Customer Ratings & Reviews

trash and not worth it even right out of the box it NEVER worked

From the date of purchase to present, I have been in communication with Night Owl in an effort to get my cameras up and running, only to be told that my recorder was a faulty one. I am preparing to return the recorder, in hopes of receiving a replacement that is working and functional. Until the replacement is received, I remain disappointed and unsatisfied as a new customer

Doesn't capture a wide angle. One camera can only get 30% of my garage. There cameras are only able to move up and down not side to side or swivel. You have to twist the camera sideways and it makes the picture sideways. I can't create a login on the app and when i called they didn't know how to fix it. I'm returning this for something better.

I couldn't connect to my device when I was not home. Completely defeated the purpose of trying to protect my home!! I can't believe a $20 blink camera can actually be more effective than a $300 system! Complete piece of trash and I will never be buying from this company ever again!

The service is so bad, I would not give them away !!! . The company is so bad for call service. I call seven (7) times for help, and no one new what the ----- to do. This was all for programing. Look good but service is bad.

This Night Owl system is a 12-channel unit with 1TB of storage. 12 channels means it supports up to 12 independent cameras. This specific configuration comes with 8 wired cameras leaving you with some room to expand. Note, the DVR unit only has physical connections for 8 cameras so the four additional ones will have to be wireless. So choose carefully if mixing and matching from other Night Owl systems. The cameras in this system are rated as 2k with 60 feet of bnc cable. Each cable carries power and the AV signals (there's two way audio capability as well). At the DVR side, splitters are used to supply per to all the cameras. Side from the camera power adapter, there's the DVR itself and it's adapter, USB mouse, HDMI cable, either cable, and some mounting hardware. The Ethernet cable is an absolute requirement for anything app related. While it will work completely offline and has support for Wi-Fi cameras, likely to keep up with the bandwidth needs, Ethernet is what you get to connect the DVR to your network. So, with needing to connect to your router and having only 60 feet of cable for any one camera, careful selection of DVR placement is important. For my current house, the wasn't any good place to locate the DVR that would allow me to really split camera coverage around the house because I was limited by the 60 foot length (I was able to work around Ethernet). This is where those potential Wi-Fi cameras come in handy as of I had a set of those, I could position the DVR such that I could get coverage of ¾ of the house. I was also avoiding drilling holes to go completely through an exterior wall though that would not have impacted the length problem too much. Installation is pretty straightforward once you plan the routing. I utilized windows for a non permanent install but otherwise you'd need to drill holes to snake the cables through inside. As the views I wanted were achievable from just the first floor exterior, near the porch ceiling line, the DVR was stored in a side closet by the first floor bathroom. A big bonus - a monitor is not required for setup. You can actually complete it through the app after pairing using Bluetooth and making the connection to your network. This is pretty key as it reduces one more constraint on placing the DVR. Camera quality is actually decent. Felt like what if expect for true HD. Yes, I know they're 2k cameras, but there always seems to be a gap especially when looking it things at night under IR illumination. The cameras have a spotlight and siren, in addition to the speaker and mic. Together with the "AI" detection capabilities, you could do some cool things. For me, the detection was a bit too sensitive and resulted in the down being triggered a bit too much. So, I turned that off and used it as a regular monitoring system. The two way communication is good enough that the cameras providing coverage near the front door could almost be useful as a doorbell camera. The audio quality was amazing and has little lag. The FOV and coverage area means I'm typically just talking to a head, but it's still good and if you're paying attention, you'd get a good look at your visitor on approach. The spotlights are almost enough to dispenser with regular motion activated lights in the front of the house and a secondary benefit, my door lock keypad now gets illuminated enough to use it without fumbling the first code entry to get it to light up at night! This system is coming very close to being complaint free for me. Easy configuration, great video and audio quality go a long way. For a smaller house, this would be perfect. As it is, using Wi-Fi to deal with placement issues may be sufficient even for my layout. Not needing to locate the DVR with display/TV access, no matter how infrequent is a major plus. Not needing to pay an ongoing service fee to access my own data or use the system is always a feature I look for. Just work on the AI detection and this will be golden.

Item was returned. Due to amount of holes in the wallet. To install

Stay away from best buy homewood store .everything is a joke

Wrong system for my needs. Wanted a wired system, not a wireless one.

Device stopped working after only 3-4 weeks. I have to reset it every week and then now doesn’t work at all. It’s either the power supply or the hard drive and tried to contact customer service with no answers

you have to run a power cord to each camera, like its 1976 never even set up just returned and bought 1 made in the century we live in

Best Buy has STOLEN all of our protection plans. They are impossible to contact. Terrible Customer Service.

Cameras were returned because installers said house was too large and siding was sealed.

As soon the light is turned off the camera turns off. When you turn light on you have to literally unplug and plug cameras on to reset them to work and it is not guaranteed it will work.

Plastic junk no way to set this up at any angle its plastic and broke before you could get it installed. JUNK

They are being returned. There is a 3-minute lag.

THE PRODUCT WAS STOLEN AFTER DELIVERED TO THE WRONG ADDRESS. BEST BUY REFUSES TO GIVE ME A REFUND. SHAME ON YOU!

I wouldn’t recommend only records in movements and glitches and it gives you un accurate recordings and notifications

This system is fantastic. The DVR seems to have plenty of storage to record using the eight cameras that you're provided or up to the 12 that it can handle what I find refreshing about this set up is how easy the app is to set up and get the DVR running. In my home I already have these cables run and set up using existing system that I had so really it was just plug and play and swapping out the DVR I did have one issue with one camera where I had to swap from the old wires that were existing and rerun them using the wires provided and it seemed to work the camera quality of these is fantastic. in daylight you're able to clearly read plates, see little details. and at night the quality of the video is still solid the night vision offered is adequate I had to readjust two of the cameras so that the infrared that was being put out by the camera wasn't bouncing back as harshly and after that you know we're just fine. I love not having a monthly recording fee as it's stored all locally. The two way audio seems to work pretty well it all depends on the connection between your device that you'll be speaking into and the DVR itself.

It is listed as a 12 channel DVR, but there are actually only 8 channels. False advertising, and a waste of my time.