Customer Ratings & Reviews

Bought Lorex security cams after reading many reviews over several sites. Many buyers had highly rated the cams/DVR but, not so much praise for the Lorex Home app to do remote viewing which is why I was buying. Best Buy's sale price was the deciding factor for me. The package was in stock locally & picked up same day. Had a master electrician friend help with the installation of the 8 wired cams. I already had 1 cable in place at 410-ft to my entry gate. Used 4 of the provided cables at 60-ft. But, had to buy from Lorex 3 more 120-ft cables for job. All worked out fine in the end. However, the added cables from Lorex came 3 days late even though I paid $24 for UPS Next Day Air. Lorex would not refund that cost which is why I took off a star. I also emailed their tech support & never heard back. The cameras work just fine - actually better than expected. They are 4K HD and the clarity is excellent. I downloaded the home app myself & loaded on my cell phone. Again, it works much better than expected esp. after reading the bad reviews. And, it was very easy to install and use. You have multiple views, can remotely activate lights/sirens with 1 touch, scan/zoom, and take pics/videos during events which go to your SD card. It alerts you to events instantly wherein it sees people, cars, or other large objects movement within 120-ft of cam. The only small issue I had was the length of cable at the gate. Cables over 100-meters (327-ft) sometimes have trouble xmitting video. But, my guy boosted it with a device & works fine. Overall a very good purchase so far. Not certain if Lorex will be a dependable source for tech assistance or other issues that may arise. NOTE: Instead of using a cheap monitor for home, I went & bought a nice Samsung 32-in Smart HD TV for $199 to use as a monitor. Can also use to play Wii or other uses.

Dispute how great these cameras are and the quality is amazing but read this before you purchase it. There is no AUDIO recording as advertised. And you can only rigister one smart phone to browse your cameras.

Highly recommend. Picture quality day and night are fabulous.

Great product. The setup was simple and the camera quality is great. The only downside is having to make multiple accounts to view from different mobile devices.

