Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Deron Altman photo
United States of America, Charleston
1 Level
709 Review
53 Karma

Review on 📷 Smonet 4CH 720P HD NVR Wireless Security CCTV Surveillance Systems (WIFI NVR Kits) - Four 1.0MP Wireless WIFI Indoor Outdoor IP Cameras, P2P, 65FT Night Vision, 1TB HDD Included by Deron Altman

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Terrible app, playback and motion capture

Have been using the system for 3 months. If the apps, motion detection, and playback functions work well I would give it a 4 or 5, but these issues make the system extremely difficult to use. Here are my weak and dirty Pros and cons Pros Very easy to install cameras- Cameras have excellent visibility day and night- The system works on a large land area and over long distances- The video is clear and easy to see (fairly high Quality )- Camera body and mount very durable. Cons - Camera mounting screws are cheap junk - I recommend you get #8 stainless steel torx screws or very small ones - Can't remove LAN cable coming out of camera - Corrosion/weather issues - I live in the rain. forest and this is becoming a long term problem - the manual/setup is very poorly written with little effort to explain how the settings work or improve performance - my cheap digital watch has more and better instructions - I am a very tech oriented person ( I'm a guy who actually reads guides) has 30+ years of experience as a mechanic on all systems. So when I say that this owner's manual is poorly written, perhaps you should take that into account. The OS is not user friendly - it took a lot of experimentation to get it working and forgot the manual which doesn't address any of the questions I had. When I first set it up it recorded really well if you could go back and watch stuff with the DVR TV then a few days later it stopped recording with no changes to the system and I had to redo everything to keep up with it it works. It was a loop recording so the HD had to be overwritten when it filled up. All settings were fine, but the recording just didn't work. After resetting and restarting everything, everything worked fine for a week or two, and then the same thing started. Now I have to constantly check whether the recording is running. The playback system is very bad. Rarely works via apps and very difficult via DVR TV. To play on DVR TV, you need to log in as ADMIN or already logged in, right click on the screen and read the menu to find the play function. Most systems I've worked with can be played without logging in with a master admin password. If you get killed in your house how will the police know your admin password to find out who killed you? If you stay logged in, someone breaking into the house will see the dashcam and can delete all recordings or change the password. The iOS and Droid apps are terrible. My wife has iOS and I have a droid. Functions like playback are useless. The app disables live cameras and often doesn't even load all cameras. Not on the WIFI side - I have gig high speed internet and the best WIFI router on my side. Trust me, it's a WIFI DVR because when I unplug or unplug multiple cameras, everything works fine. It's as if the system couldn't handle the amount of information it's putting out. - Long circles from real time (what is happening on camera) to appearing on DVR TV or APP. For some cameras it takes minutes - for me it means that the DVR camera's WIFI system has a low speed - the system's motion sensor is slow to capture events. In essence, we see a dog or person when they leave the camera's field of view, not when they enter or are inside it, even when the motion sensors are supposed to be operating at maximum levels. We tried running it on motion sensors only, not continuous recording, and we literally couldn't catch dogs walking by or our son leaving the house. What good is a security system without the ability to capture events as they occur? It's very difficult to find events when you know they happened because we need high motion settings to work everything is enabled. So when an event occurs, you have to do hundreds of sensor clicks to find an event, and because it can. To not immediately record a movement, a person or animal is almost out of sight, making it even more difficult to capture. All in all I'm not impressed. The system works, but it's not user friendly and doesn't work like the systems I have at work. I am extremely disappointed. Mainly with applications, motion systems and playback functions. If these features work well, my rating would be 4 or 5.

Pros
  • Trial for 1 year
Cons
  • Nothing

Comments (9)

Please, sign in to write a comment
March 25, 2023
Updated review after 2 and a half years.
October 31, 2022
Terrible APP, Playback funciton and Motion capturing
October 29, 2022
Dont waste your money. UPDATE: NOW IT WONT CONNECT!
October 22, 2022
Item returned.. could not get all cameras to ...
October 19, 2022
Not happy with this product....
October 17, 2022
Great camera system, works well, good quality and simple to use
October 14, 2022
Absolute Rubbish
October 11, 2022
Such a waste....
October 10, 2022
Updated review after 2 and a half years.