Thank you Reolink for sending us this Home Hub to review!

Last year, I reviewed Reolink's excellent Argus 4 Pro camera and solar panel and found it to be an excellent camera that works really well and has a great feature set. My main disappointment was that it didn't offer a web interface or any way to manage it without Reolink's mobile or PC app. You also can't extract the video feed from it for use in other ways. Thankfully, the Reolink Home Hub is here to address these concerns, and it works really, really well.

I should probably point out that all of Reolink's camera solutions, including with this Home Hub, are one-time purchases. None of the features on offer here requires a subscription of any kind. They do offer Reolink Cloud, but that is really only necessary if you are concerned about accessing your recordings if your home internet connection goes down. You don't even need to create an account with Reolink at all; I still haven't. You are able to connect to your cameras from anywhere you have internet with the Home Hub just like with many other popular cameras, but without any monthly fees. You also have much more control of your data; more on that later.

It's worth noting that if you just want a few Reolink cameras for your house and you don't have advanced technical needs, you don't really have to get a Home Hub. Each of Reolink's cameras does have a microSD slot to store videos, and you can connect your phone to multiple cameras via the mobile app. For many users, this is good enough. With that said, I have only one Reolink camera at this time, and the mobile app would sometimes have a hard time connecting to it. Since installing the Home Hub, connection to the camera via the app has been rock solid.

So, why would someone already happy with Reolink's cameras want a Home Hub? The way I see it, it really comes down to three things: Centralized and secure storage, Centralized and flexible access, and network flexibility.

When it comes to storage, if you own multiple cameras, each Reolink camera has its own microSD card, and it stores footage locally on the camera itself. This footage is not encrypted, and if someone steals the camera, they get the footage for free as a bonus. If the camera is connected to a Home Hub, the footage is stored on the Home Hub instead of on that camera's microSD card. I actually moved that microSD from my camera to the Home Hub, and unfortunately it doesn't seem the videos from the old microSD card, though it can certainly use the card just fine. It is nice having two slots for videos, though!

Another major feature when it comes to storage is that the Home Hub supports optional encryption on the microSD storage. This means that no one can steal your videos if they get a hold of your microSD cards. On the other hand, you also can't view them if you lose access to the Home Hub. So it's a trade-off, but it's great that we get to make that choice.

One of the areas that makes the Home Hub exciting for me is improved access flexibility. If all you want is access via the Reolink app on mobile or Windows, then not much will change. But if you would like more than that, then the Home Hub has a lot to offer.

For me, the main benefit is a simple one: you can enable HTTP and HTTPS access to a web interface where you can view live video footage and recordings. You can also download them to your local device if you like. It's unfortunate that you can't configure the Home Hub from here so you still need the apps, but as someone who dual boots some of my PCs to Linux, this is a Godsend for me because there is no other way to access the camera from that operating system. For me, this is a major benefit of the Home Hub, though I can understand not wanting to spend that kind of money on just this one feature.

Another useful set of features that you can configure is RTMP/RTSP/ONVIF support. These allow you to pipe in video feeds from cameras into other applications. These include things like OBS for streams to even other camera management systems that support video stream inputs. It's worth pointing out that while I don't currently have the means to test this right now, any time you keep the camera open, battery powered cameras will drain much more rapidly. I'm not sure how these streams work in this respect or if they are smart enough not to do this.

The final area of usefulness for this Home Hub is how flexible it is when connecting to the network. With the single Wi-Fi camera setup I used to have with the Argus 4 Pro, I had little choice but to connect it to my existing Wi-Fi. I probably could have used a guest network, but there was little point in doing so; it's not like a presumed hacker wouldn't have both wireless networks right there to play with anyway. This does mean it adds load to my existing wireless router, though. The Home Hub allows you to optionally connect you cameras' Wi-Fi directly to the Home Hub as an access point instead of to your normal Wi-Fi. This can increase the competition in the air frequency bands, but it can also free up your router/access point. Despite that, I made the change and my Wi-Fi seems pretty happy with it. I will say that I did connect my Home Hub to my normal router via an Ethernet cable, giving it the most stable connection possible.

One thing to note for advanced networking folks, is that this does allow the more technical among us the ability to fully segment wireless cameras from their normal network while still serving wireless clients, as long as you trust Reolink's hardware on your network. It is a desire of mine to segment my cameras from my normal network eventually, and this Home Hub makes that just a bit easier. I probably won't get to this point until I get wired PoE cameras, though. (The reason I would do this with wired PoE cameras is because I would not want a potential intruder to connect to my home network or servers through a security camera's network jack.) No matter the case, the added flexibility is certainly welcome.

It's worth pointing out that the Home Hub is limited to eight connected cameras, and they all must be Reolink. For most homes, this is certainly enough, but if you wanted more, there is a Home Hub Pro for purchase as well. I look forward to hopefully being able to evaluate more Reolink cameras in the future and connecting them to this Home Hub. One feature that's relevant here is that the Home Hub features a speaker on the back for chimes. This is likely meant to be used with doorbells. It's rated for up to 115dB - that's Loud. It seems like it could be a great way to have them chime in more than one part of your house, if that works that way; hopefully I'll get to test that out in the future.