I bought this system primarily for the purpose of keeping an eye on my house when I am away, and recording any theft that might happen. I had the DVR set up and cameras installed in a about 3 hours and it worked fine on the monitor. I spent about 40-50 hours trying to configure the DVR for remote viewing on my iphone. I finally gave up and paid the Geek Squad $89.99 to come out and do it for me. They stayed 2 hours and gave up and left without getting it to work. I then launched into a study program in which I read several long articles and learned how the itnernet works. Then I systematically tried 30-40 different settings until I landed the one that works. Their customer support is not great basically because they don't seem to understand english enough to respond to your emails. THe system would work fairly easily if you have a static IP address. However most all ISP's use dynamic IP's which change each time you get off the internet. I had to connect an old windows XP computer and run a client on it, which I found as a free download somewhere, and set up a free domain name at kguard.org, such as sadsteve.kguard.org. If you contact customer support they will send you PDF files that are outdated and have conflicting information on them. If you write back and ask a question about the PDF they will just send you another copy without answering your question. All these standalone DVR's seem to be built on similar platforms. This is my 4th system. One of my "weatherproof" cameras lasted until the first rain. It stopped working, and I can see water standing on the inside of the lens. I've filed a support ticket with customer support, but haven't heard back from them yet. These things are made in Taiwan and are sold all over the world. They seem to be better at marketing and sales than design and support. I do like H.264 video format, which is a good standard. Some brands have their own proprietary formats, which make it hard to share video with the police department if needed. I don't know if I would have had better luck with another brand like Swan, sold from Walmart or Sam's. I have a feeling the quality is about the same, but maybe the American support would be better. I spent a few hours on the phone with customer support out of California. They would occasionally answer their phone, but usually would have to call me back. Their help guys are not IT professionals and are just there to help you follow the manual. When it doesn't work they can't problem solve. I joined numerous forums to discuss my issues with IT pro's. I spent time with my ISP provider (who was no help), and also called and emailed Actiontec, who makes my router/modem. So there you have it. I feel I could install any of them now that I've learned how to port forward in my router, created a DDNS and deal with PPPoe ISP. When I read "easily connects to the internet via your smartphone" I really want to kick someone. So good luck, you will need it.
A worse problem is the resolution at night when the infrared kicks in. They claim that it works up to 30 feet, but I'd say only about ten feet is truly clear. If that's good enough for you, the All-in-One is the system to buy.
No comments:
Post a Comment