Reolink Argus PT Ultra: 4K Wifi 360° Rotating Camera + Solar Panel

The Reolink Argus PT Ultra smart camera has it all: rotating, 4K, solar panel, WiFi, night vision, detection of people, animals and vehicles, IP64, works with Amazon Alexa and Google Home voice assistants… and many more very interesting details that we are going to discover in this content.

Why is Reolink Camera have this price?

Reolink is a company that designs quality all-round smart cameras and the Argus PT Ultra is good value for money.

Advantages and disadvantages of Reolink Argus PT Ultra

Tutorial on how to use the Reolink solar outdoor camera

To begin with, you should know that Reolink is a company founded in 2009 that designs video surveillance solutions adapted to all types of environments and has consolidated its position by committing to the values of privacy, sustainability and freedom of choice that allows users to choose how and where to use their cameras, without imposing a closed ecosystem.

This philosophy is shared by other smart home focused companies such as Jeedom and Home Assistant and it is for these reasons that more than a decade later, these solutions are still working, enduring bets.

And speaking of Home Assistant, Reolink has integrated the Works With Home Assistant programme, with the first smart cameras and doorbells with this certification.

“Works With Home Assistant ensures, through rigorous internal testing, that products work perfectly from the first use, committing participating companies to provide long-term support, firmware updates and to actively contribute to the Home Assistant community.

This programme emphasises local, private and secure use of devices.

However, it should be noted that this model of solar panel camera is not compatible at the moment, but hopefully it will be soon.

General features of the Reolink outdoor camera

If we open the packaging of the Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera, we have different elements.

An instruction manual.

A camera fixing plate.

A USB to USB-C cable.

One strap.

One 4.5 m cable.

A mounting base.

A rotating support for the solar panel.

A solar panel.

Plugs, screws and hexagon spanner.

A 64 GB microSD card is also included, which is another nice feature.

And of course, the Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera with a size of 98 x 98 x 112 mm and a weight of 481 grams.

This Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera has several interesting features. For starters, being IP64, it is resistant to sun, rain and snow, with operating temperatures from -10 °C to +55 °C.

The image quality of this camera is 8 MP (3840 x 2160), 4K, being very sharp, and you can zoom in to see more details up close.

And it features night vision up to 10m for viewing footage even at night.

It has a wide coverage as a rotating camera with 355° horizontal and 140° vertical swivel, avoiding blind spots, and its field of view is 90° horizontally, 47° vertically and 110° diagonally.

It integrates an intelligent auto-tracking function that follows moving objects in real time.

The installation is cable-free: no electrical wires, no mains cables.

This camera is powered by a solar panel and WiFi, either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz.

And it is worth noting that it can work with WiFi 6 routers that offer better performance.

A 20-minute solar charge covers 24 hours of energy and a 1-day solar charge covers 24 months, according to Reolink.

This camera can record locally, without monthly fees, different events with the included microSD card.

It is also possible to store recordings on an FTP server.

This Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera is able to detect movements up to 10 metres thanks to its PIR sensor and distinguish people, vehicles and pets, and we can immediately receive notifications on our phone for each event.

Thanks to its two-way audio, we can listen and talk to a person who appears in front of the camera, being able to deter, in some cases, intruders. In addition, it has a spotlight and a siren that can be activated if we want to further deter this potential thief.

How to configure Reolink Argus PT Ultra

In order to use your Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera, the first step is to download the Reolink application.

It is advisable to have your Reolink camera charged in order to be able to link it. You must turn on this camera with its physical button.

Now, you can access this Reolink app and click on “Add new device”.

You must scan the QR code underneath your camera.

You can choose the option “Configure Wi-Fi with QR code” and you must choose your WiFi network and its password.

Now, you must scan the QR code that appears on your phone 25-30 cm away from your camera.

If your camera beeps, you can click “Advance”.

You should confirm that you have heard the voice prompt that your camera has been connected to your router.

You must now enter a username and password for your camera.

And you can give this Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera a personalised name.

That’s it, you now have access to all the functions of your camera from your phone, anywhere in the world.

How to install Reolink Argus PT Ultra

Once the Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera has been configured, it can be installed in a strategic area of the garden, either on a wall, roof, tree or pole.

In the user’s case, he has already installed a solar panel camera at the back of his house to monitor the whole area and is now going to install this new camera at the front of his house.

First of all, the user has fixed the solar panel bracket with the included dowels and screws.

Once this bracket is installed, you can install the solar panel and connect its power supply cable.

Now, the user has installed the camera bracket on the wall with the included plugs and screws and is going to fix this camera on the bracket.

The only thing left to do is to connect the camera to its solar panel so that it can be powered.

Having a 4.5 m cable which is more than necessary in his case, he decided to coil this cable and place it behind the solar panel.

