Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, Net Work revisits home-use IP cameras, marvels at the current missions to Mars
from NASA (and others) and reveals the latest money spinner from eBay – for eBay, not you.
T
he topic of IP securitycameras
has cropped up in Net Work for
over a decade, as demand for
surveillance systems rose, and slow,
stuttery and often unreliable home
devices gradually became available.
Today, any home user keen to add a
feature-packed camera onto their home
network is spoiled for choice. Whether
they deliver on their promises is often
the subject of trial and error though.
I previously outlined some key features that prospective buyers of IP
cameras might bear in mind. For use
indoors, wireless (ie, Wi-Fi) cameras
promise simplicity of installation, but
good Wi-Fi coverage is almost mandatory although some cameras also
have wired Ethernet ports. If the Wi-Fi
network is patchy, powerline communication devices (PLC) such as Devolo
or TP-Link PLC products carry IP traffic through the electrical rings mains
and are a good option. An onboard
microSD slot offers local storage of
snapshots or video clips, which will
be fine unless the camera is stolen.
Some camera brands (supposedly) sell
cloud storage that hosts video footage
off-site (see later). A mobile app usually allows a camera to be set up and its
The Reolink E1 Pro is a low-cost pan-tilt
network camera that is performing well – so far.
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Reolink pan-tilt
Next up was a duo of
Reolink ‘E1 Pro’ pan-tilt
indoor home cameras,
which cost about £75
a pair after discounts.
The Reolink brand
has been highlighted
before as a popular and
well-regarded brand,
and these cameras are
typical ‘swivelling
eyeball’ types for resA Windows 10 app is available for desktop control of Reolink idential use (note that
cameras. Note the pan-tilt controls.
this product works on
Wi-Fi only). On the
video feed monitored. Some cameras upside, they are dual-band 2.4GHz
provide shared access over the web, and 5GHz devices which should help
or via a paid-for cloud network, or by make them futureproof.
using a mobile app login. Monochrome
It has up to 4MP (2560 × 1440 px)
night vision with IR illuminator LEDs is resolution along with two-way audio.
common, which often needs disabling A microSD slot is hidden from view
if a camera is behind a windowpane. to help deter tampering (so much so,
A microphone and speaker may offer that some buyers even ask where it
two-way voice comms of sorts. A power
is!). They have a typical lightweight
source within easy reach is needed, plastic construction, as they only have
often a 5V USB-type.
small DC motors to control them. It’s
likely that a ‘patrol’ mode, sweepPTZ options
ing the lens from side to side, would
Most cameras are static, but some simply wear them out, which is why
offer motor-controlled coverage of
patrolling is not an option at this sort
the target area. In December 2020’s of price level.
Net Work I looked at the HeimVision
The supplied 5V 1A mains adaptor
HM311, a decently made, fixed out- has a hard-wired 3m lead terminatdoor camera with some small built-in ed with a 2.5mm barrel plug. If you
security lights that generally worked want to cook your own power supply,
very well. Spurred on by the encour- I found 2.5 × 0.7mm extension leads
aging performance, in the March 2021
as well as USB A-type leads were sold
issue I tried their HM202A PTZ (pan- on eBay. With home users in mind, the
tilt-zoom) indoor IP camera, a budget camera is freestanding and a simple
network motorised camera that trades plastic bayonet bracket, with drilling
at about £35 or so, and is typical of template, allows for ceiling mounting.
this level of security gadget. Several It has no tripod screw.
months later and regrettably, readers,
While the HeimVision camera had a
this Wi-Fi/ Ethernet camera bit the dust: decent little user manual, the Reolink
it started disconnecting and crashing is only furnished with a Quick-Start
constantly, usually when playing back guide and the bulk of user guidance
video clips over the network. The cam- is published online. Being Wi-Fi only,
era’s motion controls became nearly
installation was performed by installunusable and frequently it ended up ing Reolink’s mobile app and adding a
staring at a brick wall unresponsively.
device. The camera lens scans the disA mobile app upgrade made it fiddlier played QR code, a password is input,
to control and the app seemed to push and setup was completed in a very slick
paid-for cloud storage. It was returned process. The mobile app then offers a
fuss-free under warranty.
live video stream, and over the Wi-Fi
Practical Electronics | May | 2021
network the motor controls were responsive and smooth with barely any
overshoot or lag. I found it performed
much better than the HeimVision in an
identical setting. Arrow icons appear
onscreen showing the lens’s direction
of travel when moving. The ‘Reolink’
image watermark can be disabled, and
a moderate siren sound in the camera
can be activated by either detecting
motion or manually, if you want to
put the frighteners on an intruder (or
your granny!).
