Reolink NVR and RLC-410 PoE 4MP Cameras

I’ve been hunting for a security camera setup for my home for quite some time, doing a ton of research, looking at multiple brands, etc. One thing that kept coming up is that a lot of the specs were very close to the same on many of the products in my price range.

There are obviously certain aspects that are different from each brand, like mounting options, hardware, accessories, camera options, and of course cost. But in a lower cost, “non-professional” system, your options tend to blend together across brands. There are also not a lot of power over ethernet (PoE) cameras out there in the lower price points. Especially not ones that are available in a full system configuration with an NVR, etc.

The TL;DR:

The main brands that I narrowed down to was Hikvision and Reolink. And the real deciding factor in the end was the cost of the NVR that was available for the selected system (I didn’t want to do a roll your own system). The Reolink system with 4 cameras and a NVR with a 2TB hard drive came in at $479.99 USD. For Hikvision, the just the NVR with a 2TB drive was $396.00 USD. So the Reolink system won.

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Osprey Ozone 46 Travel Pack

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I recently purchased the Osprey Ozone 46 travel pack as an alternative to some other travel packs I had been using, mainly to get a little more space for winter gear.

In the past I had been using a Mountainsmith Parallax camera backpack for most of my travels and it’s worked well. But over the years I’ve started bringing less and less equipment with me and needing more space for clothing and other accessories. The Parallax has about 1880 cu. in. of storage space while the Ozone 46 has 2807 cu. In., so the extra space makes things great for stuffing in things like extra jackets, rain pants, etc. Items that I really had to pin to the outside of the Parallax to get it all to fit.

The Parallax has become my short travel, or day-to-day carry around bag for camera equipment as I still love the padding and customization available with it. And for longer trips, I still use the interior travel case that came with the Parallax for my Nikon D810 camera, I just don’t bring extra lenses or things like that, as I’ve found I don’t use them when doing most of my travel photography.

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Gamdias Zeus Laser Gaming Mouse

Gamdias sent me out their Zeus laser gaming mouse to try out.

The Zeus gaming mouse is a very aggressively designed and highly adjustable mouse with laser precision tracking. One of the most interesting features of the Zeus mouse is that the sides of the mouse are adjustable via wheels on the bottom as well as ergonomic inserts that fit between the adjustable areas.

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Gamdias Hermes RGB Keyboard

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I’ve taken a look at a couple of the Gamdias keyboard options out there and I have a new one to throw in the mix, the Gamdias Hermes RGB keyboard.

The Hermes RGB keyboard is a step up from the last Gamdias keyboard I reviewed, the Hermes 7-Color keyboard, and it really takes care of the primary thing I took issue with on it. The fact that it wasn’t able to be configured by the Gamdias Hera software (more information on that to follow)…

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