Just an FYI so that it's documented somewhere... I've been running a battery drain test on the 2nd Gen Battery Doorbell since July 12th just so I could see how long it lasts in real world tests.

That test is now finished and it ended up being almost 3 months. 11 weeks and 5 days to be exact.

This was run with it connected to Home Assistant (though a Home Hub), and I'd estimate it averaged somewhere between 5-10 recordings per day.

If I can get my hands on one of the solar charging bases my next test is going to be seeing how well that can keep it charged.

I stumbled across what appears to be a new product that I didn't even know they were coming out with and I haven't seen anyone else mention yet: https://reolink.com/product/reolink-solar-panel-2s

A solar panel with a built-in 5900mAh battery.

https://support.reolink.com/articles/57251814692249-Introduction-to-Reolink-Solar-Panel-2S/

Looks like it works similar to that RLA-BP1 battery pack in that it can power battery cameras directly when it's too cold for the camera to accept a charge.

It can also power the new MagiCam by bypassing its AA batteries.

For years I’ve been asking Reolink to make small cameras, ones that are less conspicuous than any of their other indoor cameras. As a user of Wyze for just as long as I’ve been a user of Reolink (9 years), I’ve always wanted a Reolink camera the size of Wyze’s small cameras. I don’t really use Wyze’s cameras anymore (and never did for actual security) due to their low quality video bit rate, so I wanted Reolink to do it and do it better.

Well, with the Argus MagiCam they’ve done it. Have they done it better though?

For those unaware of the details of this camera be sure to check out the official product page, but the key selling points of this are:

• It's small, about 2.6” wide and about 1” thick.
• Will work like a battery camera when running off of batteries (uses AA’s)
• Will work like a powered camera when plugged into power (can record continuously)
• Has a magnetic back so it has good versatility for mounting

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If you want to skip to a certain part, here are the topics I'll be covering:

• UNBOXING
• VIDEO QUALITY
• VIDEO EXAMPLES
• POWER MODES AND BATTERY SETTINGS
• PROS/CONS
• CONCLUSION

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UNBOXING

https://preview.redd.it/nyqwnw9zin6h1.png?width=1410&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a314c39e840e876db87bd146434d73401d30499

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VIDEO QUALITY

Where this device's specs are a little disappointing is the video quality. The 2MP resolution is fine, you don’t need 8MP in a tiny camera like this. However, the bit rate is only 1024Kbps and can't be changed. For comparison most of their other battery cameras can go up to 4096Kbps. 1024Kbps is the type of bit rate I’ve always mocked Wyze for having.

Even just bumping it up to 2048Kbps would be much more respectable.

Notice that none of these can be changed:

https://preview.redd.it/xdcysga2un6h1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a662611cf9683af3fc49a6cde558eb390894475

When they came out with the doorbell cameras 3 years ago I said at the time that this is a perfect opportunity for a good quality tiny camera. Take the doorbell, remove the doorbell components and put that same 5MP camera module in a small indoor camera body. Instant high quality tiny camera. I would have bought 6 of them immediately.

Anyway, time to let you see some video examples so you can see for yourselves...

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VIDEO EXAMPLES

For some of this testing I mounted the MagiCam right underneath an Argus 3 Pro for comparison.

As with all of my reviews a higher quality version of every video will be on Youtube since Reddit downgrades the video quality. The videos for this review are on this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLedbnCmhuULq5OvwPjF3fP8AJ6jZTJBkB

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Person walking by at night:

https://reddit.com/link/1u31q4u/video/tk9w90rlun6h1/player

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Daytime deer and fawn running by:

https://reddit.com/link/1u31q4u/video/ejnzsnb3vn6h1/player

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Deer at night:

https://reddit.com/link/1u31q4u/video/gpskswaavn6h1/player

The neighborhood feral cat chasing a chipmunk (yes he did catch it):

https://reddit.com/link/1u31q4u/video/q1rvtz4pvn6h1/player

Mom raccoon and 2 babies at night:

https://reddit.com/link/1u31q4u/video/6uly5lpqvn6h1/player

So the video quality is fine. It's not as bad as I thought it would be for only being 1024Kbps, but it could have been so much better.

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POWER MODES AND BATTERY SETTINGS

Here you can see the settings for the two power modes:

https://preview.redd.it/mkx2ekbrln6h1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=5bab850ff5f73f5dc68ce5eb5e546f8285937768

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And the battery menu:

https://preview.redd.it/gso7bw81mn6h1.png?width=934&format=png&auto=webp&s=bed5b147a8604c9f1b2cf63f827f3a33534185b3

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BATTERY LIFE

Reolink claims 9 months of battery life. Those are of course under ideal conditions using the smart power mode, with lithium batteries, and about 5 minutes of activity per day. I wouldn't expect anything like that in real world conditions of course.

