Customer Ratings & Reviews

With most wireless security systems out there, you will trade off certain features for some of the convenience of not needing to install wires. But when you get tired of having to keep charging battery because it really isn't in an easy spot to do that (but you really need a camera there), or you don't want to keep paying to store and access your video clips (or pay even more to get continuous video recording), then a wired system becomes preferable. That is where the Night Owl 16 Channel 4 Camera 1080p HD system [Model DP2-161-4L] comes in. The DVR box isn't too big, which made placement easier for me (installed a couple of shelving brackets in the top of the media center in our Media Room to set the DVR on). It contains a 1TB drive for internal storage. This model comes with four 1080p HD cameras, but it can support up to 16. It comes with a 60 ft cable for each camera. If needed, you can purchase longer cables, or can get Video Balun Converters and connect with Ethernet cable of the necessary length. This can be helpful if you are installing any cameras inside and your house is wired for ethernet. It also comes with everything you need to get connected and ready to monitor: HDMI cable, Ethernet Cable and a USB mouse. There are two power adapters: one for the DVR and one for the cameras, which comes with a 4-way splitter to attach to the camera cables. While the DVR interface is fairly easy to use, be sure to download the DP2 Series Manual, which is a bit more informative than what comes in the box. From the menu at the bottom left, you can get into the full configuration of all of the cameras, such a detection events, Time Lapse mode between events (or real-time mode recording). For the main live view, you can switch between the number of cameras to display at one time Getting everything connected to the DVR is easy enough. The harder part is getting the wire routed to the camera locations, especially when you have a two story house (luckily, I had first floor attic access to where I wanted my cameras to go). There is a device Network setting for port, which you think you would use to access the DVR interface via web browser, but if you go to the DVR's IP in a browser, you will get a screen saying "This product doesn't support remote access via web browsers" which is a shame because it would be extremely helpful with how ours is set up. The Night Owl Protect app is what you will use to access from your mobile device. I wouldn't say the design is anything fancy, but it is functional. You can get the Live View from the connected cameras, and can click on each to view more in depth, such as live view or to go back to view what was recorded or see what events occurred. In the single camera view, you can rotate you device to get the full screen view. In full screen mode, you have the open to take snapshots at any point while reviewing previously recorded video or in live view. You and also zoom in to any area on the video. To look at video from any previous day, just tap on "Today >" and it will bring up a calendar, then just scroll the timeline bar to get where you need to. One thing I would like to see with the app is a landscape view of the Live View, especially when l have it open on my tablet (which pretty much stays in landscape via a case stand on my desk). The cameras are pretty good, but they definitely are not wide angle, so the capture area is a little more limited (especially compared to the wireless system it is replacing, getting a little more than half of the area). Even so, the image quality is good. They do a built-in spotlight that will turn on during a motion/human detection even at night. The automatic spotlight feature can be turned off in the camera settings in the DVR interface. Also, you can manually turn the spotlight on when viewing live in the app. I have noticed that in a well-lit area, the spotlight doesn't really do much (other than let someone know that they are being recorded). The night vision is actually pretty clear, and can switch to full color with detection event with spotlight getting turned on.

piece of junk, brought it back for exchange, would not fully load the monitor showed an owl then spinning dial then flash the cameras then the intro and started over with the owl. The second one did the same thing. Tech support said it was my monitor, then why did I have the owl, spinning dial, an flash of cameras, the cycle again. I bought a third system from Costco it was fine.

Got a different system but the same brand a while back and decided to get another one so I can use one app for both systems. I was wrong, this system uses a different app and the app is signed differently. With the app for this device, I can no longer do full screen my tablet on for live view. Then there is the issue of being required to make an online account.

Completely disappointed in quality. HIGHLY recommend a different choice if you are considering this one. The worst part is that I waited too long to install it and realize how bad it is. “No longer returnable”

I don't know who deserves the one star rating Night Owl or Best Buy!! I specifically asked if I had to have internet for the system. The answer from both was NO!! Start reading the instructions and here it says I have to plug into a router or modem!! Thanks for wasting my time!!! I should have gone with Annke or Swann. I will now!!!!

