Customer Ratings & Reviews

Swann DVR8-4500 Bought this system and luckily didn't fully install before trying to setup. The cameras, app and everything are very nice. However, I tried for a full week to get the email and remote viewing setup on this with no luck. I could view on my phone at home on the same network but nowhere else. I called customer service the first time and that took an hour, thought I was getting somewhere until the person could not figure a couple things out. Gave me a ref number and I called back a couple days later with no luck, another hour wasted. Both calls were agonizingly slow because of a language barrier. I then took to google and think I need to setup a static ip and open gateway. Tried that but ran into an issue with my router password. Frustrated, taking it back to Best Buy. It's a shame because this is a nice unit otherwise.

These Cameras work really well, the high definition is amazing and easy to install. The picture is really great. I would order these again.

After having something stolen off my porch, I had purchased this camera. The product advertises as having motion detection (so it will record only when motion triggers), and an e-mail alert system that e-mails you when it detects motion and starts recording. It has a nice search feature where you can go back and search for "events" which are triggered by motion. Unfortunately, it falls, far, far short of delivering a working product in support of the above claims. 1. Motion detection: It emits infrared light at night for the night-vision and while the night vision does work, it attracts swarms of bugs which then trigger the motion detection all night long. There is no way to fix this (according to tech support). Spider webs blowing in the breeze in front of the cameras will also trigger it. When the camera sensors detect a change from day to night and night today, that too triggers a motion alert. So if you are buying this to get e-mailed alerts, or search through "events" in the software, it is worthless because you will get a dozen or more events per hour. I tried turning down the motion detection sensitivity and while it helped, it didn't filter out enough events to make the e-mail alert or event search feature useful due to too many false alarms (dozens per day). 2. Recording duration. If there is motion, it will start recording, but it stops recording about a minute or a minute and a half later regardless of whether motion is still detected. So if someone is breaking into your house and carrying things out of it, you'll only capture the first minute or two before the camera deactivates and waits until a period of no-motion is detected before triggering on motion again. I spent an hour on the phone with tech support on this and even with a reset of the device and other troubleshooting steps, they were unable to fix it. So I returned it to Best Buy today. I'm annoyed that I spent 8 hours installing this thing, and then another hour or so ripping it all out, but at least I got a full refund.

The remote app works well. Configuring via browser is good but using the cheap mouse to directly configure is horrible. Unfortunately email alerts do not work which are important if phone service is poor. Also DDNS does not work. This system seems to utilize a set of low budget network protocols that simply will not communicate with systems requiring a higher level of security. I will be returning this and purchasing a PC based internal DVR card.

Firmware wasn't up-to-date when I purchased it. Now, I am having to jump through hoops to get this resolved. Swann is sending a new system to me however, I am having to send the old system back first and then they ship the new one. So, this means I am without security cameras for a couple weeks. Disappointed that the system wasn't up-to-date when I purchased it this week. I was sold a product that is unusable. Very disappointing and makes me question purchasing from Best Buy again.

great cameras I put up a week later I caught thief

system reboots and goes into a shutdown loop. stops recording at will and the motion setting is so hard to set it's worthless. I have to record everything all the time because most times I went back to look at something it didn't record.

Hooked up the cameras to the dvr and did some testing. Could not recognize my own image unless I was less than 10 feet from the camera. Could not read a license plate at 30 feet. Why have a system like this if you can't identify anyone.