Customer Ratings & Reviews

Easy to use and easy to install. Love that we can set the camera to only start on motion. Saves a ton of space that way.

I bought this system on sale at BB for $550 and was initially happy with the product. 720p cameras look great during the day, nightvision is good indoors but iffy outside, especially in open, long distance areas. But with some ambient light or downward-facing/single story mounting they still look OK. Remote monitoring works as advertised using the Swannview Link app. However, it wasn't until about a year later that the system started to show it's potential when I updated the firmware on a whim and noticed something odd. This 7085 model NVR originally had a 1080p big brother, the 7285, which I think was only widely available in non-US territories. The new firmware makes this 7085 think it's a 7285, complete with the 1080p functionality. Stranger yet, if you take a look at the compatibility chart Swann has available on their site, it will show this 7085 NVR is only compatible with the 806 cameras it's supplied with. This couldn't be more wrong. I purchased an NHD-815 (The vastly superior 3MP version of the 806), and an NHD-817, the fancy 3MP PTZ model. They both work flawlessly. Swanns product page for the 815 says it only works with the much more expensive 73xx NVRs, and that the 817 runs on the 7285 in 1080p mode, making no mention of the 7085. So despite what the Swann compatibility chart tells you, I can confirm this NVR will work with any Swann POE camera from the NHD-806s it comes with through to the 817 PTZ model, assuming you update the firmware. I dug up an older version of the compatibility chart, which shows these models highlighted in yellow for "compatible with extra configuration", but all of these models were plug & play for me once I changed their recording resolution from 3MP to 1080p. They displayed fine in the preview windows but when changing visual settings nothing would show up on screen until I changed that recording setting. That might be due to the DVR hardware limits or my 1080p TV not being able to display that resolution, I'm not entirely sure. So I don't know why on the newest compatibility chart they outright say these don't work, maybe because they know very few people update the firmware. It makes me wonder if the NHD-820/830/835 cameras work with this, or if the Swann NVR holy grail NHD-841 PTZ does. I dont have the $1300 that thing costs lying around to test, but I would love to try. They recently updated the Swannview Link app as well, for the better, as PTZ controls now work from the Windows version (they only worked for me from the mobile version initially). The app is also where you probably want to manage all of the NVR settings, as the main display version is a little old school looking and clunky. I definitely recommend the set as a starting point, then buy some nicer cameras to fill in the remaining 4 POE slots. The night vision of a 815 is vastly superior to the 806's, despite them having semi-similar range statistics. Range doesn't matter, it's the effectiveness.