefully they can fix this with a firmware update but based on other reviews it seems to be an ongoing problem. If you want to fix the camera on a far away point it has a high value for the cost but if you are tracking objects in a smaller back yard go with the OMVI series or the Trackmix, you will be much happier.

Decent camera, large camera, cobbled by lack of basic features and frustrating and bizarre software. 1. Resolution is good, nice zoom feature for live view only, but a super limited field of view. It's so limited that unless you mount this camera in a defensible corner vs a flat structure like front of a house/garage, it will miss quite a bit. 2. Doesn't take much for a simple genius to walk in at a side angle to the camera to defeat the reason it's there, simply because the camera has no side detection - it won't pickup/track any object (vehicle, person, animal) unless that object has already passed through the camera's detection cone. I have 2 Eufy cameras that have built in 180deg detection - if movement is detected outside the camera lens field of view, the camera will pan and tilt towards that movement. 3. This part is just baffling and annoying - Reolink software has a metric ton of controls, but no configuration backup feature. While you can easily reset the unit to factory defaults (see my screen cap), you can never backup or restore any custom settings. Kinda sucks because when the camera occasionally gets out of focus for instance, I have to refer to of all things, screen caps of each device setting screen to reset PTZ values. In 2026 we're still using 2005 software LOL! If you need a camera that is highly visible (no one will mistake this for a childish Ring camera), will cover a narrow area, and has good resolution, this unit is a great choice. If you need a camera for security purposes, can detect threats even along a a flat wall, and is managed by software that includes a backup feature, look elsewhere. I'll be using the factory reset in a few weeks though, right after I replace this camera.

I had a problem with the controls on this camera, one camera out of 7 and a NVR - 3 PTZ and 4 stationary. While getting support took a lot of troubleshooting with the Reolink team to make sure it was actually a faulty PTZ camera, they sent me a replacement camera in the end. The cameras are very well made and have pretty stunning picture quality, tracking quality, and great notification abilities. There are many great settings such as painting exclusion zone for unwanted areas and pet, person and vehicle detection. You do have to keep spiders away from the cameras or you will get false person and animal detection from the webs. It would be nice if the cameras could somehow differentiate spider webs but I understand this would probably be very difficult from a software perspective. Great system overall and you are not required to purchase cloud storage to get advanced features like a lot of the other camera systems like Blink which is a big deal for me. I hate spending a ton of money on a camera system to get totally extorted with a monthly fee just to use all the features like Blink does to you.

Updated 4/8/2026 As I have worked more with the camera, several critical issues have surfaced which force me to change this from a 5-star to a 2-star review. This camera has 3 basic modes: Still (sit where you point it), Patrol (move from zone to zone on a schedule), and Auto Track (identify and follow an object as it moves.) The first two modes work fine - however they provide limited security. Auto Tracking is really what you want use to follow an intruder and cover a larger area with a single camera. Sadly, the Auto Tracking mode is barely functional for the following reasons: A) the processor in this camera is woefully under-powered and can apparently only keep up with tracking a person walking at a normal speed when it is more than 5' from the camera. If the person walks normally close to the camera (like when you place the camera on the corner of a building and a walking path goes around this corner) the camera loses tracking and you lose the PTZ feature of being able to cover 2 sides of a building with one camera. If the person walks really slowly (think old man in a walker) the camera will track him around the corner. Sadly, most burglars are not old men in walkers. Also, if a person is jogging, or running, in the field of view, Auto Tracking will be unable to follow them. B) To make things worse, the really powerful optical zoom feature of this camera is completely lost in Auto Track mode (it only works in Patrol mode) - so the camera is completely unable to zoom in on a burglar to get a better picture. In fairness to this camera, you get what you pay for. Cameras that provide an outstanding Auto Track mode typically cost significantly more money (ex: Axis Q6355-LE $3,179.) And this camera "looks" like a professional model (even though internally it is not) so you may get a deterrent value by mounting it on your house - thieves will simply move to an easier house to rob, but the bottom line is that this camera will not stop a determined burglar who understands its weaknesses. If you don't care about Auto Tracking mode, then I would highly recommend this camera as it is a great deal for the price. However, if you want to use Auto Track mode, I would recommend that get another more powerful camera and not waste your time with this one. ---------------------- Original Review ------------------- This is an amazing camera if you need to cover a large area and track objects as they move. The optical zoom produces near perfect images at any distance. Compare this to (see images below) using digital zoom on a similar camera without optical zoom and you will see that the clarity is orders of magnitude better. Note: both image were taken at a distance of about 5 feet. The only weakness I found was that when tracking an object in the dark, the camera would activate a bright light after a few seconds which would cause it to lose tracking as the object continued to move away. The bright light is a feature that you can turn off though if you don't like this and the tracking will work as expected - you just won't get a color image. I highly recommend this camera.

16x optical zoom ! 4k ! Auto tracking ! Great visual detterant. Absolutely great for long distance road/ gate/ entry monitoring . Fantastic buy. Fantastic price. Great fun. 16x optical zoom, so can mount it so high / far , no one can grab it or the inbuilt footage & the detail is perfect.

Installed the RLC-823S1 for driveway and yard coverage and it’s been reliable. 4K looks clean during the day, 5x optical zoom actually helps identify plates and faces at a distance, and auto-tracking plus person/vehicle/animal detection cuts down on junk alerts. Color night vision with the spotlights is good up close; IR reaches farther when you need black-and-white. PoE made wiring simple (one cable for power and data), two-way audio works, and local microSD recording means no required subscription. App is straightforward for live view, presets, and playback. It’s a larger, heavier unit and the motors make some noise when it pans, but for a weatherproof outdoor PTZ with real zoom and smart detection it’s a strong value. Recommended if you want one camera to cover a wide area without monthly fees.

Excellent value for a 16X PTZ camera. We've had it installed for several months with no problems. Exceeds my expectations for a consumer POE camera. Would purchase again in a heartbeat. Bear in mind, we use the Home Hub Pro versus an NVR or direct access to the camera.

*early review, only one week in I am blow away, the set-up was a breeze, the image quality is very good, they are not trying to sell you a subscription at every turn, the amount of customization for motion detection, recording, push notifications, camera patrolling... really really great! Will the swivel motors last? I hope so! Currently have it set to patrol an area every night, moving everything couple minutes. One limitation I have found is with the "non-detection zone". I would like to set up zones for different views of the camera while it is patrolling, but the same zone is applied to matter where the camera points. This is understandable if you have a fixed camera, but with a PTZ I would like to see the option for multiple zones.

デカい重い、予想の1.5倍大きかった 風景のLive配信用に購入しました 昼間はPTZで楽しいのですが、夜にはF値がもう少し明るいといいですね 当機種は最大F1.6と記載されてます 他にH.VIEWも2台使用してますが、それはF1.0です 明るさは正義、星まで映ります