I plan to fully test all 3 battery types, but haven't been able to fully do so yet, so this is a work in progress. Waiting for batteries to drain takes a while lol. I will come back and update this post (and make a new post as a reminder) once I have finished all of my testing.

This is what I have so far though. Keep in mind this is very dependent on usage and activity.

Rechargeable NiMH (2100mAh):

• Indoors in a high traffic area: ~12 days
• Outdoors with a mid level of traffic: ~20 days

Alkaline:

• Indoors in a high traffic area: ~12 days
• Outdoors with a mid level of traffic: In Progress, but since the NiMH batteries were the same for the high traffic area I would assume this will be the same.

Lithium (Energizer):

• Indoors in a high traffic area: Test not started yet
• Outdoors with a mid level of traffic: In progress. After 21 days HomeAssistant is reporting that the battery is at 95%. However, I'm not confident that's accurate because if I turn the camera off and back on or take the batteries out and put them back in, that number changes. I've seen it report the battery at 99%, 84%, 94% after doing that. And then that number never really changes, or might go down 1% after several days. So I really have no idea what is going to happen here. Stay tuned.

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PROS/CONS/CONCLUSION

PROS

• Will function like a powered camera when plugged into power, meaning it doesn’t go to sleep and can record continuously. This is the first camera of theirs that can do that. This has been an often requested feature of their other battery cameras.
• Large field of view (113x62)
• Versatile power options
• Magnetic back
• Tiny
• Up to 60s post recording time (vs 30s max on their other battery cams)

CONS

• Low bit rate
• Only 1 stream, no sub stream (i.e. no low/high switching)
• When in battery mode it only has person detection, no animal or vehicle.
• When powered by USB it can do continuous recording, but only to SD card, not to Hub or NVR. It can be added to a Hub or NVR, but will only do motion event recording.
• The adjustable base is not magnetic, it must be screwed in. The only magnets are on the back panel of the cam itself. So the magnetic back is only useful if you're ok with the cam pointing straight out and don't need to adjust its direction/angle. Wyze uses a similar mount for its cameras, but its base is magnetic.
• Sometimes slow to wake up. Usually it takes about 3-5s, which is on par with the rest of their battery cams in my experience. However, sometimes it takes much longer, up to around 10s.
• Cannot be used with a solar panel since the camera isn’t capable of charging AA batteries. EDIT: I just discovered that they have a new solar panel, the Solar Panel 2S, which has a battery built into the solar panel that can power a MagiCam directly (bypassing the AA batteries). That is mentioned near the end of this support article.

CONCLUSION

It may sound like I’m down on this camera, but I’m not, I really do like it and am happy Reolink finally came out with a small one. 

Do I think it could be more useful if it had higher quality video? Of course.

Would I ever use this as a primary security camera? No, but I would say the same thing about any battery camera.

Do I still plan to buy more of them? Yes. They’re just nice versatile little cameras for places where you need a small inconspicuous camera or where you just want to keep an eye on things where video quality isn’t as important, like watching pets or maybe a bird box camera or something.

What do I plan to do with mine?

One of them has been camouflaged and mounted to a tree in my front yard looking back at my house: https://i.vgy.me/wUxCHl.jpg

That is replacing an Argus 3 Pro I had been using there. I already have a 24/7 POE camera watching my entire front yard, but this is just nice for another angle of the house and of anyone approaching the house.

The other is going to be used when we’re on vacation for keeping an eye on our cats. They spend a lot of their time in our bay window so I’ve mounted the MagiCam base to the window frame using 3M command strips. Cat tax: https://vgy.me/album/8568MwOJ

I will most likely get a few more to replace a few of my indoor cams where I want something smaller and less conspicuous than the E1’s I currently have.

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Alright, that's it for this review, ask away if you have any further questions.

DISCLAIMER: Reolink sent one of these cameras to me free of charge (and I bought another on my own) for testing and review purposes, but I will always give an honest and unbiased review of the product. The moment I'm asked to not be honest is the moment I'll stop reviewing their cameras.

Hey all, I've been testing one of the new OMVI 3i POE cameras for a few months and now that it's available to purchase it's time to share my thoughts.

If you want to skip to a certain part, here are the topics I'll be covering:

• INITIAL THOUGHTS
• UNBOXING/INSTALLATION
• FIELD OF VIEW COMPARISON
• DUAL LENS TILT ANGLE
• VIDEO EXAMPLES
• AUTO FRAMING
• OTHER FEATURES
• CONCLUSION: PROS/CONS

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INITIAL THOUGHTS

Everyone is probably familiar enough with this by now, but the idea behind this is brilliant. A dual lens 180° camera on top of a pan/tilt camera. It's the best of both worlds. A PT cam can't be watching everywhere, the 180° camera takes care of that. The 180° cameras are good for a wide view, but not a great close-up view, the 6mm PT lens combined with Auto Framing takes care of that.

