Nothing but awesomeness! I've been wanting to upgrade for awhile when my DVR on my 8 yr old Samsung finally bit the dust. So I went shopping and doing research and looking at options and settled for this. Man I wasn't disappointed. This thing is full of options and I am sure theres some I haven't found yet. The night resolution is outstanding. We have a lot of problems with car burglaries in my area and I had caught some kids on my other cams but the picture was too blurry. Well not no more! I can see a pimple on a mouse's butt from across the street! lol The picture I am including is of my neighbors car that had the wiring short out and caught fire. Yes my camera's caught it all from a half a block away. This is a zoomed in shot. Also having a lot of fun messing with our dog's head by talking to him over the camera. He freaks out and runs for the door. lol

For me, this was a MASSIVE upgrade in surveillance security. I was originally using two 1st generation NEST outdoor cameras. The two biggest cons with those cameras are the cloud subscription that you have to pay for, and the wireless connection that can become unstable over time. This system fixed both those cons AND upgraded the picture quality to 4K UHD! In addition, I also get two more cameras to use. While the GUI in the NVR system is archaic at best, it does get the job done. Fortunately once the NVR settings are set, I can access my camera feeds from the Lorex phone app, or also the PC desktop application. This makes viewing the live cameras much easier than having to physically access the NVR itself.