The Reolink app triggers an alert
when motion is detected and, once
SMTP details are entered, it can email
a text or attach snapshots or video
clips. The camera depends on an optional microSD card to stream as a
network video recorder (NVR). The
spec claims 64GB maximum, but I tried
a fast 128GB card without noticing any
problems. It replays at between 0.25×
to 16× actual speed, with pre-trigger
and post-trigger recording adding
some context. Snapshots and video
clips can also be taken manually or
downloaded onto the phone, and the
app’s simple editor does a neat job
of ‘scrubbing’ and clipping the video
when saving. As mentioned, there is
no simple web-based access, but the
camera feed can be shared with friends
and family using the app on their own
devices, if they snap another QR code.
Get off my cloud
At this point I considered the option of
cloud-storage. Cost generally depends
on how long data is stored before being
overwritten (eg, 7 or 30 days), and
whether recordings are taken 24×7 or
are triggered by motion only. HeimVision’s cheapest package, for example,
costs approximately $6 per month per
camera (http://bit.ly/pe-may21-heim)
or up to $134.99 per year, but when
checked online all cloud storage plans
for the HM202A PTZ (reviewed in
March 2021) were ‘out of stock’! At the
time of writing, Reolink’s Cloud storage is hosted on Amazon AWS but was
not available for sale in Europe due to
the current lack of GDPR compliance,
they say. (But the UK isn’t in the EU,
and whether any breach of data privacy regulations could be enforced in
China is a moot point anyway.) Hopefully, cloud storage will roll out in due
course. Some other Reolink cameras
offer FTP uploading, for those who
run their own servers.
Reolink also provides a dedicated
Windows app, which installed in W10
without a hitch. It provides on-screen
pan/tilt control and playback, as well
as allowing users to take snapshots and
video clips to save onto, for example,
Practical Electronics | May | 2021
a NAS storage drive.
You can zoom in on the
image digitally. Recording schedules can be set
up in the app as well, as
can privacy masks and
motion detection zones.
Compared with some
bundled packages that
are rough around the
edges, I found Reolink’s
Windows app to be a
modern and well-designed app offering
good desktop control
of lens positioning. A
second Reolink camera
was then added, giving
a multichannel view
(four, maximum) on the Synology’s Surveillance Station installs on a NAS and is a very
powerful monitoring and recording system for network cameras,
mobile app and the Winincluding the Reolink E1 Pro tested here.
dows desktop PC.
When tested out and about, viewing installed the Reolink E1 Pro successthe live streaming video and playback fully, which proved a point, but in
over mobile data was very satisfactory. reality, my own Synology NAS just
The author found the pan-tilt motion wasn’t up to the job. Surveillance Stacontrol very usable with little lag (recall tion needs a powerful NAS and fast
that video and snapshot recordings network, and the software is probacan be taken manually on the mobile bly an area reserved for power users.
phone). It claims to be compatible More details of Surveillance Station are
with Google Assistant, but this has not online at: http://bit.ly/pe-may21-syn
Bare Synology or QNAP NAS sysbeen tested yet. Overall, the Reolink
E1 Pro seems to be a very well-sort- tems are available from major IT
ed pan-tilt camera for home use with vendors; sold separately are hard disks
very few vices; plus, Reolink’s web- optimised for being thrashed by sursite has a wealth of support material. veillance recording and streaming
That said, I would have liked to have tasks, notably the Seagate SkyHawk
seen an Ethernet port and a standard and Western Digital ‘Purple’ ranges.
USB-type power feed rather than a Windows 10 also makes it easy to use
dedicated mains adaptor. The E1 Pro dual monitors to get more screen ‘real
estate’ if you’re stuck for space watchis available from Amazon or direct
ing everything, see January 2021 Net
from: http://bit.ly/pe-may21-e1
Work for some tips.
Under Surveillance
There is plenty of choice available
Reolink has another trick up this cam- for those wanting to try an IP camera
era’s sleeve: it is Onvif-compatible, so on their home network, and hopein theory it could run on a home or fully the Reolink will fit the bill for
office camera package such as Synolo- a budget-priced device that’s easy to
gy’s sophisticated Surveillance Station. set up and control. Note that all camOwners of Synology NAS drives can eras mentioned here have been paid
create a comprehensive multi-chan- for by the author – no freebies – and
nel network video recorder and Onvif I’ll doubtless give readers a progress
camera controller using this software report in coming months.
package. It has every feature imaginable to satisfy even the most paranoid of Mars attacks!
users, and possibilities include joystick As Net Work readers doubtless know,
controllers (untested) and deep video NASA’s latest leg of its Mars Exploanalytics, leading to people counting, ration Program was completed in
facial recognition and more. Each Syn- mid-February with a spectacular touchology package includes a licence for down of the sophisticated Perseverance
two cameras, and more camera licenc- rover followed by the vehicle’s first
tentative test drive in early March.
es can be bought separately.
