ANNKE Security Camera System, 3K Lite 5-in-1 H.265+ 8CH eDVR with 1TB eSSD and (4) 1080p (2MP) Weatherproof Surveillance Wired Cams, AI Human/Vehicle Detection, Smart Color Night Vision, Email Alert

Amazing!!! Clear view day and night. It is as easy as plug and play. Great product and backed by a great seller that is responsible and courteous, and answers your questions. The only thing is that manual / instruction booklet, oh boy, it needs to be better but it gives you the basic features. I am not being paid or given a discount; it is an honest uncompromised review.

I am not one of these paid reviewers so this is on the up and up. The short answer is: this is a great system for a great price. If you're trying to decide between a wireless camera system and a wired camera system consider that the wireless cameras still require you to run power wires to each camera. This system delivers power to the cameras using the video cable that you run, so there's a trade-off there. I'm using the four camera system. It is quite a bit of work to mount four cameras and run cable to them but by going with the cable cameras instead of the wireless cameras you get a much better system for a much lower price. I would rate the equipment I received as excellent. Having studied the reviews thoroughly before buying I've now found most of the reviewer complaints were by people who hadn't figured out all this system's options yet. You will want a small LCD monitor for this system, but you can usually get one at any thrift store for 5 or 10 dollars. You need the monitor to talk to the video recorder so you can choose the options you want. This recorder comes with a mouse and remote control. You cannot go wrong plugging the cameras into the recorder. It's simple. So with your monitor attached and your cameras plugged in, you will immediately see your 4 cameras on the screen. A right click of the mouse button gives you your options to choose from. There's a lot of them. This video recorder offers many things. The more exotic options, like email notification, require some technical knowledge but the basic setups can be done by anyone. Most people want to be able to see their cameras on their cell phone. Getting that set up requires a little patience and trial and error. First, your cell phone needs to have "QR Scanner Software," on it in order to load the right security camera program into the phone. QR Scanning software is free and easy to load into your phone. On your phone, go into Google and search for "QR Scanner Software for Android or IPhone" depending on which type of phone you have. From the list of results choose the Google QR Scanner Software for your phone and download it. Once the program has downloaded and installed, your phone will now be able to read barcodes. When you first turn on your new video recorder, the "Guide," or "Configuration Window," will appear. When you run that, it will eventually show you pictures of barcodes and ask you to scan one using your cell phone. You might as well not do that yet. Those barcodes will load a video camera program onto your phone, but the programs are constantly being upgraded so you need to have the latest program. The one on your new digital recorder is not the newest and might not work. Instead go to [...] on your home pc and near the top right corner of the XMEye home page you'll see an APP Download link which will show you two barcodes that contain the latest version of the software you need. Find the new scanner icon on your cell phone, press it and when the cell phone camera turns on, scan that XMEye barecode on the XMEye home page. Your cell phone will ask you if you want to install the new program. You do. Now put your cell phone aside and set up your new account with XMEye. When you fill out the info form it will ask you for your address. That is not your home address. It is the IP address for your new digital recorder. You can find the IP address by right clicking on the new digital recorder, choosing "System," and "Network." You will also need your digital recorders serial number. Find that by right clicking and going to "Main Menu" to "Info," to "Version." When entering the serial number you will also be asked for a name. You get to choose that yourself. With the above info, you should be able to get through the process of setting up your cell phone so you can see your home cameras. If you need more help, Google search for XMEye set up. There's quite a bit on line. Best wishes. Good luck.

This was my first experience with security cameras and a DVR and overall I like it. Physical setup of the cameras is easy - you just plug in the cables and you're on camera.The difficulty comes in the system configuration. As many other users have reported, there is pretty much no documentation. Everything (user interface, instructions, app) was obviously produced by Chinese speakers using Google (or maybe Bing because it's so bad) Translator. I'm part Chinese, majored in linguistics, grew up around "Chinglish" and even I had a hard time trying to figure out the app setup (tips below).- The small instruction sheet/booklet doesn't really tell you anything beyond what you can already figure out on your own (where to plug in the cables).- The mini CD manual doesn't work with my computer because I have an upright CD drive and it falls out of the tray even if I hold it in place till the CD tray goes in, so I can't comment as to the actual information that is on that mini CD.- The app setup is really bad (e.g. "thimble" when they mean "thumb").- They do have some documentation at annke.com which is helpful. Look under 89 series for this system.** Configuration settings **When you hook up your USB mouse, just click on all the menu and submenu icons to see where each one leads. It's not hard setting up usernames, passwords, camera names, etc. once you find the correct icon. But there are so many submenus, that after almost a week, I still have to click around to find the right settings page for something.I'm having issues figuring out how to get it to record only when motion is detected; it could just be I need to play with sensitivity settings some more but right now it's just recording everything.The only issue I had was the remote control wasn't working. I thought it was a settings issue and emailed support because there are a couple of configuration menus for remote control. The first time, they sent me a link to instructions for remote viewing via PC (which was helpful for setting up my online XMeye account, but not the answer I was looking for). I emailed back explaining I needed help configuring the handheld remote and told them I had fresh, working batteries. They sent me a new remote control which does work, but you have to point it at the exact same level of the DVR. If your DVR is on a shelf higher than the level at which you're sitting, then it doesn't work. I have to hold it with my arm straight up in the air for the remote to work and the playback buttons are not working very well for me.** Picture quality **We didn't want to drill holes in our stucco walls, so we mounted our cameras inside windows and the picture is surprisingly good for having glass or screen in between. We're installing motion sensor floodlights so if there is activity outside the windows at night, the infrared lights go off and we can get color picture. (We tested this last night and were very pleased so came back to Amazon to order 2 more flood lights.)** Tips for App Setup **I really wanted to get the local login setup instead of going through the XMeye website, but it's just too glitchy. I was able to get it working for the first day, then it just stopped working after a few hours. So the only way I can consistently view my feed on my Kindle is by creating an account at the XMeye website.1 - Go to the XMeye site and register an account.2 - Connect your system by inputting your DVR's serial number.3 - Open the app on your phone/tablet and enter your login credentials there.4 - If you leave the app and come back to it, you'll probably need to logout and log back in in order to view your feed again.Because this was my first CCTV system, I didn't know much about how it works. I didn't know what PTZ was, but now that I do, I think I will add 4 higher quality cameras to my system in the near future.** Free software to view and record your security feed locally on your PC **The XMeye website is OK for viewing your feed, but some of my browsers are giving off a message that the plugin required for this site is no longer supported. It does work in IE (allow ActiveX) and Chrome (after enabling it via plugins settings), but it won't work on Firefox or SW Iron browser. But I have found other easier ways to view and record your feed locally via your PC desktop.1 - iSpy Connect - A feature-rich open source software you can install and configure. It has alert settings where you can choose a particular sound file to alert you of motion detected, FTP for uploading images to a web server, email settings, etc. I would say this program has finer motion detection control than the DVR and I have it set to record when motion is detected. It saves the video to your PC so you can easily email it or upload it.2 - VLC - This is an open source media player which you can use to view a network stream by entering your feed's url. If you want to record something, just hit the "Record" button. The drawback is you can only view one channel at a time on VLC.