Most home security companies are chasing the same two things right now: recurring subscription revenue and increasingly complex AI features that live in the cloud. Reolink is taking a different approach. At CES 2026, the company introduced new cameras and supporting hardware that emphasize local processing, long battery life, and full coverage, without a monthly subscription.
Video is stored locally by default – on the camera itself, on a Reolink Hub, or on a local network-attached drive. That matters not just because of cost, but because of privacy. If your footage stays on your home network, there’s no third-party database of your daily activity, and no external service that can be breached to expose your video.
Reolink is extending that idea with the new Reolink AI Box, a local processing hub attached to your home Wi-Fi that runs detection, analysis, and video search on-device using a Qualcomm chipset. The AI Box handles things like prompt-based alerts, event descriptions, and video summaries. You can set alerts using natural language, such as describing a specific action or scenario you want to be notified about, and the system translates that into detection logic without sending your data elsewhere. And it works with any Reolink security camera, even the entry-level models.
Battery life is another area where Reolink is clearly addressing a real pain point. The new Power-Efficient Series uses Qualcomm’s low-power Wi-Fi chipset to dramatically reduce energy consumption. Reolink says these cameras can last up to nine months on a charge in typical use, delivering up to 96 percent longer battery life than standard Wi-Fi cameras. That’s especially important for cameras and doorbells that are mounted in places where running power is inconvenient or impossible.
At the high end of the lineup, Reolink’s new OMVI X16 PoE shows what a security camera can do when it’s not constrained by battery. The camera uses a triple-lens design that combines a 16-megapixel dual-lens panoramic camera with a 180-degree field of view and an 8-megapixel pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) lens capable of 16× optical zoom, supported by a triple-motor system that enables 360-degree horizontal panning and 140-degree vertical rotation. The wide panoramic view gives you constant context across a large area, while the PTZ lens provides a true optical close-up when you need detail.
When motion is detected in the panoramic view, the PTZ lens automatically locks onto the subject and continues tracking it, even if it moves beyond the original wide-angle frame. You can also simply tap anywhere in the panoramic image, and the zoom lens will immediately move to that point and magnify it.
Taken together, the new lineup reflects a focus on the unglamorous parts of home security that actually matter: battery life, coverage gaps, privacy, and long-term cost. You still get smart detection, tracking, summaries, and alerts, but you don’t have to pay a subscription to access them, you don’t have to recharge your cameras constantly, and you don’t have to give up your footage to the cloud in exchange for convenience.
Reolink’s 2026 lineup will roll out this summer. Pricing has not been set.
[Image credit: Techlicious]