Having a basic Synology NAS on What readers, especially overseas,
my own home network, I decided to might not know is that Perseverance
try this idea out. Installing Surveil- is actually being controlled, in part
lance Station took a single mouse-click anyway, by a NASA scientist working
followed by a very lengthy delay to from a one-bedroom flat in London.
Professor Sanjeev Gupta should be in
download and install it. My basic NAS
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California, but found himself stranded
in the UK during the Covid lockdown,
so an apartment above a hairdressing
salon has been pressed into service
with a couple of laptops acting as a
makeshift nerve centre.
Attached to the rover is a small helicopter drone called Ingenuity, which
has ‘checked in’ successfully and its
solar cells are charging it up, ready for
some proof-of-concept test flights. If
successful, it would be the first such
flight on an alien world. Up above,
China’s own Mars orbiter, Tianwen-1
(‘Questions to Heaven’) is circling the
planet and its own lander/rover is expected to be released to land on the
surface mid-year.
The United Arab Emirates Space
Agency also celebrated the arrival of
its ‘Hope Probe’, the first interplanetary mission conducted by an Arab
nation. The UAE Hope orbiter was
launched from Japan last July and is
currently circling Mars, tasked with
analysing its atmosphere. Space fans
can enjoy their drag-and-drop tracker in the solar system at: http://bit.ly/
pe-may21-mars
A further 240 Starlink satellites
were slated for launch in March by
SpaceX using its re-usable rockets,
as it continues to build its network
of laser-connected, LEO (low-earth
orbit) satellites, designed to beam
satellite-based broadband down to
Earth. More than 1,200 satellites have
been launched, and its Starlink service is starting to roll out for early
adopters (apply at: www.starlink.
com). SpaceX also has in its sights
on the provision of Internet access
for moving vehicles.
OneWeb, the satellite operator
brought out of bankruptcy by the
British Government and India’s Bharti
Global, is said to be in talks with British Telecom to provide satellite-based
services to hard-to-reach areas in the
UK. Initially floated as a possible
option for a post-Brexit UK GPS network, that idea was silently shelved
leaving the UK Government under
pressure to justify the cost of the bailout in the first place.
And finally…
In other news, in an effort to build
‘trust’ into online content, major IT
and media companies have formed
the Coalition for Content Provenance
and Authenticity (C2PA). It intends to
fight disinformation, misinformation,
fake news and fraudulent content by
providing traceability of content back
to its origins, and is the brainchild
of Microsoft, Adobe, Intel, the BBC
and others.
14
Inside the UK’s first Amazon Fresh store in London (Credit: YouTube / Hannah Ricketts)
The board of Nominet, the UK body
that oversees the .uk ccTLD (country-code top level domain) space, has
been toppled after a number of discontented members mobilised to demand
major re-forms to the organisation’s governance and a return to more altruistic
values. After failing to fend off an extraordinary general meeting called by
a group of smaller players, Nominet’s
CEO Russell Haworth resigned and
four directors were voted out in March.
The website PublicBenefit.uk cited
Nominet’s 2/3 drop in public benefit donations, coupled with massive
directors’ pay rises and a 38% fall in
profits as reasons for their dissatisfaction. Some members also cited their
lack of trust, after Nominet pulled the
plug on their official forum to silence
them, which fuelled more anger against
Nominet’s management.
...wind energy news
GE Renewable Energy in partnership
with asset manager firm Luxcara is
building Europe’s largest onshore
wind farm at Önusberget in northern
Sweden. Using GE’s new ‘Cypress’
wind turbine platform, up to 137 of the
5.5MW turbines will deliver 750MW
of power, equivalent to the generating capacity of a nuclear reactor. The
158m-long turbine blades incorporate
an ice-mitigation system, GE says, to
deal with the Swedish climate.
Regular Net Work readers might
recall my coverage of GE’s Haliade-X
offshore wind turbine, which is at the
heart of Hornsea One, currently the
world’s largest offshore wind farm
off the coast of Yorkshire, England
(see Net Work, January 2020). These
14MW monoliths might soon face
Danish competition thanks to Vestas
Wind Systems’ prototype 15MW turbine. As the market for wind turbines
hots up, makers aim to reduce operating and electricity production costs
by having fewer but longer turbine
blades that generate more power. A
very interesting and highly readable
blog by wind energy engineer Sarah
Barber explains a wind turbine’s AEP
(Annual Energy Production), its rated
power and more besides at: http://bit.
