I first bought the LW2702 wireless system. It would not carry a signal 50 feet through my vinyl sided 1/2 inch sheathed split level. I called Lorex and they wanted to send me a new system right away. In the mean time, I looked over their website snd found this. I decided to try this system since Lorex was so suportive. It is even less expensive than the LW2702.Four cameras, a 32 bit card and software that sends email alerts and a snapshot; plus you can access the system on the internet via a ddns net run by Lorex. THIS seemed to solve every concern I had; I did not just want to discourage and record, I wanted a system that would email us while we were on vacation and that we could use to call the police.
I decided to put 3 cameras in the house in logical traffic areas. These will be set to alert us. The fourth will go outside to capture vehicle traffic in the drive.
The software allows each camera to be programmed seperately; alert types, when to record, etc. You can also set up schedules for each camera alert and monitor function; for example, basement shop every night between midnight and 5 AM; bedroom hallway every workday from 8AM to 3PM; and all inside cameras for the two week vacation while leaving the driveway camera always set to record activity without sending alerts. Pretty powerful stuff.
You neeed to precisely follow the instructions for setting up internet access which allows you full control of your monitoring system. It took a day for the internet to register my system domain; but it works.
OK, the mediocre. Although Server 2000 is supported, it will not run on windows home server. Or, it must be installed on any 32 bit winXP or higher system. IT CANNOT run on 64 bit; needs a new card plus new software.
There are is one irksome quirk, which is worked around by using internet access. The program window has NO minimize/size/maximize/close icons in the upper right corner. Also not present with a right click. It settles in the upper left corner of your monitor and CANNOT be dragged someplace else (like your second monitor with extended desktop). SInce you access your system via IE (have not yet tired Firefox), you CAN relocate the display and controls since you simply drag the IE window where you want.
We live in a rural area with a lot of ground floor windows. I have always been skeptical of alarm company monitoring services. THIS system allows me to verify for myself what is happening and to call the police; or, since I have a computer based phone answering machine (left very loud so we can hear it thoughout the house) I can call the house and deliver a pretty creepy warning to whover is in the house.
Each camera is provided with a 60 foot video and power cable. This works well for my interior cameras, but I will need an extension for my driveway camera.
I only installed this last week; but I have tested it pretty hard and it works so far. Turns out I am glad the LW2702 did not work as expected; while it would have captured events the LW2702 cannot send out alerts nor provide the control of this system. The "downside" is that you have to run wires to your computer and you must have a computer that is always on and configured to reboot after a power failure.
Plus, you can check the house from ANY computer anywhere in the world either with IE or the provided client software.
AS far as I concerned, this beats paying a monitoring service $10 a month. I hope it continues to work.
One thing you will need to do to view the system remotely is to download a DVR.exe file onto the computer you want to view from. This has posed a security problem with the folks at work (to view my home system).
With the above in mind, I would rate the system highly if you didn't want to remotely view the system (but that's one of the main selling points).
Operating the software is intuitive. Setting up the cameras, how the display looks, and how the system backs up is very easy. Search capability has been trouble free.
The cameras perform as advertised, even in low light. Just keep their range limits in mind if you want to be able to identify someone.easy to do if you have basic handyman/pc skills. even the computer software/firewall setup was easy with ddns. the software could use a few improvements related to more effect FFW and REW functions and motion search but it gets the job done.
i have a laptop setup in the family room with a remove view to the web interface so we can see it while we're socializing or watching TV.
really neat!
I wish I could have offorded the 16 camera version, but 4 is good enough for the main areas of a house.I purchased this camera two weeks ago and have had non-stop problems.
First of all, the software that ships in the box is bad. When you call tech support they will tell you that it has compatibility issues and to download the latest version form their website.
Secondly, even the latest version is very limited on compatibility. Our Windows 2003 Server would not run this software properly.
Third, the "storage management" process makes no sense. The software asks you to decide how much "workspace" you want to allocate to the DVR software, but it does so in strange terms like append, recover, delete, etc. I am an expert user and if I have this much trouble, so will you.
I spent 30 minutes on hold for tech support before someone answered, took down my info, and said they'd call me back. I called again the next day because they never got back to me, and they still could not resolve my issue.
Bottom line: I'm sure it's a great product once you get it working. However, the hoops I have had to jump through in this process have earned it a 1-star review regardless of how amazing it ends up being (that is assuming it ever actually works).
UPDATE: When I left off with them yesterday, they remotely reinstalled my software and said the problem is that I am using an onboard (as opposed to a separately purchased and installed) video card. They assured me I'd be good to go once I did that, so I went and bought a new video card today. It still does not work and I am once again on hold for them. And a note about their tech support: it takes 10-15 minutes for them to answer, and the first 5 minutes of that is listening to a recording talk to you about warranty registration stuff with no opportunity to skip if you've already heard it five times like I have.
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