Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Okay so this is my preliminary review of the Reolink Go PT and some of the things I’ve encountered with the regular Reolink Go. Hopefully this helps someone. I’ve only had this camera for a couple months so I’ll be updating this again later. I’ve seen a lot of bogus information in other reviews and in the questions section, so I figured I would offer my two cents on what I’ve experienced so far. First thing I want to mention is that their customer service was great for me. Peter specifically. I originally started this venture back in December 2020 with the regular Reolink Go. I had a 2GB prepaid Data sim from T-Mobile. T-Mobiles coverage map said I had 4G and was close to 5G so I figured I would try it. I am using this camera to monitor my family’s hunting property. I could not get the Reolink Go to connect to T-Mobile’s network. Anywhere. I tried for a solid 7 or 8 hours. All along the trip to my property I tried connecting and disconnecting the battery and pressing the reset button. After damaging my vehicle on crappy roads that weekend I returned back to the town and went to T-Mobile. They tried a sim from a display phone and it worked immediately. They said the only difference was the display one had talk and text. So they added that to my card for like $5 more. So not bad... $15 a month, and I should be good to go. Wrong!!!! I drove back up to the property and the camera wouldn’t connect! Ugh I was upset to say the least. I wasn’t sure who to be mad at tho... turns out T-Mobiles coverage map is exaggerated to say the least. Peter from Reolink suggested I upgrade to the newer model camera which is better at connecting according to the people he asked. He said it’s also able to Pan and Tilt which may be handy. So I upgraded to the Reolink Go PT, and also decided to see if I could just get a SIM Card from Verizon since my cell phone works fine on the property and that’s who we use for a provider. Peter said I could try it but he couldn’t be sure if it would work because they hadn’t tested it with Verizon, so I said I would. After some back and forth with the manager of my local Verizon store he reluctantly sold me a SIM card even tho the IMEI isn’t compatible with their network. He activated it from a different device. I popped it in and boom! We have video of the guy who said it wouldn’t work right off the bat. It DOES work with Verizon and it’s on the family plan so it’s unlimited data instead of 2G. Now I can watch this baby all day if I want to. Insist that they sell you the card and activate it in another device. Assign it to your phone IMEI or whatever you have to do but it will work they just want to sell you their camera. Which is like $400 or something insane. So anyway I got the Reolink Go PT and drove back to the property with the Verizon sim that connected immediately and stayed connected the entire ride up. I put the camera about 15’ up on the barn as I wasn’t looking to use the motion detection so much as I wanted an overview of the lot and buildings. I used the “signal supervisor” app to determine where the nearest towers were and that the barn was obstructing my signal so I moved it to a telephone pole that was in the open. Its working good now. It’s -6f outside and I’m panning and tilting and running HD video. My battery is at 100% as it’s been unusually sunny the last week or so. I’m sure this thing will operate much better in the summer but I’m happy with it even in these super cold conditions. Important points: Make sure you have a good signal for whatever SIM card you’re trying to use! I pulled my sim out of my iPhone and popped it in the camera before I even went to Verizon so I knew it would work... -Pan and Tilt- Works good but you have to keep your finger on and drag it like a joystick on a video game. If you’re signal is spotty it may freak out and spin all the way around from a light pull of that joystick. lol -Alarm Feature- Sufficiently loud for my purposes. I haven’t needed to use it but I did test it out and I could hear it from a solid 100yards away. Not loud at that distance but I could hear it. -Video Quality- I’m actually very impressed with the video quality in 1080P. It’s super clear. I’ll add some pics to this review in both 1080P vs Fluent. Fluent isn’t terrible and I’d still be able to identify someone’s face if they were close to it. 1080P tho you’ll see their face for sure. -2 way Audio- I haven’t really tested this... I’ll have to add something on this later. As far as the sound quality from the videos I’ve mainly just heard the wind whipping and deer crunching in the snow. -Share Camera- I haven’t used this yet but it appears to work just like the owner of the camera. They just scan the code after downloading the app then add the camera. Don’t quote me tho cause I haven’t used it yet. Things I would change or improve........ Offer in more colors, I taped mine off and spray painted it so it’s not so obvious. Increase the Motion Sensing Capabilities. 33ft is probably for like 7ft off the ground but I want this thing up higher where you can’t reach up and grab it. Or stand in the back of a truck and grab it. I think 75ft is more reasonable for this purpose. I am trying to trick it with motion sensing spotlights that have 75ft distance. I’ll update on that more later. But light is supposed to trigger this thing so in theory it should work with a motion spotlight up above it. Fingers Crossed! I would also like to see the temp like on a standard trail cam. It’s got the time and date... no temperature tho. Overall I like this camera and will probably be getting more. It’s much better than the regular Reolink Go. I love that it has an antenna which the regular go does not. The solar panel is solid and has kept in charged to 100% since I moved it to the new location on the pole... panel south with no obstructions. I like that I can review the videos and take snap shots without doing the iPhone screenshot. I like that the camera can record over old videos as I move around this property a lot and trigger it constantly. So I make sure to save the important stuff to my phone. I think that this is a better choice to the regular Reolink go. I didn’t think I’d use the pan and tilt function but I was wrong... I use it all the time. My advice would be spend the extra dough and get the more versatile one that connects easier and has an antenna. Again I will be updating this in the spring or summer when I have used it and tested it more thoroughly. Also if you do have any issues try to get Peter for your support person. He was great and patient and handled my frustration well. Thanks again Peter if you see this! Update: Aug 2022 This camera has been a pain in the butt. It can’t be relied on. It randomly stops recording, stops sending notification, and you have to delete the camera and reinstall it and sometimes that fixes it and sometimes it doesn’t. I also got a message from Verizon saying that after January 1st, 2023… this device will no longer work on their network as they switch to 5g and shut down 3g. We will see how that plays out. Pretty much anytime I’ve wanted to rely on this camera it isn’t working in some way. Today it’s not connecting at all again. So I’ll have to drive back up to the remote property and climb the pole and retrieve the camera… and reset it or replace the card or something. It’s hasn’t been recording to the SD for weeks now. Just randomly stopped recording for a couple days.. came back for a day.. and now it’s not showing anything since the 8th of august and it’s now the 23rd. Or if it is recording, I can’t access it from their app. I’d say this is probably the 10th time I’ve had to climb the pole and mess with this camera since I’ve had it. Which is annoying as I got this one so I could put it up high and leave it. Anyway I would NOT recommend buying this product especially if what they said about the changing network is true. The idea is great but the tech isn’t there yet or they went too cheap on components. Its great when it works but it’s infuriating when it doesn’t and it always seems to happen when you need to see something. I think I’ll be forced to try Verizon’s version which is much more expensive but worth it if it consistently works.