WOW – BEST WIRED DVR / SURVEILLANCE / CAM I HAVE USED REVIEW: LOREX - 8-CHANNEL, 8-CAMERA INDOOR/OUTDOOR WIRED 4K UHD 2TB DVR SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM - WHITE - WHITE MODEL:YD862A82-8DA8-E Best Buy Tech Insider Network SUMMARY: This is not your “Father’s” clunky old security camera system. I was very impressed with the ease of setup and high quality in everything, software, equipment, documentation, apps, EVERYTHING. Am I gushing too much? I don’t think so. I did not expect this level of quality without spending 10X more. I have been deploying security cameras for about 15 years at home, our local homeowner’s association, my office and for family. I am not in the industry, but I have probably deployed about 7 different systems. I have always been skeptical about these “all in one bundles”, but LOREX seems to have gotten it right. As recently as last year I tried a bundle from a competing brand and it was only just OK but still clunky. LOREX paid close attention to the entire user experience from unboxing to setup and day to day operations. PRO’s - Bright Clear 4K Video and Pictures - Excellent Night Vision Quality - Great “People” and “Auto” recognition and Alerts - Everything you need is in the box (ethernet, hdmi, mouse, wires, power, etc) - 8 Cameras should be enough for most people - Alexa Integration if you have a “Video Alexa Device”. UNBOXING: (see picture) INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: Everything was well packaged and very secure. Instead of “a box of loose parts” everything has its own box. Each Camera, and the DVR and cables are all packaged separately. In effect, everything is triple boxed. (it is a big box). SETUP: No Instructions needed, but there is a quick start guide. There is only one way to plug everything together, so you can’t really make a mistake. BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU RUN THE WIRES that the correct ends of the wire are at the camera end. This might be the only thing I could suggest to improve upon in user friendliness is to color code which end “faces” the camera. Of course, I got one of them backwards and had to pull the wire and start over. In the end, not a big deal. Like a modern Computer or TV once you power on the DVR (The main unit) it takes you step by step through setting up the device, connecting it to the network, doing a firmware update, naming the cameras, setting up alerts. It is all really easy. Again, other brands, and DVR’s of old you really had to hunt around for these settings. (Motion Detection, Camera Names, Etc). LOREX even went as far as to make premade camera names that you can “apply” without a keyboard. It sounds like a little thing, but it is the little things that make this a breeze to set up and start using in minutes. FEATURES AND USAGE: It will be a while before I get to all the features and have the system 100% operational. You can read the feature list for yourself. What I have used so far…. Motion Detection – It was very easy to “paint” the areas where I wanted motion detected, and then I could tell the DVR if I wanted to be alerted for Vehicle, or People, or Both. It works and it immediately started sending accurate alerts (to the phone app) and which type of alert it was. Remote Lights / Siren – You can trigger lights and sirens from the App or the DVR. The alarm is not overly loud, and might even be a touch quiet, but that is OK, it is just a causal deterrent. Viewing on the phone – Works great (toggle SD vs HD), the images are great. You can also take snapshots and store the images on your phone. It even works when you are away from home (not only on local wifi). Phone APP – Pretty much does it all. While other brands only let you do basic view, you really can control your entire DVR without a head end monitor. This enables you to set up the DVR and then tuck it away in a corner and forget about it. Some of the “very advanced” settings need to be done one time at the main DVR (Email Configuration if you need that, or advanced camera quality settings). If I ever get an Alexa enabled video device I look forward to trying commands to show “who is at the door” on the device. NOTES: The LOREX 4K resolution cameras max out at 7fps. This is 100% OK for a security camera, but don’t expect to make 30-60 fps movies with these cameras. My other “Medium - High End” cameras that each cost as much as this entire bundle only do 20fps at 1080p resolution. 7fps is a perfectly fine tradeoff for 4K resolution. If I had one wish, I wish the DVR had built in WiFi. I get why it does not. You don’t want to kill your home WiFi with 4K video streams. But instead ,I had to dig through my box of cables to find a long enough ethernet cable to perform the initial setup. It took me longer to find a long cable, than to setup the unit. In the end, I ended up repurposing and old WiFi Router and turned it into an Ethernet Bridge so that I could put the DVR anywhere I wanted. With a wired setup, you have to figure out where the “center” of all of your cables can best fit, and that is where you have to park the DVR. Technically, you don’t need a network, but if you want the latest software, and advanced alert capabilities, then you need to connect it to a network. With a “wired” system (like LOREX), most of the smarts are in the DVR. The BNC cables are mostly just carrying the video signal. The advantage is that each camera does not have to be its own super computer / web server. The DVR does almost all of the heavy lifting. With IP based Cameras (not proprietary to a specific DVR), the cameras need to have computers, network adapters, and web servers, in each camera, making them much more expensive. IP cameras can quickly saturate a network LAN or Wi-Fi as most of these networks are not meant to carry 8 simultaneous 4K video streams. Both type of systems have their strengths and weaknesses. With my existing (previous) IP based system I had to put in a completely dedicated (separate) network from my “home” network to keep from killing my home network with traffic, just for the security cameras. SUMMARY / RECOMMENDATIONS I absolutely recommend the LOREX system for anyone wanting a turn key “wired” security system at a good price. Yes, you have to run cables, but every camera system needs at least power cables, so you are going to have to run cables not matter what. Other than FPS, the LOREX outperformance my my existing system that cost about 10X as much. Anyone can set this up. If you can program a TV you can set up this system.

