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Earlier this year, we started bringing you coverage of cameras from Reolink (you can see that here). While we hadn’t had a chance to review their cameras before, they seemed to have some interesting offerings. Since then, we were able to get a hold of the Reolink Argus 4 Pro to get hands-on impressions. The camera just launched today, so read on to see what we thought.
Reolink Argus 4 Pro: what is it?
At it’s core, the Reolink Argus 4 Pro is the type of camera that I have come to like very much. It’s battery-powered and uses WiFi to communicate, which means it’s the sort of camera that you can place just about anywhere you want. Better yet, they can be immediately hooked up to a large solar panel that charges up the cells inside, keeping the batteries topped off. This means you can also have it recording and triggering more often, as you’re not concerned about the battery running down.
What was new to me was the fact that it gives a 180-degree view (left to right) of what it’s pointed at. This is accomplished via two lenses that are angled, allowing them to cover the wide angle. This gives you a great view of what’s going on in the yard. Even when the lights go down, you can still watch things. If there’s enough light (say, from a porch light), you’ll see things in color; it can even trigger it’s own LED spotlight to show in color. Barring that, you can still get the black-and-white night vision look at things.
Setting it up
Setting up the Reolink Argus 4 Pro is pretty painless. Once you unbox the camera, you’ll want to go ahead and charge it up. While that’s happening, you’ll install their app so you can configure the camera. Within the app, you get the phone talking to the camera, and then you get it setup on your wifi. Then it’s time to take it outside and get it placed where you want it.
Often with a camera setup, you’re starting off immediately having to drill holes to get the mounts in. And you can certainly do that with the Reolink Argus 4 Pro, but you don’t have to. Instead, they come with brackets and straps that allow you to strap the camera on to, say, a fence post or a tree. This allows you to easily move the camera around, figuring out the best place for the coverage you need. I liked this quite a bit, and moved the camera around as plants grew and started blocking sight lines.
Even through storms and winds, those straps held both the camera and the solar panel in place without any issues. I think once you’ve got a permanent location figured out, then the standard mounts will the more reliable path to take. Until that’s settled, though, you’ll find that the straps they send will get the job done quickly.
Storing the videos
Out of the box, you can easily get the camera going, and monitor things on your phone. However, you won’t have any history saved to review what was going on. That is easily solved by popping an inexpensive microSD card in, and you immediately have history you can review.
Alternatively, if you have a NAS setup (I don’t, so I could not test this), you’re able to stream the records to that. This will give you a little more security if someone just comes along and snags the camera. They’ve also got some verbiage about something called the Reolink Home Hub, that is currently up for pre-order (at $89.99). What is that? Basically, it’s small dedicated NAS that you can expand with microSD cards, and have all of your Reolink cameras writing their recordings to it. This protects the recordings, as those are inside your home. So even if the camera disappears, you’ll have your recordings.
Using the Reolink Argus 4 Pro
Once I had the microSD card in the Reolink Argus 4 Pro, it was time to sit back, and let it monitor my backyard. With that, you’ve got a fairly binary choice to make – do you want it notifying you any time it detects motion, or no alerts at all? Ultimately, I ended up turning off alerting, as it was pinging my phone quite a bit. Unlike some other cameras I’ve tested, there’s no way to put it into a Home or Away mode, or even build schedules that could adjust when it alerts or not.
Something like that feels like it could be enabled in firmware though, so my hope is that it is functionality that they’ll end up building in. With that, then you can really have control over getting alerts when you’re away from home, and leave it to just record motion for review later when you’re home.
For my use case, I just had it watching what was going on in the backyard. We’ve got ducks there for my kids’ 4H project, so the main thing we were watching were them. It allowed us to check in on them when we weren’t at home. It also allowed me to keep an eye out for if anything (say, foxes or raccoons) came through at night trying to see if they could get themselves a tasty morsel. Fortunately, they’ve stayed safe, and no unwelcome critters have come through.
Wrapping things up
The Reolink Argus 4 Pro has a lot going for it. It’s simple to setup, you don’t have to buy into an extensive ecosystem to get it up and running (ie, it’s quite happy running by itself), and you can easily hook the solar panel in for endless electrons. While the alerting configuration could use some refinement, I came away from this test very pleased with how this wide-angle camera worked, and how well it detected motion and recorded snapshots of that motion.
As we mentioned at the outset, the Reolink Argus 4 Pro was just released today. Eventually, the MSRP for the camera will be $239.99, which includes the solar panel (something most companies won’t include without an extra charge). However, since we’re in the launch window, there’s a very healthy 35% discount on, which drops the price to $153.99. For a solar-powered, 4K wide-angle wireless camera, that’s a bargain of a price. If you want to pick one up, you can get yours over at Amazon, or directly from reolink.com
Reolink Argus 4 Pro Features
- 4K UHD 180° blindspot-free View
- All-day Color Vision
- 30% More Battery Life
- Wi-Fi 6 Ready, Smooth 4K Streaming
- Easy Installation Everywhere
- Enhanced Smart Detection with Accurate Alerts
- Diverse Local Storage (with support of 128GB SD card and Reolink Home Hub)
- Remote Access Anytime Anywhere
- 24-Hour Battery in Just 10 Mins of Charge
Reolink Argus 4 Pro Tech Specs
