Reolink Argus Track Review

Reolink Argus Track Review: Introduction

• Type: Outdoor, pan & tilt
• Connectivity: 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi
• Ecosystems: Amazon Alexa, Google Home

We’ve been reviewing Reolink’s rapidly expanding range of smart security cameras for 5 years now on The Ambient, dating back to the original Argus Pro, way back in 2019.

Reolink has always impressed us with its budget range of wireless cameras, packing in a wealth of tech and features into a reasonably priced package, which you’d pay far more for from the likes of Arlo and Ring.

The Reolink Argus Track, which we have on test here, comes in at around the $150 / £140 mark, putting it up against the likes of the Arlo Pro Essential 2K XL, the Philips Hue Secure Wired Camera and the Eufy SoloCam S340 when it comes to cost.

However, with a 4K dual-lens, local storage, digital and physical pan and tilt and color night vision on board, the Argus Track is much more feature rich than its mid-range rivals.

I’ve had the Reolink Argus Track set up and monitoring my garden for the past couple of months, read my review to find out why I rate it so highly, despite some quibbles with the over-complicated app.

Design and installation

The first thing that you’ll notice when you get the Reolink out of the box, because of that dual lens setup, is that it looks like a little robot; a cute little robot.

Don’t let those puppy dog eyes fool you though; behind them is a pair of high-spec cameras; one with a 2.8mm aperture and 1/2.7″ CMOS sensor for the wide angle 4K action and other, telephoto lens with an 8mm aperture that allows for a 6x hybrid zoom.

The camera part sits atop a base, joined by a flexible ‘neck’ that has strong ET-vibes.

So it’s a cute robot, with an alien neck… albeit with an overall, fairly standard, white-plastic security camera feel.

As is the norm with Reolink cameras you’ll have a couple of options when it comes to mounting; if you decide to, of course – it can just sit on a shelf if you want.

In the box you’ll get a mountable base that just requires a couple of screws to fix to a wall or fence, as well as a strap that will allow you to fix it to a post, tree, drainpipe etc. I went for the former method, as you’ll see in the pictures.

Because of the way the camera pans and tilts, it’s not a camera that actually looks natural mounted to a wall; it actually looks a bit odd sticking out.

Reolink is known for its onboard local storage and that comes by way of a microSD. The microSD slot is actually hidden in a compartment at the back, protected by a couple of little screws. The on/off button is also located in there too, alongside the reset pin hole.

One you’ve completed the physical installation it’s time to get the Argus Track paired up with the Reolink app.

Security worriers will be pleased to know that you don’t actually have to sign up for an account, although you will need to if you want to make use of cloud features or sync the camera up with Google Home or Alexa.

When you first power up the Argus Track you’ll hear it say “Welcome to Reolink, please install the Reolink app” in numerous languages.

It’s added to the app by scanning the QR code on device from your phone in the app, then using the camera to scan a QR code on your phone. It’s a very easy process.

A big win for the Track, common across many of its cameras, is that it features both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi so you can tap into that faster 5GHz band, should you have an access point near enough to reach it.

Features

One you have the camera paired up, everything is taken care of in the Reolink app. The level of customization and the wealth of options on offer inside the app is huge.

This is both a good and a bad thing. You get a level of control with Reolink cameras that is pretty much unrivalled across other security camera brands but that also means you’re going to have to get your head around some pretty confusing options to get the camera set up exactly how you want it.

With the Argus Track, the main settings to get your head around are how exactly you want the camera to track.

Essentially the camera can track things in three different ways: digital only, digital first, or pan/tilt first. You can also set the range of panning and create a monitor point that the camera returns to.

You can also create set points to quickly jump the camera to a specific view, which is easier than using the manual control. And you can add a privacy section, where action won’t be captured.

Essentially, tracking means that the camera will physically move when it detects something to track, and the telephoto lens will also zoom in on that object; and you can set the zoom options that you want in the app.

This being a battery powered camera, it’s not constantly recording as that would drain the juice in no time. Instead, it just starts to record when motion is detected.

There’s very basic control over the PIR sensor’s sensitivity, so it’s best not to point the camera at areas with a lot of movement, such as the street outside of your house, as you’ll get a flood of alerts and the battery will diminish quickly.

Turn on motion detection and the Reolink will start sending you push notifications when it has spotted movement. These can get a little overwhelming, so you can cut these down by using the object detection feature, with animal, person and vehicle tracking on offer.