A brief overview of some of the specs (see here for full specs):

Top dual lenses:

• Resolution: 5120x1920 (10MP/2x5MP)
• FOV: 180x65
• Bit rate: 8192Kbps

Bottom PT lens:

• Resolution: 3840x2160 (8MP)
• FOV: 55x30
• Bit rate: 7168Kbps

POE draw: ~6W in day mode, ~13W with either IR or spotlight on (surprised this was so low, I thought it was going to be around 20W)

Yes, there is going to be a wifi version. June 17th in the US, late July for Europe.

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UNBOXING/INSTALLATION

1. The usual accessories
2. Size comparison to the Trackmix. Quite a bit bigger, but it's still smaller than the 823 models.
3. Some photos of the mounting bracket. This is one of their best mounts yet. The camera very easily slides onto the mounting block. I didn't try ceiling mounting it, but you can see it has holes for that. It has a safety loop for hanging it while you mount it, and it has captive screws. I love captive screws.

https://preview.redd.it/fdf4sczz0v4h1.png?width=1111&format=png&auto=webp&s=208ae91f1cc1143e90013964602698358a4b2ea3

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My temporary mounting location for this review, about 7ft high (and right below my XPro)

https://preview.redd.it/30fwqpr12v4h1.png?width=526&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6c83e41d37f3c5fc83ed41da05257c2bfaac7d3

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Range of motion of the dual lenses.

https://i.redd.it/i8xqm1m62v4h1.gif

https://i.redd.it/rmquo81i4v4h1.gif

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FIELD OF VIEW COMPARISON

If you're a regular here you're well familiar with our thoughts on the recent lack of vertical FOV on the dual lens cameras. So does this one have that same problem?

Since I had this mounted right underneath my XPro I was able to do a direct comparison.

The XPro's specs say its vFOV is 55° (although in reality it's a bit less than that)

The OMVI's specs say it's 65°

I laid an object on the ground so that I could make sure that the bottom of the frame of each camera is looking at the exact same spot, and this is the result:

https://preview.redd.it/ergqu3ns5v4h1.jpg?width=1370&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd3e9edfe33882ecf659857b777049ab4f7b86de

That's much better, and seems to be accurate this time. I believe it's because this camera uses 2x 5MP 4:3 lenses, as opposed to the other recent dual lens cameras that are 2x 8MP 16:9 lenses.

However, you see that the OMVI is looking at a lot of sky. Which brings me to my next point...

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DUAL LENS TILT ANGLE

That previous image is with the dual lenses tilted down as far as they can go, yet the top 1/3 of the image is wasted on trees and sky.

This is what my XPro looks like in its normal position. Look at where the top of the frame is. I don't want or need to see higher than that.

https://preview.redd.it/0y798ve7av4h1.jpg?width=7680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9dd0548e896486983ce05474a57159690a41748

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Versus this is the lowest the OMVI can go...

https://preview.redd.it/io9z1lybbv4h1.jpg?width=5120&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7283586ab75376ce0c57bff4950f7287f2005189

Yeah, the bottom of the frames of both aren't too far off due to the larger vFOV, but look at all that wasted view at the top that I don't care about. If the camera body had been designed differently the dual lens module would be able to tilt down much further, making that blind spot underneath the camera much smaller. My blind spot in this situation isn't a major deal, but keep in mind that this is with the camera mounted pretty low, the higher you have it mounted the larger that blind spot will be. At 10ft high I think the blind spot will be massive.

Pretty big missed opportunity here if you ask me.

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VIDEO EXAMPLES

Now time for a few video examples.

By the way, Reddit does terrible things to video quality, so if you want to see the original footage at much closer to original quality, these are all on Youtube on this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLedbnCmhuULpBDz-HI96SNLxPnXxEAi4b

Daytime person tracking:

https://reddit.com/link/1tuz5lk/video/67md6ghynv4h1/player

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Night person tracking:

https://reddit.com/link/1tuz5lk/video/6rc2rbxktv4h1/player

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Night person tracking with spotlight:

https://reddit.com/link/1tuz5lk/video/asnfhf8rpw4h1/player

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Bonus videos:

Coyote sighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8a_6cjkUA0

Cat tracking at night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im2iIT9Mi9E

Cat tracking daytime with Auto Framing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBJN9Yi7u9o

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AUTO FRAMING

Auto Framing is a new feature on this camera that is very similar to the auto-track of the Trackmix. It uses digital zoom to automatically zoom in to the target it is tracking. Here is their support article where you can read more about it.

What they don't really say there is that unlike the Trackmix, this feature is not built into the camera, it's a feature of the mobile app. That means the auto zooming is not shown in the recordings/stream of the footage, it's done in the app in real time as you're viewing. So only live viewing, not in recordings.