The primary reason to purchase this system vs another brand is the speed with which the Lorex Mobile Home App opens and displays the actual video. I have used other brand’s wired and wireless outdoor cameras and I would get so frustrated because by the time the app would actually display the video on my iphone the delivery guy was in the next zip code! I have timed other apps versus the Lorex Home App on my iphone using my home wi-fi network and the Lorex Home App will consistently show the camera video within 4 seconds of launching the app. This is at least twice as fast as other wired systems I have used and nearly 3 to 4 times faster than all of the wireless cameras I have used. But this Lorex system certainly has some short comings due to the lack of flexibility in camera resolution and frame rate, there is no audio recording by the cameras and it’s difficult to set up email notifications. If you can get past these this is a decent Security Camera system that is quick to respond in the Lorex Home App and it has no monthly fees. While this system uses 4k cameras that resolution is at a slow 7 frames per second so the video can be choppy especially if there are fast moving items in the video. Also that 4k resolution is only available when viewing the video on a 4k monitor directly attached to the DVR. What you see on your phone, tablet or pc is the sub-stream video at a far lower resolution. The actual default resolution sent to the mobile device is 704x480 with a max resolution of 960x480. They do this to limit the bandwidth required to use remote devices. Its quite a difference from the 4k resolution of 3840x2160 which is the mainstream video that is stored on the DVR. Because the mobile device’s screen is small the image is still quite sharp even at the lower resolutions. To actually gain all the benefit of the 4k cameras you need to be looking at a 4k monitor attached to the DVR via an hdmi cable. Sadly I found no way to lower the resolution on the Lorex cameras so that I could increase the frame rate. The cameras that come with this system actually support up to 15 frames per second per Lorex’s tech specs but the software in the DVR limits you to 7 frames per second no matter what resolution you select. What I liked about this system: - Speed, it’s the fastest from notification to viewing video of any camera or system I have tested - No monthly subscription fees - 4k video quality is really clear and the viewing angle is wide with minimal distortion. The night vision was clear but not the most colorful under normal night lighting. - The Smart Motion Sensing worked well and setting up the motion detection zones was simple. - There is a home and away setting as well as an “alarm all/disarm all” type setting in the Lorex Home App - The system supports face recognition on two cameras - The system supports a virtual fence setting which allows you to refine your alert zones for example you can put a virtual fence around your pool that will alert you if anyone crosses the fence and enters the pool. - The ability to access the video locally on the DVR or remotely using a pc, tablet or phone is plus. You can access the DVR from a PC using Microsoft’s Edge browser and the DVR’s IP address. - The setup was fairly straight forward as long as you stay with the default settings. - The Lorex Mobile Home App is very stable, quick to launch, easy to use and navigate. What I disliked about this system: - To get email notifications you have to register your system with Lorex and then set up a DDNS. Doing this can be technically challenging. This is the only company that I am aware of that makes you go through this to get email notifications. Luckily the Lorex Home App does provide notifications to your mobile device without having to set up anything special but these are notifications and not emails. - No audio recording built into the cameras - As mentioned above the cameras are defaulted to 4k at 7 fps and the software will not allow you to configure a different resolution with a higher frame rate. - Lorex’s user manual covers the “what” the configuration options are but provides very little information on what the settings actually do, why you would want to use them and what impact they have on the system performance. - The use of BNC cables and analog cameras are becoming outdated in the digital world

Good cameras but display went out after 2 days of install. Other cameras work well but this display is the most important one.