I can access the camera on my phone. But I can't access it on my monitor at home. The system does not recognize my login on the monitor when in fact my login name is on the monitor itself. This rating is base on tech issue only not on the quality of the camera and the video itself.

I have problem with sign in this system but I have to schedule for return back thank you

This is my first multi-camera security system with a dvr. I'm using it for outside surveillance. My prior experience is limited to a single camera controlled by an app on my network. With that being said, I found this system to have many excellent features but also has some opportunities for improvement. The quality of the live and recorded video is excellent, as is the night vision clarity - it's as good as daylight in black and white. The dvr app is loaded with functional settings to tailor the system to specific needs and preferences. It's very easy to navigate the dvr and mobile app settings. Notifications are sent to the mobile app and events are easy to locate and review. Things that I found could be changed or improved: the default setting for event scenarios is motion and human & face. When I let the system run with this setting I received almost continuous event notifications for human and face, even after changing the sensitivity to low. It picks up tree branches moving and insects flying by as human events. You have to set it to motion only to stop the continual flow of human event notifications. Motion shows you all the events anyway, I'm not even sure of the point of human & face. When the human & face is turned off, notifications no longer show on the Event List panel on the main dvr screen. You still get them on the mobile app and of course they can be pulled up on the recorded video playback screen, but I would like to see them on the Event List too. On the mobile app, you can only view "Today's Videos". Once the clock strikes 12:01 AM you lose the ability to view any of the prior day's recorded events on the mobile app. (They are still on the dvr till it runs out of space and are overwritten (that setting can be changed) and they can be backed up/downloaded.) Regardless of my few minor complaints, overall this is a very nice system, very adaptable, and a very good value for the price.

App constantly shuts down, does not load to be able to view human detection on channels. Impossible to view from pc for live stream, do not waste your money, better off burning $500 and getting a guard dog. An absolute waste of money and when you contact night owl they simply block you from social media!

The Night Owl security system is a good system to have, but it has its pros and cons. The cameras aren’t made of the highest quality of materials. It’s a fairly decent system, but it’s not on the level of some other top tier systems. Below are a list of my Pros and Cons. Pros - [ ] Quiet DVR with little to no fan noise - [ ] Easy setup instructions - [ ] Ability to setup using mobile app or monitor/tv/mouse - [ ] 100 ft. Night vision detection - [ ] Streaming speed of video playback is extremely slow on mobile app. - [ ] Numerous false alarm notifications - [ ] Mobile App has very limited. Most settings have to be done from the DVR connected to a monitor/TV with the mouse. - [ ] Good night vision camera. It’s in black and white, and not color. - [ ] Scrolling through timeline easy and fairly fast Cons - [ ] Cameras lightweight plastic. Feels cheap. - [ ] No audio sound. - [ ] App is slow and clunky. - [ ] It says it works with Google Assistant but I had no luck getting it to work - [ ] Opening notification just takes you to the app and not the video stream - [ ] Camera quality does not appear to be 1080p quality - [ ] App is slow to load cameras at times. It buffers quite often.

After hours & hours on the phone with tech support, we could not get the DVR to work with any smartphone viewing. I am very tech savvy & this system was difficult to get up & running. Connecting the hardware was simple but everything else was a nightmare! I would check another company.