This is the 2nd big miss with this camera in my opinion.

Some have already said "well, it's just digital zoom so you can manually zoom in digitally after the fact"

Well yeah, of course, but then why did they have it built into the camera on the Trackmix when that same logic applies? It just seems like a step backwards.

Anyway, here are 2 examples of Auto Framing in action. I recorded my screen during those same first 2 examples from above. I really like how far in it zooms, way farther than the Trackmix could do (presumable because it's using an 8MP lens to do the digital zooming, versus the Trackmix's was only 2MP).

EDIT: The Reddit mobile app seems to be screwing with the aspect ratio of these and stretching them horizontally, so if it looks stretched to you just go watch them on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PXBaNmw3Ck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgtGZ2IrTuY

https://reddit.com/link/1tuz5lk/video/wxz1y7th1w4h1/player

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https://reddit.com/link/1tuz5lk/video/6f3j0wuq1w4h1/player

I was really impressed here with how far it was able to keep tracking me. I was about 100ft away when I turned around. None of their other PTZ cams could do that.

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OTHER FEATURES

-This also supports a feature called Pinpoint. When watching in the triple camera view you can click on a spot on the wide view and the PTZ camera will move to that position.

I can't add embed any more videos into this post, but here's an example on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq-N1CBm21c

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-Here are the smart detection types it supports:

https://preview.redd.it/b1s5d9je2w4h1.png?width=327&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0a13d39f2af0688138bfb38d889184737b6580b

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-It does support local AI video search:

https://preview.redd.it/84ri1fgs2w4h1.png?width=328&format=png&auto=webp&s=94c0dc47cebce226fce17cb600d95e60225c8dc0

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-It has a new notification type that will let you know if the image is overexposed. So if it somehow finds itself looking at the wall it will give you a push notification letting you know:

https://preview.redd.it/p909mm0zhw4h1.png?width=327&format=png&auto=webp&s=150d084e6fc75cda827c3eef0d28dc9745cfe414

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CONCLUSION: PROS/CONS

PROS

1 - The obvious pro is the triple lens design. Like I said above, it's the best of both worlds of dual lens 180° cameras and PT cameras.

2 - Vertical Field of View - It's so nice to see a vFOV of 65°. Now the big question is if they keep it up with the OMVI x16 later this year and other cameras going forward.

3 - Auto Framing - This is both a pro and a con. It's an awesome feature, it can zoom in way further than the Trackmix ever did (which was one of the main improvement suggestions everyone had for that camera). I'll go over the con part of it again down below.

4 - Pinpoint. This is very useful as opposed to having to use the directional arrows to move the camera around. I hope they bring this to the desktop client as well. I use the 3d Zoom feature of my 823A-16X a lot, and this is essentially the same thing.

5 - IR night vision much improved. Just look at this video from my review of the Trackmix from when it came out 4 years ago. Look at how bad the IR vision is at a distance compared to this camera. Huge improvements there.

6 - PT motor noise is very quiet. A lot of their older PTZ cameras like the 823 series often had complaints about how loud the motors are. This one you can barely hear it on the video at all, and you definitely can't even when standing a few feet away from it. The movement is also a lot less jerky.

7 - The mount. Very easy to take on and off but also still be mounted tightly with no give. Plus you have to love captive mounting screws.

8 - The audio quality is very good, I'm able to hear people talking all the way out at the road (about 60ft away) and make out most of what they're saying. It's quite a bit better than it is on the XPro and Elite Floodlight. Mic quality for 2-way audio was very good as well.

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CONS

1 - Tilt angle of the dual lens not being able to tilt down far enough. I've already gone over this in detail above.

2 - Auto Framing only being a feature of the app as opposed to being built into the camera like it was with the Trackmix. I've already went into that in detail as well.

3 - Reolink still hasn't quite solved the problem of tracking the wrong object, especially with stationary vehicles. It will sometimes start to go into tracking mode and then instead focus on a parked vehicle across the street. Like in this example where it obviously meant to track the approaching black SUV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDto2FBPvrs

4 - PT tracking can be a little slow. They made the movement of the PT much smoother, but I think that also made it a little slower. You can tell when it starts to track that instead of going from 0 to 100% speed immediately like the older cams would, it has a bit of an acceleration to it where it gradually comes up to speed. However, targets can often move past it in that time. Since we have the 180° camera the PT usually has no issues catching up though. For example, in this coyote footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8a_6cjkUA0

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Alright, I think I've gone on long enough. Hopefully that answered any questions, but feel free to ask away below.

DISCLAIMER: Reolink sent this camera to me free of charge for testing and review purposes, but I will always give an honest and unbiased review of the product. The moment I'm asked to not be honest is the moment I'll stop reviewing their cameras.