The Lorex 4K 8-camera DVR kit (YD862A82-8DA8-E) comes with everything you need to setup your own home security camera system. I set out to install this system myself (solo) over the course of a weekend plus a little extra for adjustments. This is my first time installing a wired camera system, but not my first time pulling wires in an attic. The kit includes 8 C882DA bullet cameras and the 8 channel 2TB D862A82 DVR. Also included with the kit are 8-60ft long Siamese BNC/DC cables, 3 identical power supplies (12V, 2.0A, 50/60Hz), and 2 4-way DC squid splitters to power the cameras. Also included was a 3ft HMDI cable, 3ft CAT5e cable, a wired mouse, and some window stickers noting the property is under 24hr video surveillance. Documentation is included in the box but it is pretty sparse, and mainly just shows you what to plug in and where. You need to go to Lorex’s website to get the full manual which is split up between the camera and the DVR. Installation For the installation I planned where I wanted to locate the cameras, so I had a full view of the property, entrances, and trafficked areas. Having done wireless systems in the past I had a decent idea of where I needed to locate the cameras. I decided to mount 7 cameras outside and 1 in my garage. The outside cameras would be mounted under the eaves to the soffit along the house. I have vinyl soffit so I used 1/8” x 2” toggle bolts to secure them. Each camera comes with a sticker pattern to make drilling the holes pretty easy. Tools I used: Drill Fish tape Fiberglass fish rods 12” drill extension attachment 3/4” spade bit 7/8” spade bit Headlamp Electrical tape Siding removal tool Foam sealant I drilled a ¾” hole for individual cables to route through. Where I needed to pass the full bundle I drilled 2 overlapping holes with the 7/8” bit. Routing the Siamese BNC/DC cables was a real chore because they loved to snag and tangle. I taped the heck out of the cables to the fish tape to reduce the snags when routing through the holes I drilled. Definitely make note which end of the cable you need to pull through the wall – I thought I was doing a really good job of this only to find I messed up on 2 cables. Once the cables were all routed through the eaves I sealed the holes up with expansion foam and put the soffit back together. Mounting the cameras with the toggle bolts was pretty easy. The camera mounted right over top of the hole for the wiring so I had no need to utilize the cord notch in the camera base. Luckily for me I had the DVR centrally located on the main floor so all the cables reached their destinations. I found in the manual (either camera or DVR I can’t remember) that you can’t daisy chain extension cables together, but rather it needs to be a single continuous cable ran. The manual mentions a 100’ and a 250’ cable as being compatible. Best Buy carries a couple different varieties of security cables (including the ones from the manual), but you only need to look for 4K, in-wall rated Siamese BNC/DC cables. After mounting all the cameras I took some time to fine tune their position so they would be in the best position. The camera bases have 3-axes adjustment, so you can set them just how you want with nothing more than a screwdriver. I setup the whole system and used the app to live stream the camera pictures to make adjusting them easier. Setup Hooking everything up to the DVR was fairly easy. I didn’t number or identify the wires before routing so I just swapped them around to get the images in the correct order. I found out later that I could have changed the order through the sequencing menu. I routed all of the cables into my living room entertainment center to utilize the 4K TV as the display. The included mouse works well, but I found myself getting tired of sitting on the floor in front of the DVR with the wired mouse. I tried out a Logitech M325C wireless mouse I had laying around and it works perfectly. I also plan to utilize a battery backup UPS to power the system in case of outages. Starting up the unit takes you through the setup wizard which checks for updates right off the bat. This only took a few minutes, and then it moved on. In the setup you could set a schedule for days/times you wanted the system to record/alert. I left mine at 24/7 for now unit I get a hang of how I want to set it up. Once the system is up and running you get to choose your screen layout. I choose a view that had all 8 cameras with the selected one showing up larger. There are little quick menus that go along with each feed – turning on the light, alarm, manual record to a backup, zoom, audio, and taking a snapshot. The snapshot feature is configurable in the system menu to adjust resolution, quality, time between shots, and number of shots to take. This feature can also be scheduled or event based. The system a bunch of different features that are fairly well explained in the online menu – all 122 pages. Some things I have configured are the motion alert areas, virtual fence line, and motion lights. I placed a virtual fence line on top of my perimeter fence, so I can get alerts if the neighborhoods kids jump over for whatever reason. I have motion alerts setup for all of the cameras, but only have light triggers on the ones nearest my entrances. I’m still fine tuning how I want the system to respond and trigger to different events. I have set my recording to automatically overwrite – if you don’t the manual says you will start receiving warnings about your drive filling up. It only took a week of 8 cameras recording 24/7 to fill up the drive. Now that I have changed some settings it shouldn’t fill up as fast (record on motion mainly). What I liked There were a number of things about this system that I liked. For starters I like that the internal hard drive is upgradeable and can be swapped out for an (up to) 8TB drive. It currently has a 2TB Western Digital Purple 5400RPM drive. Increasing the size allows you to hold onto records for longer periods of time before they get overwritten. Going up to a 4TB option runs a little over 100 bucks, so enough that I would really need the space to make the jump rather than picking one up on a whim. The DVR allows you to change your camera resolution settings to fit your needs, as well as adjusting the bitrate and image quality. All of these things allow you to maximize your storage space. The cameras were pretty easy to install and position. When you are way up on a ladder its nice that these are pretty easy to adjust. They are also fairly lightweight so I had zero issue installing them onto my vinyl soffit. The app is really well done. It is fast with its notifications and it gives you some tips here and there. My only request is that more of the settings should be available on the app – right now a lot of the settings have to be implemented locally (on the DVR). Setting your motion detection zones through the app is so much nicer/faster than through the DVR UI. The zones show up as a grid that you can just swipe through on your phone to define your coverage quickly. The panic button on the DVR is a pretty nice/interesting feature. It’s a really quick way to draw a lot of attention to your house and any would-be intruders. Playback of the 4K recordings look really nice on the TV. Picture quality is excellent and you can see details at a good distance. The night vision is excellent and provides plenty of detail in low/no light situations. I can read the license plate on my car in the pitch black garage from 15 ft. There are no subscription fees to go along with this system – a big plus. What I didn’t The main thing I didn’t care for was the BNC/DC Siamese cables. They are more difficult to route, prone to snagging, and can’t be made to length. The BNC/DC fed cameras are an older technology whereas things are moving towards PoE which utilizes ethernet cable runs. These cables can be longer, cheaper, and made on site. They are also much easier to route. The lack of 2-way audio is unfortunate. I really hoped that I was missing a setting when I was setting this up, but I did not. You can only listen to audio coming from one of the camera feeds at a time. The settings menu is a bit convoluted and extensive to navigate. A first timer or tech novice would get lost in there. Having the manual handy is a must if you want to find what you are looking for, or if you need an explanation on a feature. The 4K video is only at 7FPS which is very low and choppy. If you are tracking something/someone that is moving quickly then it will blur. Knocking down to 1080P gets you 30FPS which is less sharp (detail wise) but a smoother moving image. Looking forward to Trying I haven’t had a chance to setup the facial recognition feature yet. I want to set it up for the kids for when they come home from school. The feature lets you catalog a set of familiar faces and then lets you decide what to do when they are recognized by the system. This is an interesting sounding feature for sure, and I ‘m looking forward to fiddling around with it. Overall, this wired 8 camera 4K system ticks a lot of boxes for me. It was fairly easy to install and setup. The feature set is robust and at times a bit daunting. The app works terrifically well and has been very reliable.

