kmarnes

Wow old thread indeed. I ended up buying this: https://www.lorextechnology.com/hd-ip-security-camera-system/8-channel-security-camera-system-with-6-hd-surveillance-cameras/LN10804-86W-1-p Paid $750 during the previous cyber monday sale for a PVR, 6 2K cameras with color night vision, and 6x 60' ethernet cables. Haven't actually fully installed it yet due to wintry weather. All I did was plug it in and a single camera on the inside aimed outside the sliding glass door. Was able to easily install a mobile app to access the cameras from anywhere, including notifications. You can configure the cameras for different resolutions, motion sensing rules, notifications, etc, and there is a ip website (much like configuring your router), so you can drive everything from your computer instead of doing it from the box on your TV. It's not the best user experience (UX), but it's serviceable. The cameras at 2K are decent enough, but I won't trust night vision to be particularly good. I can't stress enough that Lorex customer service is rock bottom. It is so horrible. But couldn't beat the price for what I ended up getting. They literally ignored a warranty problem I had with my old crappy wireless system despite multiple attempts, and with my most recent order, I also ordered a separate hub extender which ended up shipping separately well after I canceled, but it took two months and several phones calls and tickets to get my refund. It finally happened after I threatened to dispute it on my credit card. It also took them a full month for them to ship the initial order after Cyber Monday, despite the website showing it was in stock the whole time. So it's quite bad. So if you buy from them, you're literally on your own if you have any problems.

Yeah the extension router was going to save wires. But after doing some measurements, I just picked up two 100' cables from Home Depot and that'll give me the reach I need for my most far reaching cameras. Also this way, I only need to drill one hole through my house instead of two, the way I was going to do it. Quality on computer is crisp -- 4K and can see a lot enough detail to identify people and license plates, but as a bit of a camera guy, their camera sensors are average at best -- at 4K, pixels are larger blobs rather than individual pixels. Much like you would expect from a small 12MP camera with a small lense on it. Night vision is more of a software gimmick in my opinion (software futzing of color/brightness), but I haven't played with that much yet. I literally just have one camera connected looking outside my patio from inside the house. I need to find a weekend without rain to install it On a cell phone, it was surprisingly real time but the quality is much lower, even when zoomed in. It's good enough to get an idea of what's going on and enough detail to recognize people. It'll push alerts to my phone when say the power goes out and the unit gets disconnected, or motion alerts on particular cameras. When I first turned on motion alerts with camera pointing to the front street, I woke up the next morning to find over 600 push alerts on my phone. So definitely need to spend time to set things up correctly. Despite the crappy service, the system does seem like the best value for what you get. I paid $750 USD for it during Cyber Monday. Definitely not worth $2500 USD at it's regular price.

Okay so I've had a bit of a bad run. I got my feet wet a few years ago with a really crappy Lorex wireless system with standalone screen. Thing barely worked a year before it broke down, and got absolutely no help from Lorex, they didn't even respond to my submitted ticket. Then I kind of forgot about it and inquired again and then they just offered me a 10% discount on a new purchase. Long story short, I could be interested in this system: https://www.lorextechnology.com/black-friday-specials/8-channel-security-camera-system-with-6-hd-surveillance-cameras/LN10804-86W-1-p Seems like a nice balance -- six 4MP cameras, box with 3TB drive, PoE setup for $750 on Black Friday special. But I'm very wary to buy anything from Lorex again. Unfortunately it seems most brands are also quite bad as well.. lots of cheap Chinese clone companies simply rebranding other brands, and proper 3rd party neutral review sites seem limited. There's just something particularly weird about this industry, and I'm a tech guy. Anyone have recommendations for a good reliable brand with good customer service, and possibly something I can really just hook up to a computer rather than having a standalone box? I feel the standalone box is old school. Thanks!

Yeah, I've got it setup to the internet, but I haven't actually fully installed it yet. I'm able to view feeds live on my cell phone which works well enough and the video quality of the cameras are good. Enclosure is full metal with a rubber padding on the mounting side. Lots of things to configure such as video recording settings (resolution, fps, motion alerts) etc. But when I bought it, I also got a 4 port extension router -- but they never shipped together so I canceled the second part and then they shipped it weeks after I canceled it and still fighting for refund. Customer service is the worst I've seen. I'm going to call my credit card company to dispute the charge. I've done more than enough to get them to fix it.

Those are 4MP cameras, and not 4K cameras. Still a good price. Thanks, just fixed that. Anyways, my plan is to call them tomorrow and see if they will do something for me (extending warranty, couple freebies, like 100ft cat-5 cables.) Don't really see anything else this good at this price range.

That's just it, I'm not either. Do you have a recommendation for something better?

I'm usually quite keen on performing internet research, but security system comparisons seem utterly futile. A few years ago, I got my feet wet with a small 2 camera Lorex wireless system. It was the worst piece of garbage ever. So I'd like to do it properly this time. I live in Canada, and when I go to amazon.ca, I see all these brands like Annke, Sannce, Ctronics, Tmezon, Zmodo, Best Vision, Amcrest, LevelOne, Samsung, Q-see, LaView, and tons more. It is utterly overwhelming. Costco seems higher price with a largely different set of brands -- Lorex, Q-see, Swann, Insteon, and a half dozen others. I would like to get a PoE system that is 1080p with NVR and sound recording. Happy with anywhere between 4-8 cameras. Price isn't as much of a factor, but around $1000 would be nice. And something with good quality, durable cameras, good quality software, and good connectivity for remote checking or automatically copying a video backup on my PC. I could get a 4CH/4 bullet cam Annke system for $369 CAD (no HD)... which seems too good to be true cheap. Or a Ctronics 8CH/8 bullet cam system for $699. And prices quickly go to $1000 and above. But all the systems look pretty much identical to me. For $1000 CAD at Costco, I can get a 8CH Lorex with 4 cameras (2 of them are rotating dome cameras) and 2TB drive. But earlier in this thread, someone knocked Lorex as bottom of the barrel. It may very well be true based on my experience, but they clearly have a large range of quality. But I'm not really seeing anything better that isn't 2-3x more expensive. What do you guys think? And thanks!