Reolink Duo 3 PoE security camera review: Blind spots begone

One of my biggest gripes with fixed security cameras has always been the limited field of view. After all, what good is a security camera if it misses all the action going on beyond what it can see? Pan-tilt cameras can be a good solution for those looking to observe a large area, but unless it has automatic tracking or someone controlling it 24/7, blind spots still remain.

This is the exact problem that Reolink’s Duo series is trying to solve, stitching the images of two angled lenses together for a seamless, panoramic view. The Reolink Duo 3 PoE is the latest in the series, and I got the chance to witness it first-hand at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. I was immediately impressed by the picture quality and coverage, but it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to test it myself that I really got to see what it was capable of.

The Reolink Duo 3 isn’t a particularly small unit, but that’s to be expected given the tech packed into it. It’s solid and well-built, but owing to its size and design, it doesn’t exactly fade into the background—instead, it looks imposing and intimidating. Fortunately, this is a security camera we’re talking about, and those traits are exactly what most buyers are looking for.

As its name suggests, the Duo 3 is a wired PoE (power over Ethernet) security camera. For the uninitiated, that means that, in order to get the most out of this camera, you’ll need your home networking infrastructure to be a little more robust than what you can get away with with a simple Wi-Fi security camera. Ideally, you’ll power it by simply plugging the camera into an NVR, compatible router or PoE injector and you’re good to go. However, if you don’t have any of those (or your router doesn’t support PoE), it can also be powered using a 12V DC plug, although doing so does limit your placement opportunities. If you use this method, you’ll also need to connect the camera to your router via the Ethernet cable, which means the final product will have two cords dangling off it, which isn’t the best.

I, unfortunately, do not have the ideal setup, but with an extension cord, a long Ethernet cable and a dream, I was able to get it going in the perfect spot in my backyard, allowing me to see a full 180-degree view of it.

Once installed and powered up, setup is a breeze via the Reolink app. Simply make an account, then click ‘Add a device’ and scan the QR code on the camera using your phone. Follow the prompts and you’ll be set.

I have zero complaints about the video produced by the Reolink Duo 3 PoE. In fact, it’s easily some of the best quality I’ve ever seen in a security camera. One 4K lens is one thing, but two stitched together to create an uninterrupted 180-degree view in exceptional clarity makes this a hard camera to beat.

Take this view of my backyard, for example.

That’s pretty much the entire thing, all in one frame. And, as the owner of an adventurous pup, being able to see everywhere she goes and everything she does without having to fiddle with any pan/tilt controls is a game changer.

The inbuilt LED spotlights are blindingly bright (to the point where I startled my dog quite a few times—sorry, Hazel), making for equally spectacular night footage, both in colour and black and white.

The Motion Track feature is fantastic for a camera with coverage this wide. I just wish it had been implemented a little better.

For the uninitiated, Motion Track is Reolink’s new innovation that allows you to see the trajectory of a moving object over time in just one frame, meaning you don’t need to watch minutes or even hours of footage to see where someone went. Here’s an example of how it looks.

Great, right? There’s only one problem. This feature is only available if you enable email alerts. And in doing so, you’ll get emails anytime there’s motion detected at intervals of between 30 seconds and 30 minutes, depending on which setting you choose. Even one email alert every 30 minutes is too much for me. This feature has tons of potential, so I’d love to see Reolink make Motion Track images accessible in the general playback menu, rather than emailing them to me.

Other than that one flaw, the rest of the Duo 3 PoE’s features are super customisable and easy to use. Thanks to the camera’s smart object detection, in the playback menu you can filter videos by subject. Each video has icons indicating what was detected: A person, animal, car, or simply motion.

It’s also incredibly easy to block out sections you want to exclude from motion detection with activity zones, and you can even exclude areas from recording with customisable privacy masks.

There’s the usual two-way audio we’ve come to expect in just about every security camera, along with a siren that can trigger manually or automatically, based on your schedule.

Reolink is also one of a few rare manufacturers whose security cameras can produce timelapse footage. It’s not something that you’re going to use every day, but it’s a fun gimmick nonetheless.

If you’re serious about home security (or security for your business), the Reolink Duo 3 PoE should be one of the first cameras you consider. Its dual-lens 4K footage spans such an enormous amount of space that it could effectively replace a couple of single-lens cameras, and the Motion Track feature, though not executed perfectly, is a game changer. The Duo 3 PoE is not perfect, but whatever small flaws it has are well outweighed by its virtues.