UNBOXING: First thing I noticed was the attention to packaging. Everything was neatly packaged and secure inside the box. Even if the delivery man tossed it around in the truck, I wouldn’t be worried about any damage to the product. Once I got everything out of the box and laid out I noticed they included a mouse, a short LAN cable to connect to my router, and an HDMI cable to connect to a 4K tv or monitor. Also of note, included in the box are 4 - 30m (almost 100ft) Ethernet cables that are actually good quality and are plenty of length for most set-ups. And finally, included is the standard paperwork, warranties, quick guide setup, and stickers to place in your windows if you enjoy that. This is definitely an ALL IN ONE system and you don’t have to worry about buying accessories or signing up for services to get the most out of your product. SETUP: Once I emptied the box I started to work on the setup. This was insanely fast and easy. What I did was loosely run cable to the locations I wanted cameras and temp mounted the cameras there while running the cables straight to the NVR box in my basement. Once I had my cameras soft mounted and everything set up in the software, I went back and ran the cables clean through the walls etc. One thing I noticed during setup is there are no longer basic options to turn on or off the LED lights when motion is detected or to turn off the IR light if you want to point through a window. My cameras seem to fire the LED at random and I can’t figure out why they do sometimes and not others. Once I had all the cameras soft mounted and plugged in I walked through the quick setup wizard and was able to start looking at options and settings. Unfortunately this did not take long because there are not really a lot of options, but more on that later. What I did like was the crisp clear picture, relatively wide viewing angle and ability to set notification zones to avoid street traffic or sidewalk traffic triggering a notification. Once basic setup was complete, I had a 4K 4x4 image of all my cameras and was able to playback, live view, and toggle cameras easily. Like I mentioned earlier, I chose to put my NVR box in my basement for ease of running cable and a few other reasons. This ended up being a smart choice because the NVR unit itself is quite loud. It has a fan that runs as soon as power is supplied and I assume there is not much housing for the hard drive which can also be heard clicking away. This is not a huge deal, but for someone who wants to store this in a bedroom or quiet office, it may be a deal breaker. I also chose the basement because I assumed I would not need to access the device itself very often after setup and can just use the app to monitor and review any footage. This is where things get not so good. OPERATION/SOFTWARE: If the camera quality is great, and the hardware is decent, then the software and user experience is barely just ok. Let me first say that I am not unfamiliar with technology and know my way around a piece of tech. I can picture some non-tech users getting confused or frustrated when trying to operate the software and/or app for this Lorex system. It’s just not user friendly. The menu is clunky and the logical style of thinking where to find a setting is not present. If I want to change a setting on the camera it can take me 2 or 3 attempts to find the right location in the menu for that setting. The software on the NVR is rough, the app is straight up no good. Before I bash it too hard though, I will point out that overall the system is not “unusable,” it works and does the basic functions that you need, ie stream/record video, and monitor your surroundings. So it is not useless, but I am one of those people that likes to have options and customize settings to my specific needs and unfortunately with this system, that's not possible. The APP: First the good; setting up the app was a piece of cake! (make sure you set up the NVR first and have an account already etc) but then it’s as easy as scanning a code on the NVR unit and the app connects to your account and everything is basically ready to go from there. But that’s when I started to get frustrated. The menu is again clunky and can take a while to find what you are looking for and not every setting found on the NVR is available in the app, which means to change those, you’ll need to go back to the box itself. Luckily these issues can be fixed in updates but that's hoping one comes, not exactly a great strategy. Possibly the biggest issue with the app is the login though. For some reason Lorex will only allow ONE mobile device to login to the app at one time. This means if my phone is logged in and I go to login on my tablet or my wife logs in on her phone to check a camera, my phone will be automatically logged out. If that was the end of the problem then I guess whatever, unfortunately that is not the end of the problem. When my phone is forced to log out because a second device has logged in then my phone also will not receive any future app notifications. This means no person/motion/vehicle alerts to my phone until I open the app and login again (forcing the other device to logout and not receive any future notifications) Put another way, this means my wife and I can not both receive alerts to our phones at the same time. If we are not physically together 24/7 (which, I love her, but that’s not happening) then one of us will not be able to monitor the system and could be caught virtually fighting over who is logged in. This is a major oversight and in a time where people own multiple mobile devices and expect to be able to remotely monitor their security at any time, it is inexcusable. I understand a potential security reasoning for this but using 2 step verification or something similar would pretty much negate any of those concerns. (NOTE: I am using Android devices and the google play store app) In short, this system is not very “user friendly” and can be a bit of a learning curve to use it to its full potential but if you’re someone who is fine with simple, default, and don’t want remote access then you should be ok. OVERALL: Ok, so what about the good stuff though? Look, I may be a little harsh on this and that may be because I was hoping for more but I also understand that my concerns are not going to be everyones. The good news is that the cameras work really well, the 4K image is above average security footage, (it’s not amazing, but it’s also not a cinema camera, it’s a security camera shooting 15fps) and is good enough to be able to see details like license plates and faces in the right conditions. I have seen much worse quality in security footage. If customization and setting controls is not your concern, you’ll still get good footage, 2TB storage and no subscription and be very happy with this system. Heck, even with all my issues I’m still happy with the overall. The NVR box is sleek, small, and lightweight and other than loud, really is a nice modern box you can place just about anywhere. The PoE (power over ethernet) makes setup and cable running a breeze without needing to run seperate power to each camera. Custom detection zones and notification controls are nice and work well most of the time. Also of note, this system works with Google assistant and or Alexa and works pretty good. I have google and after connecting and allowing permissions etc I was able to ask google to show me a camera on a chromecast tv and after a bit of a delay, it would show up 9 out of 10 times. This is more of a bonus feature and requires your assistant to work properly but if you know what you’re doing it can be useful, especially if you have a google nest hub display or alexa’s show display. TL;DR: PROS: - Good picture quality and camera hardware - PoE allows one cable run to camera to handle everything - Box includes EVERYTHING you need to get up and running including plenty of ethernet - LED spotlights and siren on camera - Talk back option through camera - Voice assistant integration - 2TB harddrive built in and NO cloud subscription needed for remote access - Modern design and look - Compatible with almost all Lorex products allows for upgrades in the future and longevity - 8 channels allows the option to add more than the 4 included cameras CONS: - App is buggy and lacks some custom options - Only one user can be logged in to the app at one time - Noisy NVR fan and HDD - No redundancy or offsite backup option for recordings - No camera settings for built in LED lights and IR light controls OVERALL: it’s a good system that needs work in the software and takes some time to get it to work the way you want but once you spend some time with it and if you can ignore some annoying issues in hopes that a firmware update will solve them, then you will still be happy with this system. Bottom line is you get an all in one security system with remote access without paying for any subscriptions or jumping through hoops and agreements to get there. You can be set up and going in one weekend with basic knowledge of running cables and some tech savvy brains.

The Lorex 8-Channel, 4-Camera Indoor / Outdoor Wired 4K. Wired is the key. After you get the wiring routed that's when the fun begins. These cameras are crystal clear and their not connected to a 4k Monitor YET...They Zoom real nice. I purchased 2 more and come pay day two more will be ordered, that makes 8. It's nice to be able to look out at our whole property from the desk chair. Down load the mobile APP and receive notifications and it comes with a Timeline feature so you can review what occurred while your away!

A friend recommend this set of cameras I it didn’t disappoint. The image quality is amazing. You have to setup the camera through the main system when connected on the Tv so you can setup the motion sensors right. If not you will get many notifications in less than an minute(specially if in front a a busy street) I didn’t know the password and customer support from LOREX was amazing. They helped me setup the wizard in less than 10 minutes.