Review on 🎥 Reolink 5MP 16-Channel Home Security Camera System, 8 Wired 5MP Outdoor PoE IP Cameras, 4K 16-Channel NVR with 3TB HDD for Continuous 24/7 Recording, RLK16-520B4D4-5MP by Jeff Rhodes

I bought this system in early December. But where I live in early December it's cold and I was busy on vacation so I didn't get around to setting up this system and installing cameras (outside the return line) until the end of February. Everything should be just plug and play, but I keep getting the same symptoms after the system has been idle for a while: 1) the hard drive light on the dashcam stops blinking and is solid red instead, 2) the monitor is connected to the NVR, says I lost connection to my cameras, 3) Reolink app on my iPhone says connection failed with each camera, 4) Reolink client on my laptop loses video from all cameras. The system stays like this until I move the mouse connected to the NVR. Then the NVR beeps and the HDD light starts flashing again, I get camera images showing up on the NVR monitor again, my phone app is showing camera images again, and my laptop client is showing camera images again. But then, after leaving the system idle for a while (about 10 minutes), symptoms 1, 2, 3, and 4 appear again. Everything seems to fall asleep, but obviously that's not how a video surveillance system should work! The system behaved this way continuously for a week while I tried to think/fix what might be wrong. In the end I gave up and called Reolink USA support. The person I spoke to remotely connected to my laptop, examined the customer, and finally said they needed to escalate the issue to a tech, which would cost me $150! I said I didn't have to pay extra for a system that never worked properly, but he told me that was my only option. So I canceled his service and spent another week looking for a solution on the Reolink website, blogs and YouTube. Since I couldn't find anything that could help me, I called Reolink support a second time. Again, someone remotely connected to my laptop, examined the client, and finally said they needed to escalate the issue to a tech, which would cost me $50. I declined again. The fact that the second call to Reolink support was contradictingly listed as $100 less than the first call makes the whole operation seem unprofessional to me and the fact that I would have to pay for everything is totally unfair. Reolink advertises a 2-year warranty and 24/7 customer support, but the person I spoke to at Reolink customer service told me that Reolink does not have their own US customer service; Instead, Reolink support is provided by a third party in the US, which charges for anything but a simple matter. It looks like a total scam for this company to sell me a system that doesn't work and then charge me more money to supposedly/hopefully make the system work. The system should just be DIY! Now I have no idea what to do. There may be a fairly simple setting change that fixes the issue, but I can't find any information about it and Reolink support won't help me unless I pay for it. I'm so pissed!