A battery-powered surveillance camera packed with features
Reolink has bet big to step into the private market with this battery-powered outdoor camera. With an affordable price and high image quality, this camera will be a strong competitor and an easy choice for us to list as one of the best cameras in the market.
Argus 3 Pro's image quality
The Argus 3 Pro manages to deliver an outstanding picture even though the camera is in the lower price regions. The camera has a resolution of 2k (2560x1440) and 4mp with CMOS sensor. The image keeps a very high quality during the day but a slightly worse at night when it comes to moving objects. However, with the built-in 230 lm LED, you can regain some of the lost image quality at night. The lamp is partially controlled by movement with the built-in PIR sensor as well as the ability to turn on the lamp manually in the app.
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Sound and sound quality
The sound quality remains the standard one would expect from a camera in this price range. Not the best but good enough for this kind of monitoring. The camera also supports two-way communication. With the Reolink app, you can easily activate the microphone to talk to whoever is in front of the camera. Another nice feature is that you can choose a pre-recorded voice message that plays as soon as the camera detects movement or when you choose to trigger the alarm with the app. Something we miss is being able to choose how many times this sound is played when detecting motion when it is played back three times. We wish the pre-installed alarm sound sounded a little louder, but the built-in speaker has its limitations, of course.
Solar panel as an accessory
For about 400kr it is possible to buy for one solar panel which powers the camera via a weather-protected 4m long USB cable. We have not had time to test whether this panel manages to power the camera continuously in our oblong land. But we suspect that if you live further north, you may need to manually charge your camera when it's darkest in the year. The solar panel comes with a wall mount and associated screws and plug.
Battery life
As usual, battery life depends on how you use your camera. But when we have used the camera and tested it, we do not think that the battery life is enough for a camera like this because the camera has to be mounted down to charge. However, Rolink's solar panel solves this problem. Unfortunately, the included USB cable is not weatherproof like the cable belonging to the solar panel and is therefore not designed to provide continuous power to the camera.
Local Storage
Unlike many other security cameras, the Argus 3 Pro has room for a micro-SD card of up to 128GB. On this you can store all your movies with the ability to overwrite the oldest files when space on the card runs out.
Storage in the cloud
Reolink offers a free package to store your files in the cloud. This includes 1 camera, 1GB storage and 7 days of history. You will then access your movies via computer or the app.
Smart home compatibility
Currently, you can connect the Argus 3 Pro to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Of course, we lack support for HomeKit and IFTTT.
The Reolink app
The app does what it's supposed to, it's good that no one has tried to reinvent the wheel. The onboarding process works well and smoothly by connecting the camera to the app me QR code. It was a bit annoying when the camera didn't stop talking before you had time to pair it to the app. The app has built-in motion detection that can tell the difference between people and cars. There is also support for push and email notifications. Another nice feature is that the camera can play a timelapse so you can quickly go through movies, however for this to work you need to have a memory card installed. Darkmode is also available.
