Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam

£99.99

Reolink is a leader in the smart security market, offering top-quality technology to protect homes with smarter security solutions. Therefore, we were excited to test out one of their newest launches, the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam, which offers an all-in-one solar-powered floodlight security camera to operate as a great deterrent and keep your home protected.  

The Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam is an outdoor security camera that offers a bright floodlight to illuminate your driveway or back garden without the need to be wired into your house's power. Instead, the floodlight operates using solar power to offer a completely wireless security system for added peace of mind that your home is being monitored around the clock. The 2K 4MP security camera offers a clear picture, with a150° viewing angle to ensure a wide field of view is covered. The camera can be accessed via the Reolink App where you can wirelessly connect to the Solar Floodlight Cam. This means that you can live-view the camera’s feed and even set up alerts for specific disturbances such as people, cars and animals. This mode uses AI to accurately detect different disturbances to ensure you are only alerted to the ones you set up. Then, if you get alerted to a disturbance, you can live-view the camera no matter where you are and even use the built-in two-way microphone to speak if there is a person there.

The light offers 1000lm of floodlight illumination, which ensures that even large entryways, alleyways or gardens get a great level of light to help keep you feeling safe. The light operates as a great deterrent, as you can set it to illuminate every time someone or a car moves past it. Alongside this, the Solar Floodlight Cam also features an up to 110db siren, which you can activate. This means that should someone be trying to break in, they will be illuminated by the light and met with an alarm, which will hopefully encourage them to leave and not come back again! With this type of situation most common at night, I love that the light not only offers a clear image during the day, but it actually offers clear colour night-vision so you can clearly and accurately see what's going on outside in full colour. This night vision extends 33ft, and ensures that even at night your home feels well protected with the Solar Floodlight Cam keeping watch over your home. Plus, with the help of the built-in AI, the colour temperature of the security footage can be customised to provide the clearest picture for you no matter the time of day.

One of the best things about the Solar Floodlight Cam is, as the name suggests, that it is solar-powered, and so it does not need to be wired into your house's power. Instead, at the top of the unit there is a solar panel which uses Reolink’s new SolarEase™ technology to provide endless power to the floodlight from the sun. Thus, from just a single hour of direct sunlight, the Solar Floodlight Cam will operate for 24 hours, making it the perfect option for use year-round for comprehensive light and camera protection, without having to constantly recharge it. Plus, the technology has been designed to work even in low light and partially shaded areas for the best solar charging possible, so you know that no matter where you install it it's ready to work round the clock.

However, the Solar Floodlight Cam also comes with a 7800mAh battery built in, so should it be a particularly cloudy and miserable day, you don’t have to worry about its functions turning off; instead, this battery acts as a backup, supplying the unit with up to 3 months of battery life on just a single charge. By being completely wire-free and instead using solar energy to power itself, the Solar Floodlight Cam provides great flexibility for installation, as you can install it just about anywhere to provide great security, without any wires getting in the way.

In terms of storage, the Solar Floodlight Cam can support micro-SD cards up to 512GB to safely record your footage and store it locally for video playback of detected motion. This is ideal should an incident occur and you would like a copy of events. However, the Solar Floodlight Cam does not come with an SD card as standard, and instead it would be an additional purchase. Whilst Reolink does offer a wide variety of SD cards, I would have liked to see one included in the kit even for minimal storage. Thankfully, the Solar Floodlight Camera does not need an SD card to operate, and once installed, it can still be used to monitor a live feed from the camera and receive alerts, but it will not be able to save any footage. Thus, I would recommend getting an SD card for added peace of mind should you need to keep any recordings.

Overall, the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam provides a complete security offering that blends a high-quality camera with clear footage, bright lights for great illumination, and a bunch of great technology to keep you updated and alert to what's going on outside your home. The entire thing provides great peace of mind, knowing that it will help capture anything around your home and, in many ways, work as a deterrent for unwanted or criminal behaviour at all times of the day. With many of us heading out on holiday, having a security camera is essential to keep your home feeling protected even when you’re away.

Pros:

• Solar-powered and only needs an hour of sunlight to power it up all day (plus has a built-in backup battery)
• Wire-free so can be installed anywhere without the need of a direct power source
• Wide camera angle with colour temperature adjustment
• Strong wireless connection for live updates straight to your phone with the Reolink App

Cons:

• The Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam does not come with an SD card, so this would be an additional purchase if you want to be able to save footage from the camera. However, Reolink do offer a cloud storage plan, which can be used if you'd prefer not to buy an SD card!