Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've spent months trying to decide on a replacement camera system for my house to replace a 5 year old Zmodo coax system. Whilst the Zmodo has proven reliable, the system has many shortcomings and annoyances which I’ve taken into consideration when choosing a new system. If you are like me and research everything to death before making a decision you'll know that sometimes trying to balance all the good reviews vs the bad ones can leave you more messed up and confused than when you started. So for people wanting to know the pro's and con's of this system I have shared some of my own observations below and I hope they will help you in making informed and educated decisions on your own future system. Likes: - The supplied camera's are 4MP and have built in Microphones. They are POE and only require an Ethernet cable from the NVR to each camera. The audio is also transmitted through the Ethernet cable so no additional cables needed for audio. The cables supplied are 59ft long, if you need longer cables and plan to make your own, the cabling pinout is standard Ethernet wiring - same as any patch cord. - The NVR will record all 8 camera's at 4MP at 30fps, all with audio too. I should warn that this recording method will consume a tremendous amount of HDD space. The 2TB drive in the NVR will begin looping after about 4 days but from what I understand the system is capable of both larger capacity HDD and will support an external E-SATA in tandem. - The NVR's software is very well thought out and easy to navigate. You will initially need a TV or a monitor with an HDMI or VGA to setup a few basic parameters like camera names, network settings etc.. but a wizard guides you through all this and makes it super easy. Once connected to the internet, you can download the Reolink app to your phone and to your desktop mac/pc. If your desktop/phone are connected to the same home network that the NVR is plugged into, the system will automatically be found and will configure itself for live viewing. If for whatever reason this doesn't work you can scan a QR code on the NVR lid. Once you have setup remote access you can unplug your monitor/tv, every setting that you might want to change on the NVR can be done on your phone or desktop. - You do not need to port forward any ports on your router. You can close them all and it will not effect remote capabilities. - The live audio will stream to mobile devices, meaning that whenever you are viewing a particular camera on your phone or desktop, you can hear the live audio. - This feature is what makes this system perfect to me. Like many other camera systems, this system has motion detection and will snap a picture and send it via email. The problem i've found with most systems (Particularly at night) is the number of false alarm events, whenever a fly buzzes by or high humidity, this in turn causes you to be getting emails all night long and in my case waking up to 700 emails, not knowing if any were important without going through all of them. This system however has 4 sensitivity settings that allow you to configure sensitivity based on blocks of time. so for example, between 6am and 12pm you can set a desired sensitivity level, from 12pm to 6pm another.. etc.. the sensitivity scale ranges from 1 to 50 with 1 being the most sensitive and 50 the lowest. It does take a few days to get the sensitivity just right but once you've figured it out you can virtually eliminate all false motion alerts. I have mine set at 25 through the daylight hours and 35 at night, since doing so I get no false alarms from insects or car lights and only pictures and emails when someone is actually there. The motion alert feature supports PUSH notifications in addition to the email alerts. - The phone app and desktop app are very well designed. The app for the phone can be configured with a pin/password lock as an extra security measure. - The bullet camera's have amazing night vision without any IR glare. I've had several dome camera's where the IR glare made the image cloudy and hard to see. Dislikes: - This is really only a minor complaint. I cannot find a way to make it easier to pinpoint motion events on the scrollable time scale during playback. My older Zmodo used to flag a motion event on the time bar irrespective of whether the system was setup to record continuously or motion record. I can just simply look at my phone and note the motion event date and time and then search the time bar to that specific time, I guess it would be nice if it placed a marker indicating an event. - The NVR has a small fan for evacuating heat from inside the case. This little fan is quite noisy and very noticeable if you had an older DVR that had no fan. I have ordered a NOCTUA fan to replace it with to see if it makes a difference. Conclusion: I am very picky when it comes to buying expensive electronic goods. I understand the value of laying out money for decent equipment, particularly when it's something to protect my home and my family. Looking for camera systems can be a pain and wading through the offerings to see which ones are legit and work well can be very frustrating. I took a shot in the dark when I ordered this Reolink system and I can say with certainty that not only did it meet my very stringent requirements, it exceeded them. I might add that I was so pleased with it that I ordered 4 more bullet cams to bring the total to 8. A bit of a long winded review but hopefully it will help people who are still on the fence about buying this system!