Let’s start with the set up. Please download the app before even starting. You can do without it but it makes the process easier although it is not difficult at all as it is. As you may have guessed, I only realized this after I had already set it up without the app. Guys out there, download the app first since you probably won’t read the instructions until you run into issues. Save yourself time and unnecessary troubleshooting. It is wired but after so many disappointment with wireless cameras due to interference, range, weather issues, battery and power that made them unreliable, I will never go back to wireless, especially because wireless still requires power, either from battery or adaptors. This wired system solves all those issues. Considering the budget friendly cost, video quality was excellent during the day and most importantly during the night. The spotlight is not super bright but it does a good job and worked every time during my tests. Sixteen channels can be enough even for some medium sized businesses. I’m not sure you could add more storage but 1 TB HDD is more than enough for 4 cameras, and considering compression, it will meet the need of most homes and small businesses even when adding more cameras, especially because you can set it up for motion only or remove areas that don’t need to be recorded. The only issues I found were mostly subjective. Cameras don’t feel like they are for heavy duty usage but so my wireless cameras were not any different. Not that they will melt outdoors but compared to some more professional surveillance systems, they feel like hard plastic. The good thing is that they don’t look bad or even cheap and I am sure it will resist southern Oregon weather with 111 today and 16 degrees in the winter. Face recognition was so so. It recognized me about 90 percent of the time but my girlfriend only about 60 percent. Maybe she changes her hair style too often (I'm kidding). However, for such an affordable equipment, it deserves five stars for even trying. The only things that made me drop one star was the lag during recording in some cases but not always. It is not awful and it is better than the wireless system I used to have but it had some negative effect on me since it is wired and I have fiber internet at my home office. Still, I was not totally disappointed because it was fine most of the time. It lacks optical zoom but that is not a concern to me because the 1080p resolution makes up for that in my opinion. Lastly, I wish cabling was Ethernet but that’s a personal preference. Overall, I debated whether this system deserved three or four stars since I was happy with it overall but there were these little things I was not too happy about. I decided to go with four starts considering that some less budget friendly ones don’t perform any better. It is worth the investment unless you already have Ethernet run everywhere and don’t want to run new cabling. Did I mention you can access it anywhere and no monthly fees?

This is my 3rd set of Night Owl security system with DVR in 3 years, I use 2 systems in our medical offices and just got this one for my home. Setup is fairly easy if you know your way around tools and don't mind drilling a few holes to secure the cameras and spread the cables behind walls or up the ceiling. the app allows you to add multiple devices which means I can use the same Night owl app to see all three DVR's and name them office 1, office 2, and home. with each DVR supporting up to 16 cameras (this only comes with 4) it means you can buy add on cameras from night owl to satisfy your needs. the night vision video quality is great and very acceptable for the use and price of this security system. the setup is very straight forward but you will need to have a monitor for the initial setup (the system comes with a mouse for the initial setup or if you have a closet where you will install the DVR and keep it there). Pros: very easy to install very easy to use app nice looking small DVR size which looks good has a 1TB hard drive preinstalled the search option and playback work great can stream the feed on your Google home enabled screens (it took a lot of work to setup though). Cons: Face detection isn't the greatest but the image and video quality is decent

Right off the rip, I have to say this camera system is better than a competitor but only by one star. The base mission that the Night Owl system provides is solid and top notch, where it falls is the app and the main reason for installing it. I was truly hoping for a better experience than the other brand and it was for the quality of the picture but install was about the same and the app is just as bad. Now, for the good is the installation is very straight forward, mount and the rest is plug and play. The quality of the picture is very nice and the camera light that are built in really make night video look great. The human detection feature seams to work very well but has some delay if the person is walking slow. The layout of the menus are simple as can be, anyone could figure out what they need too easily. I do wish they would have added a wifi module for easier remote hookup in another area. The system is a side 5 stars if the following is fixed, the app! Please Night Owl, fix the app. I have to constantly ear the app Cache or Data to get it to work. I also have to log out and log back in when I leave or come back home to get notifications or be able to see my cameras. The app is honestly horrible and I tried it on a Samsung S20+ Ultra, Note 10, S10+, Tab 6, and Pixel 3, all worked the same way. Time will tell if they improve the app. I understand the app is free but when you are expecting ease of use to be simple, it brings the rest of the purchase down. I recommend this unit if you do not care for the app working or they fix it.

I been having a base experience with this night owl camera set up I already change it twice it stops turning on and also bricks. I am still having problems with it niether the bestbuy store or night owl owl want to refund the money

They worked fine for a few days to. Stop lighting . Get in the DVR . Software apps are horrible n the lights stopped going on after 3 days .need to return them ... Horrible product. No live help nothing but a horrible owl app!!?

Sold me a set of security cameras with a bad hard drive. it has not worked not once. How are they security cameras when i can’t even save one security video clip?

Never even got to open the box. Had to return them because after I paid $699.99 for the installation, Best Buy was not able to find an installer. Returned. The price was good.

Avoid this brand! The do not update software often and the customer service from their headquarters is the worst. You will be stuck with bad product.

Cameras stopped recording, could not connect to app, then hard drive went out, since slightly passed the warranty date, company said they could do nothing.