You can select if you want to be notified about your combination of people, vehicles, animals or all motion, and you can schedule when you want to get each.

So you could choose to have people and animal notifications in the morning, but only people notifications at night.

Confusingly, there’s a separate schedule in the Recording menu that lets you choose when to record and what to record.

When it comes to the clips and looking back at your footage then the good news is that there are no subscription fees, thanks to the microSD storage, unless you specifically want cloud storage.

If you do, in the US, there are cloud plans with 1GB of free storage (7-days of history), and then paid options: $3.49, $6.99 or $10.49 monthly. It’s £3.49 or £6.49 a month in the UK.

That gets you 30 days of history (60 days for the top tier), plus 10, 50 or 100GB of storage space respectively for 5 to 10 cameras. This is a fraction of the cost of the likes of Ring Protect or Nest Aware.

But remember, none of these extra costs are needed. All you are paying for is storage, there are no features cut if you don’t cough up unlike other brands that make you pay for full use of their cameras… yes, Arlo, I mean you.

However, the usual caveat applies that if the camera or card is stolen, you lose everything… although Reolink do now offer a base station for centralised storage.

Both video recorded to the SD card and cloud appear on the timeline view, with handy thumbnails to make finding a clip easier, marked with a nice little icon if a person or pet has been spotted.

Guide: Local storage benefits with smart security cameras

You can filter by event and motion type, so it’s easy to find the clip you want, and to save it to your phone permanently. Be sure to change the download quality if you do want full resolution clips; by default it selects a ‘fluent’ clip that is nowhere near the 4K that’s available.

On the clips, you can choose where to have date, camera name and Reolink logo located, and you can also turn them all off too.

From the live view, you can dive into the two-way talk, which works well enough. It could be a useful feature if you want to scare off someone that shouldn’t be in your garden.

The Argus Track boasts a 295 lumen spotlight, the brightness of which can be adjusted in the app.

There’s also a built-in siren so you can, if you what, create a sound and light alarm to scare off baddies too, if motion is detected at set times.

Reolink offers Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa Skills, which let you stream footage to a compatible smart display. 

Performance

When it comes to the crunch of video quality, the Argus Track punches well above it’s budget-mid level price tag.

The daytime footage, at 3840 x 2160 15fps, is superbly crisp and detailed. Just look at this footage captured on a slightly overcast day in my garden.

Not only can you pick out the leaves moving in the trees in the distance, there is very little blur when a pigeon flies in to a bright spot. It’s fantastic footage.

When the Argus notices something that it wants to track, it will also zoom in and track on the telephoto lens.

The footage from this is not as crisp, for obvious reasons, but it is a nice way to zoom in on the important stuff.

In the app, when watching clips back, these two views are presented together.

At night time, that bright spotlight is used for color night vision, which is pretty good on the whole, if a little limited in terms of distance covered.

If you need to see further then turn off color night vision as the IR range can be up to 30 meters.

The panning, which is up to 355 degrees, works well most of the time, although I have found that sometimes it just refuses to track. If I walk past the camera it will track me from the widest left point, but give up before I get all the way to the widest right point.

I’ve reset the calibration a few times, and I know that it does work sometimes, so it’s a little frustrating.

The tilt, 50 degrees, is much better on the down that it is on the up, so mount the camera as high as you can.

The battery on the Reolink Argus Track is a 4800mAh, non-removable, rechargeable battery – so you will have to take the whole camera down when it comes to charging.

For Reolink, that’s actually quite a small battery and I wouldn’t expect it to last more than a few weeks before needing a charge.

Hence why Reolink bundles the Argus Track with a solar panel, which plugs into a USB-C port and keeps constant power – while the sun shines at least – to the camera.

Reolink claims that for every 10 minutes of sunlight you’ll get 24 hours of use and I can’t argue with that. I plugged my Argus Track in, two months ago, with the battery at 27%.

It now sits in the 90-95% range all the time, and that’s with a fairly grey English summer.

Talking of English summers, the Argus Track is also weatherproof at IP65 and can operate from
-10°C to 55°C.

Final thoughts

The Reolink Argus Track is a great security camera with a price-tag that is extremely attractive given the wealth of tech and features on offer.

The app is a touch clunky and the tracking sometimes fails but those quibbles aside, the Track offers local storage, fantastic visuals and easy setup.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Smart security cameras usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a security camera for a week and deliver a verdict.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular camera compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide on our review process for smart security cameras to learn more.

FAQs

Reolink Argus Track: Specifications