Ready, now let’s discover the detailed functions of this Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera.

Detailed features of Reolink Argus PT Ultra

On the main page of our Reolink app, we can see the live image recorded by our camera.

We have the possibility to zoom in with our fingers to see a recorded area more precisely.

If we look at the top right, we have icons for person, vehicle or animal when one of these elements is detected.

Below this image, we have 6 icons:

The first allows you to pause or resume camera recording.

The second is to cut or reactivate the sound.

Then there is a photo icon, which allows you to capture a photo that will be saved in your phone’s album.

The fourth icon is, this time, to record a video that will also be saved in our phone’s album.

The fifth icon allows you to adjust the image quality.

And the sixth icon allows you to put your camera image on the screen.

Below, we have more icons:

The first allows you to chat with a person in front of your camera, from your phone.

“Crop” allows, as the name suggests, to crop and view an area captured by our camera.

“PTZ” allows the camera to be moved up or down and left or right.

Then, the “Playback” icon allows us to see all the events detected over time and each event was recorded with a video.

We can access each of these events so as not to miss any detail.

It is worth noting that this Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera can follow the detected person moving through an area, which is another interesting option.

These events are stored on the microSD card, but we also have the possibility of saving events in the cloud, being a paid service that we can optionally subscribe to, for 5.99 euros per month, which can be interesting if we want to have a backup copy of recordings in case of theft of our camera or damage to our microSD card.

At the top of the image, we have more icons:

The first icon is for real-time activation of the camera’s built-in siren and the second icon is for activation of the camera’s built-in light.

Then we have an icon that allows us to divide our screen into 4, in the case of having several Reolink cameras to be able to monitor different areas of our house at the same time.

The fourth icon is the additional settings icon for our camera.

In the settings, we can see the space occupied on our SD card. We can see the battery level. We can also see the WiFi network our camera is connected to.

In the “Screen” option, we have different settings such as vertical flip and horizontal flip to change the direction of the image.

We can adjust the type of night vision recording.

We can adjust the brightness of the camera.

We can activate, modify the location or deactivate the camera name and date and we can activate or deactivate the watermark.

“Privacy mask” is a very interesting option that allows you to define an area where the camera will not record, for example, if you are recording a street area, you can hide this recording area, so you will not have problems with neighbours.

“Brightness and Shadows” allows you to automatically or manually adjust the day mode in colour, black and white, and the night mode in colour.

Then, the “Audio” setting allows you to enable or disable audio recording, adjust the volume of the alarm and loudspeaker, and do a sound test.

The “Light” setting allows you to configure the status LED, the night light and the infrared light.

“PIR settings” allows you to enable or disable motion detections.

And we can also adjust the sensitivity to receive more or less alerts.

“Detection alarm” gives access to other settings, e.g. no detection zones, i.e. for each type of event, we can define a zone where we do not want to receive notifications.

We can set a higher or lower detection sensitivity for each type of event.

We can filter detections by object size.

We can activate or deactivate automatic tracking, i.e. if we have it activated, the camera will follow a person, a vehicle or an animal, depending on the type of tracking we have configured.

We can set a maximum horizontal tracking zone.

Then, we have the possibility to select a defined period for each day of the week where we will have notifications of detections or no notifications at all.

And we can set a stop tracking time if the object stops or disappears.

Then, the “Recording” setting allows us to activate or deactivate recordings.

We can set up times of the week for recordings.

And a recording duration for each event.

We can configure and customise Push Notifications to receive alerts by customising the type of protection, the schedule, the tone, and we can also mute the alerts for a period of time.

We can also activate email notifications.

We can activate the FTP option so that the camera automatically saves the recordings on an external server, using the FTP protocol.

And we can activate or not the siren automatically when a movement is detected.

Then, we have the possibility to connect our Reolink Argus PT Ultra camera with Amazon Alexa and Google Home voice assistants.

This allows us to see the image from their screens.

And as I mentioned previously, Reolink is generally compatible with other ecosystems such as, for example, the Home Assistant universal hub.

Home Assistant is a complete smart home solution to integrate more devices such as lights, blinds, heating and much more in one interface and to create different scenes with all devices.

And it is worth noting that Reolink has a platinum level in Home Assistant, the highest level, which means that its connection is fully optimised, stable and efficient, with asynchronous code, active support and excellent performance.

This ensures that Reolink cameras run smoothly, with fast updates, automatic reconnection, low resource consumption and a seamless user experience within Home Assistant.

But NOT all cameras are compatible, as is the case with this solar panel camera.

In short, if you are looking for a smart camera that is simple to install, with no electrical or network cabling, no monthly fees, accurate day and night detection and other practical features, Reolink Argus PT Ultra may be your choice.

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