ly/pe-may21-wind
What to do with wind turbines that
reach their end of life? These machines
may last 20-25 years, depending on environmental factors. While up to 95%
of the machinery can be recycled, the
enormous turbine blades themselves
can weigh up to 50 tons each and are
made of complex composite materials
that end up in land fill. Studies are now
under way to recycle them, including
the Danish-funded DecomBlades project which hopes to research ways of
shredding turbine blades to produce
a consistent raw material that could
be used in Portland cement, for example. Some interesting background is
at the blade manufacturer LM Power’s
site at: https://tinyurl.com/yd5dzt9t
...Amazon shopping in London
Amazon has launched its first walkin/walk-out retail store outside of the
US. Based in Ealing, London, visitors
to the Amazon Fresh store identify
themselves by scanning a QR code
on entry before shopping in the tillfree store. Amazon uses its ‘Just Walk
Out Technology’ combining AI techniques and cameras to follow shoppers
around the store. When done, shoppers
just walk out, and Amazon bills them
Practical Electronics | May | 2021
An image from the first journey of NASA’s Perseverance rover on 4 March 2021. One of its
Hazard Avoidance Cameras captured this image when manoeuvring at its landing site in
Jezero Crater. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
‘automagically’. One shopper likened
it to ‘feeling like you’ve left without
paying’. A second store opened soon
afterwards at Wembley. There’s a YouTube walkaround at: https://youtu.
be/2yoJ-LV3iTU
...eBay and PayPal
Dressed up as an ‘improvement’, eBay
UK has updated its PayPal selling
terms after divorcing from the ubiquitous payment processor. The online
marketplace has inserted itself into
the payment chain, and says ‘eBay
now manages the end-to-end selling
experience on our marketplace, including payments.’ Buyers using PayPal
will find themselves paying eBay (eg
Paymentsinfouk<at>ebay.co.uk) rather
than funding the seller’s own PayPal
account. Sellers now face delays of
up to two business days before eBay
pays them directly into their bank
account; on the plus side, Paypal
fees charged to sellers will be eliminated. eBay will also deduct its fees
immediately, rather than billing sellers in arrears by direct debit, a move
that advances eBay’s own cash flow
while retarding that of their sellers.
Previously, if I sold anything on eBay
I could use the PayPal revenue to pay
a courier directly from the proceeds,
but not anymore. The real winners in
all this are eBay.
Details of the new terms are on http://
bit.ly/pe-may21-ebay and it’s worth
remembering that under UK law, consumers using PayPal are purchasing
directly from PayPal, not from eBay
or the vendor, so they still don’t enjoy
Practical Electronics | May | 2021
the same consumer rights as someone
buying ‘direct’ using a credit card.
A corrected caption!
Last, this month, my thanks go to regular reader Stephen Alsop who wrote
in following last month’s Net Work:
‘Another good article in this month’s
PE. I liked the mention of the late John
Becker. He was my hero in that I had
started to use PICs in my industrial
projects and jobs from the early 90s,
all done in assembler obviously (some
can be seen in my simple one-liner project list on my website, alsop.co.uk). I
think the first I used was a PIC1650/52
or suchlike, where erasing was done
in a UV box.
‘John created the best-ever articles
using PICs – the altimeter, the compass
and wind direction device using ultrasonic sensors... what a clever man.
He explained them fully and clearly,
and together with the explanation of
the source code made each project the
ultimate model of how to teach within
a construction article. I am forever indebted to him, as he brought me on in
leaps and bounds. More knowledge has
flowed through PE than many places
of higher education.
‘However, my reason for writing was
to point out that the picture of John
Becker with Sir Clive Sinclair on page
13 [April issue] says it was taken at
the 25th anniversary birthday of PE in
1992. I still have my first PE magazine
and it is November 1964 and so the
25th should have been 1989.
All the best and please keep the articles informative and enlightening.’
70 years of technological developments
have brought us to today. Some of
these advances were monumental
and game changing in their own
right. Some significant spin offs have
revolutionised many unrelated areas.
The author has had a front-row seat
through most of this revolution and
puts it in perspective in plain English.
Available on Kindle or in
paperback at Amazon
Thank you for writing, Stephen.
You’re right to point out the error in
my caption on page 13 last month.
John’s interview with Sir Clive Sinclair appeared in the 25th year issue
of Practical Electronics which was the
November 1989 edition, as you rightly
say. The photo I used last month actually came from the October 1992 issue
and was (I think) previously unpublished – another milestone magazine,
as it was the very last PE under the
old stewardship of John Becker before
merging to become Everyday Practical
Electronics (EPE). John became EPE’s
technical editor.
Looking back over 25 years and speculating about life 25 years hence in
2014, I think November 1989’s issue
is the most thought-provoking and
prescient issue of PE ever published.
In 2014 I had the pleasure and privilege of writing our ‘50 Golden Year’
anniversary celebrations, currently still downloadable as PDFs from
www.electronpublishing.com under
the ‘Resources’ tab. Thank you again
for writing, Stephen!
More Net Work next month!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
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