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4 Channels; 500 Gb Hard Drive; H.264 Video Recorder; Networking & 3G Phone Connectivity; Upnp Allows For Easy Network Setup; Usb Port; Includes 4 Pro 580 Ccd, Day/Night Cameras; 480 Lines Of Resolution;
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Excellent value and good customer service,
We ordered this unit on March 19, 2012. We love it! I started the installation process on March 24th, and have four of the eight cameras installed and running. The system has been running just fine for this last week. I had no problems getting things setup; most of it worked right out of the box. I am quite technical, so setting up the remote access via a web browser, and Android mobile app worked on the first try. As long as you know how to forward ports on your home router, the remote access process will be very easy.
Some things to note. Make sure you PLAN your install ahead of time. Camera location, cable runs, DVR location, and access into your house for the cabling are key. Take your time. Time and planning up front will pay off big time in the long run. I pre-planned everything I thought I would need before I started installing. I had made a trip to Home Depot the day before, and unboxed and tested the system on the kitchen table before I started installing anything. All the cameras worked just fine during the test, as did the DVR.
Make sure you measure your runs for your cameras and order extra cables before hand. I had one cable run that ended up being about four feet short. I had to order a couple extra cables so I could run cable cleanly to the cameras. The 60 foot cables may sound long when you are first installing, but as soon as you start routing cables, 60 feet runs out very quickly. It is nice to have a couple 100 foot cables on hand, and they are inexpensive to order.
I spent 8.5 hours straight installing in the first four cameras and DVR. I initially had three cameras installed in front of our house, but decided I didn’t have all the coverage I wanted, so I installed a fourth on the front of our house. I took plenty of time to find the location I wanted to bring the cabling into our house from, so I didn’t drill through any electrical, studs, or any other items that may block my path or damage the house.
I reviewed three different manufacturers: Swann, Q-See, and XModo. Some key items that made my decision to go with Swann where the fact that the cameras were:
* Camera lenses were 3.6mm over 6mm. 3.6mm lenses provide a wider viewing angle over 6mm.
* Camera Image sensor technology is CCD in the Swann, not CMOS (more info here for tech junkies: […]). CCD provides for a clearer picture and is less susceptible to “noise” interference from the night vision LEDs, making for better picture quality all around (is how I understood it from the article I linked).
* Cameras were branded as Sony with the Swann system. I like Sony. I did not see any specific branding on any of the other systems.
* Customer service answered their phone. Before purchasing I called the customer service/tech support line to see what kind of experience I would have. Someone who spoke solid English answered after only one minute on hold. I since have called customer service two more times to get clarification on a couple things, and both times my hold time was only one to two minutes.
Some other things to note. Email notifications only work if you have the camera in ‘scheduled’ motion detection mode. Even though the cameras will sense motion triggers while ‘always recording’ they will not send notifications unless the camera is NOT in ‘always record’ mode, and is in ‘scheduled’ mode with “alarm” parameters set in the schedule. After messing with this, I decided I preferred the ‘always record’ mode.
I immediately took out the 500GB hard drive and upgraded to a 2TB drive. This was easy. The only thing I had to do was get into the DVR menu and format the hard drive from the DVR menu before the DVR would start recording again. This is not noted in the documentation for replacing the hard drive, so be aware you need to use the DVR menu to format any replacement drive you put in before the device will start recording to it. Format only took a couple minutes for the 2TB drive.
You can perform about 90{fa0f407a56ebf26e8755ec9e145523374db89e13015bb27dc750b111d8cc035c} of the DVR setup and function through the web interface. Currently only Internet Explorer is supported (I prefer Chrome or Firefox), but I had no trouble using IE 7 on a Windows XP machine, or IE 9 on my Windows 7 machine after following the IE configuration changes in the Swann documentation. You must make a couple security changes (nothing that will jeopardize your computer) to make the Swann Active X plug in install and work correctly.
I used the remote a little bit. The main interface on the DVR is a little clunky with the remote. I prefer to use the web interface when at all possible. The mouse that is included is also clunky when I have used it. I will likely change out the mouse to see if something better works more smoothly, but I have not done that yet.
Night vision works great for us. We have perimeter lighting completely around our house. Our motion lights…
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|A Great System For The Money,
So far, this system has met all of my expectations … and more. It was easy to set up and it is recording 24/7 video for us with no issues. I am really impressed with how Swann has made this such a complete, ready to go, system. I had two cameras recording and being displayed on the TV within 20 minutes of opening the box. Of course I had not yet routed the wiring yet for proper camera placement and properly hiding of the wires. Note, this is by far the most time consuming and frustrating element to setting up a security system, but that is not the fault of this system. (For allot more money you can buy a wireless system.)
The only negative I have is the ability to configure the system so that I can achieve remote monitoring, ie a iphone or ipad. The issue is that the Mac Airport Extreme Router does not support the UpNP interface that this system requires. Swann’s documentation says that there is alternate hope, but it appears very complex (they even say this) and I think beyond my IT/network capability. I hope to figure it out, but it is not mission critical.
On the good side, the night vision performance is very good, the day light performance is great, the 4 camera display on the TV or computer monitor is excellent, and the system settings configurability is very extensive. Example, instead of recording at 30 fps I changed it to 1 fps so to save hard drive space and thus be able to capture many more days of history before it starts over-writing old data. I did try the motion detection feature. It seemed to work well, but I’ve opted for 27/7 capture at 1 fps. The ability to review history is pretty slick and very easy to understand. The remote is a bit clumsy, but using the mouse is very efficient.
Summary: I am very pleased to be in a 4 camera, night vision, 500 GB DVR, continuous recording surveillance system for $250.
I’d say the only thing to watch out for is if you absolutely require “smart phone” viewing that you prepare for challenging IT/Network tinkering. Maybe it will be easy on a UpNP capable router.
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|Decent product but the jury is out on customer service,
PRODUCT: THREE STARS
Assuming that we get the two damaged cameras back with no further problems (see customer service), the system is not bad deal overall, but not really a great deal either. The set up instructions are clear and the included wiring is enough for what most people will need. The software is a bit clunky and we are still playing around with it, it works albeit less cleanly than you’d like. Reviewing video is a chore unless you have a specific time in mind. The cameras appear to be an older model camera. The ones that are not defective seem to work fine. If all of the cameras had come in working properly, it would be closer to a 3.5 star system.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: INCOMPLETE (BUT SO FAR DISAPPOINTING)
We tested all of the wires and equipment before running any wires. Which was a good thing since one of the cameras was DOA. So we contacted customer service to set up a replacement.(The instructions clearly tell you not to return to the store, but to contact customer service-I now which we had just re-boxed and done a return through Amazon.) They told us they would send us an RMA to return the defective camera, and to go ahead and set up the others. So we did.
We had to call them back to get an RMA because they didn’t send one as promised. Then when we took it in to get it returned and realized they didn’t give us a shipping label. Upon further review they require that the Buyer pays for return shipping until it is ‘proven’ that you bought the item less than 30 days ago. Just as we get ready to send it in, a second camera fails. So now we are down 2 out of three. We are now past the 30 days and still have not received the replacements.
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