Good quality cameras , really good definition except for you can’t caught clear the plate number, overrall an easy installation.

The Lorex - 8-Channel, 8-Camera Indoor/Outdoor Wired 4K UHD 2TB DVR Surveillance System is a complete security camera system with local DVR storage. This is my second Lorex 4K system install and the company has gradually refined their products from last year. The included documentation is very helpful and the connections are self-explanatory. Much like any other wired security camera system, the most difficult part is routing the 60 foot camera wires through the attic or side of the house. I still prefer the PoE NVR systems that just use a CAT5 cable that carries the signal and power over a single, thinner wire that can be as long as ~ 300ft. With the bulky BNC signal connector and additional banana plug power connector, you have to drill a bigger hole for outdoor installations and have shorter cable length restrictions. The setup of the DVR and camera registration is an intuitive step by step process, best accomplished with the DVR connected to a monitor via the included HDMI cable if you have a 4K TV or old-school VGA cable for a lower resolution. The DVR is quite stylish and contemporary, looking more like a cable box or TiVo, except that it's white, which may not go well with everyone’s black home theater A/V components. The pre-installed 2 TB hard drive seems to be performing well and offers ample recording time, even for a couple of weeks, depending on the resolution and other recording settings. The total recording time will get considerably shorter if you’re recording 24x7 from all 8-cameras. But if you need more room, you can easily upgrade to an 8TB hard drive - make sure you get a surveillance rated hard drive that’s meant to run 24x7 and offer better video recording/playback performance. The image quality coming out of these 4K cameras is very crisp with vivid colors during the day and very reasonable at night, even with some color with very little light. The bright deterrence LED light can potentially scare intruders away at night, especially if you don't have too big a house and the cameras are not installed too high-up. At a minimum I’m hoping it will scare some of the wild life away in my neighborhood. The motion detection notifications to your smart phone work fairly well and the “virtual fence” perimeter setting is pretty accurate, seems to respect the set boundaries better than my Ring doorbell. Despite the 4K resolution and pretty good digital zoom capabilities, I haven’t been able to actually get a car's license plate in motion, even at less than 50ft away. Also the video is a bit choppy, mainly because it is limited to 7fps, even though the cameras specifications say they are capable of 15fps. I'll have to play around with the DVR settings some more to see if there is a happier medium, or maybe a firmware update will allow 15fps recording. The smartphone app is decent, could use some refinement, but it's better than other popular brands. Unfortunately it streams at much lower resolution, up to 960H which is the standard analog resolution for North America’s NTSC analog TV signal, but that’s still sharp enough on smart phone screens. Overall this is an affordable, quality security camera system, fully loaded with 8x 4K cameras, relatively easy to set up, with great (still) image quality, lots of useful features, Alexa and Google Assistant integration for voice commands and best of all, no monthly fees to pay for cloud storage, cause it stores it all on the generous 2 TB internal hard drive. Additionally it comes with a 2-year warranty which is an extra year over most other comparable systems from different vendors.

