ANNKECCTV Surveillance DVR 8 Channel 3K Lite H.265+ Security Video Recorder for Analog/AHD/TVI/IP CCTV Camera System, Smart AI Human/Vehicle Detection, Email Alert with Photo, Remote Viewing, NO HDD

Really easy to set up and get online. Bought to replace an older outdated recorder which stopped working and it was even simpler than using that. Would recommend.

Unit as expected good quality. Takes time to setup but instructions book simple to understand

This is going to be a fairly detailed review so i can give my impressions of this unit. First thing you will want to know, am i keeping it, well yes i am, it was £39 and while not perfect, its certainly worth its money,i will start with the biggest problems, or at least the ones that disappointed me the most and by far it has to be the recording framerate.We buy this system because its a 960H resolution, and it is, trouble is at 960H you can only achieve 12 frames a second, you have to turn the whole system down to D1 resolution if you want higher frames a second and it seems the more cameras you add the bit rate can go down too slightly. Im still getting a good picture though, you only really notice it with fast moving objects like cars speeding past.The second biggest problem is that the remote control is dire, it is very poorly made, almost seems like an after thought with the DVR having a mouse to operate all its functions. The problem seems to be the remote control buttons, they are rubberized and when you press them they dont seem to making contact with the electronics underneath unless you press really hard on them and even then its hit and miss if the button will work because they are so sloppy. Its an easy fix if you go out and buy one of those universal remotes,but that's not the point really. The remote should work.I have four cameras up and in 960H because of the wide screen resolution you can only view 2 playback screens at a time which is ok if a little fiddly.Some feedback ive read suggest that it only records 2 cameras in 960H, i thought that myself at first but it doesn't.In the playback screen you have to select and deselect 2 cameras at a time, so if like me you have 4 cameras, you will have 4 channels to view, you simple play channels 1 and 2, then when you want to watch channel 3 and 4, you deselect channels 1 and 2 and select 3 and 4 instead.Fitted the hard drive no problem, the unit is silent when it is recording, Ive seen feedback where the drive is very noisy in these DVRs and it worried me a bit with the DVR sitting in my front room, but that's really not the case.If you have noise from your drive when recording then its to do with the drive itself,dont try and fit an old hard drive in something like unless you know the drive is sound with a fast write speed. this is because it might struggle specially if you have your DVR recording 24hr a day, it stresses the drive out too much if it cant cope working all the time and thats where the noise will come from. Its not like fitting it in a PC, the drive in a PC doesn't work 24hrs a day only when you are loading something or writing something etc then it sits idle and cools down.Network., i eventually got this to work, its really important that whatever your box is called (the default i believe is localhost) you need to put that name in exactly when you are connecting the apps to the network, it matters.Its really good if you use internet explorer on a pc or laptop and go to xmeye.net. Doesn't work on chrome because chrome wont accept applet x plugins, but works on Firefox. simple and it works.I have an ipad, iphone4s nexus 7 and i got the app to work on all of them, setting it up at first was frustrating but once you get it, its actually very easy. All you need to do if you dont do it on your boot up screen, is right click your mouse to get the menu up, then click GUIDE and this will take you to the QR code which you will need a reader on your device to read it, there are free ones in the app store and play store. or you can just do a search in the store for xmeye and you will find it that way easy enough. now you just sign up to XMeye, username and password and email, the usual stuff..Now the tricky bit, you have to now add your device, well its not tricky but if you dont get it right it wont connect.So you have to now logged on with the app and click the big + button to add a device, first put your device name in the first box,the default is localhost you can check this by <right click on mouse>mainmenu>system>General> it will tell you the machine name in there, put this in your app exactly how you see it.Next you need your Serial number,you can do this manually or just press the tiny QR code on the sign in page on the app and it will scan the QR code on the guide screen on your cam box the one that says SN, this will input your box serial number in for you.Now you have to fill in your device user name and password (the default for the DVR box is admin and no password) which of course you should have changed by now to your own. leave the port empty and thats it. make sure your box is connected to the internet via a cable and just press the magnifying glass icon for it to search for your cameras. Its the same process for all devices..Harder to type than it is to do. :)Anyway, what else..Really like the motion detection system, you can get very detailed in your selection if you wish, like to avoid that swaying plant or bush that keeps setting it off. when the motion detection sets off you can do a number of things with that, you can record that camera, or record a number of cameras at the same time from that one trigger and you can even jump full screen to the trigger camera if you wish, all done automatically, this jumping to the trigger camera is called tour on this system.you can also magnify a certain point on the screen simply by left click dragging on your picture, its a neat thing but not that much use under 1080p, but nice to have it anyway if you dont go mad trying to spot a fly on a leafplayback software is fine on this system, it does all you need to do with it,you have play/pause, play backwards,stop,slow playback which goes in 4 increments of slower speed,, you then have reverse fast,fast playback,next file,prev file,repeat playback(which you can toggle on and off) full screen and edit buttons. you also have a nice graph layout to tell you where events took place and you can also choose which event you want to look at. All events, regular events, alarms event(motion detection), manual.So all this and me upgrading from a 5 year old swann system that cost me nearly 300 smackers seems a bit good to me.Ok to recap, this system box is cheap, plenty of bang for your buck i think, not perfect though and not something you want to get if you are looking for HD 1080p pin sharp pictures, its not going to happen but then you aren't paying £300 just for the boxOverall monitoring of your backyards and cars on drives to see what those little sods are up to messing about at your fence or by your car, its perfect for that its also perfect for watching hedgehogs walking across your lawn and cats crapping in your borders but dont expect to read number plates at a 100 yards with this but i will say, the compression on the recordings are really very good on highest quality settings and no difference from the live pictures, which was terrible on the swann system which is why i mention it here.Given this DVR 4 stars,nothing in life is ever 5 stars not if you are being impartial anyway. like i said its not perfect but the question is really would i buy it again now ive had a play with it, and i can say yes i would and given its overall performance with a bit of fiddling in the menus i would recommend it,at the price i paid for it anyway, at 39 quid its a bargain i have to say.

I bought this for my mum as she wanted to upgrade her cctv system from 4 to 8 channels. Not only does this allow you to have 8 hard wired BNC connected cameras, you also get the option to have 2 IP cameras installed thus giving you 10 cameras in all. It’s user interface is easy to get to grips with as long as you take your time and understand what you are wanting from the system.I’ve used ANNKE for years and never had a problem

Little confusing on instructions to install but got their works well though have to dis able the notifications in app as bit over sensitive and would keep me awake all night still rather that then not picking things up

Some of these products I have used in the past had subpar quality application, but this one is a bit of a surprise in a positive way. Another nice surprise is that it can connect to an IP camera and store the footage, as well as view it on the app. I have only had it for a few days, but my first impression is very positive.

I was going to say this doesn't work but it does so badly as to be worse than not working. The software is so awful, unresponsive and slow, live view only works 1 in 10 times giving the the useless message "live view error". When it does work it goes off after 30 secs then comes back on again intermittently and the unit floods the LAN with so much traffic that everything else starts buffering. And once you have gone to the trouble of setting up your layout and assigning your cameras you cannot save it and have to go through the whole thing every time you access live view.

Works well and easy to set up, just moved HDD from old unit, formatted it and plugged cameras in and that's it. It can be a little noisy if on a hard surface, so I put some rubber feet under it and now nice and quiet.