SwannHome Security Camera System with 2TB HDD, 8 Channel 8 Cam, POE Cat5e NVR 4K HD Video, Indoor or Outdoor Wired Surveillance CCTV, Color Night Vision, Heat Motion Detection, LED Light, 876808

I was looking for a system with POE capabilities. The initial setup was a bit tricky. Swann support was slow to respond. If you don't use the Swann NVR to feed power to the cameras it is a bit more difficult to connect. The quality of the live feed uses lower resolution on purpose. The zoom is not the greatest, however it works. For the phone app they only allow one account to connect to the system. So, the same account has to be shared with other users. This may pose a problem when you try do give separate access to different users.

I’ve just finished installing all the cameras. This system replaces one I’d been using for 8 years. I thought I was happy with my old system, but this new Swann system has raised the bar on what qualifies for happiness! I’m using the default settings until I have time to digest the massive, well-written manual. The lightweight plastic camera housing let me dangle the cameras from the Cat5 connector without creating strain on that connector. A camera needs to swing freely while I attach its base to the soffit. Coincidentally, the three(3) screw holes in the base lined up perfectly with those in the old system, so I did not need to drill new holes.I needed to loosen all the camera housing screws to enable all degrees of freedom. For my installation, all the cameras are shipped “upside down”. There might be a software setting to rotate the image, but, as I said, I’ve not read the entire manual yet. I found it easiest to screw the base into place, stuff excess cable up into the soffit hole, fit the camera onto the base, fine tune alignment with those previously loosened housing screws.During installation, I used an iOS tablet running the Swann app to verify the cameras are oriented properly, then I tightened all the screws. It’s good to check with the app to see if the camera is actually connected and functioning before mounting it and tightening the screws.Using Cat5e cables already in place from the old system, I attached all cameras to the soffit sheltered by the roof eaves.I’m happy enough with this system to give it 5 stars, but I think a 5-star system should be able to sense a power outage, send an alert, shut down the hard drive, wait for restoration of power, reboot, then resume normal functions. Such a system would, indeed, be a security system. My old system couldn’t do that either, so I have to hope a UPS keeps the NVR alive and that I’m home to deal with manual shutdown, reboot, etc. I did ask about this before purchasing. The Swann rep said to use surge protection. (You can find that advice in the Q&A section of this product’s reviews.)If I remember, I’ll revisit this in a few months. I still need to test remote access from outside our home network, try the warning light and sound, set masks on image areas where PIR motion will trigger alerts.But right now, out of the box with default settings, I’m quite pleased with this system. I can sense a lot of work went into it.

It is easy to set up and the pictures are much better than others I’ve seen. Good detection. The thing that bugs me is it is finicky. The mouse won’t respond sometimes and this is my biggest pet peeve. I always have to unplug the mouse and plug it in to the other usb to get it back up. Tried another mouse and same thing. So it’s the OS causing it. Cameras will say video loss. System seems slow and as of right now I only have 5 cameras hooked up. Afraid it will get slower with all 8.

no power

I bought this product because of the supposed heat detection to reduce false triggers. After my purchase I found out that this feature was only available through a monthly subscription. I decided not to pay for a subscription but now my trees are triggering the camera 300+ times a day, so now I willing to pay for the subscription and come to find out, this system is not compatible with real time analytics, which means that true detect doesn’t work with these cameras. What a waste of money. Looking for replacements and it will not be Swann.To complete this review, the picture quality is pretty good up close, but if you need something at a distance then it gets fuzzy. Also the cameras will aggressively alert you every time the wind blows but all of a sudden there’s a car in front of your house that you didn’t get an alert for.