This was the second Lorex video system I was able to get. Based on my first experience, when I got the chance for this one I jumped on it. The most difficult of the installation is pulling the cables if you do not already have them. If you have not had very much experience, I would suggest hiring a pro. If you have experience, it's 2 to a few hours work, depending on your environment. The main control unit is small, sleek and should fit into most any environment. The only complaint, and it's probably only an issue for a few of us with fat sausage finger's, is the video/power connectors on the back of the unit are very close together. I had to have my 15 year old daughter connect them. The internal DVR software is clean and simple. Set up took maybe 20 minutes for all 8 camera's. It's intuitive, clean and straight forward. The camera's are decent looking and quality. The system delivers excellent daytime quality with crisp and sharp video. You can also zoom in which is nice. Night time quality is as expected, not bad but certainly less than daytime. It has some pretty cool features like virtual fence that allows you to eliminate automatic recording of repetitive things, like cars or bikes on the roadway. As for the "Active Deterrence" camera's, It's a light, but not a particularly intimidating one. While this might be a useful feature for some, I'm not yet convinced it's more of a gimmick than a useful tool. Bit it can be managed on a per camera basis so ultimately it can manages as preferred. End of the day, this an excellent choice for home, business or retail needs. I would highly recommend it to a friend.

I’d like to kick off my notes with you need to make sure you’re willing to commit to getting inside your home’s wall for this install otherwise it will look tacky. The cris HD image and lighting is great. I’ve had battery powered cameras but I had to rely heavily on charging them. With my wires system I am enjoying that the power is rooted in the brain of the device which is the slim and sleek DVR system with a lot of memory! I’m a big advocate of smart home assistants so I’m glad to know I can integrate that. I’m all honesty I’m just enjoying that a company isn’t charging me for access to my videos and I have everything I need in house. Overall it is a good system (you might need to buy extra wiring for longer cameras around the home). Oh, and like I said, be sure to get advice on the install if you’re not ready to drill holes around your home.

Set up was a breeze..no problems there. Video quality is great too. This also includes night vision, excellent. The main issue is with the app that goes with it. More often than not it gives an alert as objects or people are moving out of view, instead of coming into view. I go to check alerts and it keeps saying no device connected. Or no events. Which they're are of both. Next,this system can't seem to differentiate between people and cars. I have have it set to people only but yet i constantly get alerts as cars drive past. The live feed is great but playback is not real world motion. It is very disappointing. Trying to watch events in the time-line is ridiculous. All is good until the actual event..then the screen always goes black and says loading playback, which always blocks the actual event. This is through the main system and the app both. I have triple checked all the settings and can't find a reason for it.

Clear quality picture, night vision works wonderfully.

Bought the system over a year ago has worked just fine. The cameras quality is good. Plenty of cable to set everything up. No complaints.

Best cameras I have ever used and Best Buy did a amazing job helping us pick them out and there team had answered any questions we have had about them

Excellent image quality. Set was was a breeze. A little misleading, not capable of record audio without additional accessories Alarm is not loud at all

Much better video quality than the Amazon Blink I bought a few months before this system. Easy setup, running the wire wasn’t a problem. All wiring include, but I upgraded to RG6 for the long runs. Our system has already been helpful to my business, surrounding businesses, and even traffic accident situations. You will know what is going on. No fees

Crystal clear in daytime or nighttime. I absolutely love the encryption for that added security

Good picture quality. Easy to setup and use. The app is crap.