[8CH 2TB] PoE Security Camera System,Firstrend 5MP 8CH NVR with 2TB Hard Drive and 8PCS 4MP P2P Indoor Outdoor Video Camera System 65FT Night Vision Free APP

I apologize for the length of this review, but I think it’s important to show what I have gone through to get this to work as well as vent my anger and frustration at the unbelievably poor support I have received from Firstrend. I have a computer support background and I found this system complicated and badly organized – a bad combination when there’s no useful documentation. I don’t know how the average homeowner without extensive tech knowledge is supposed to figure this out!We purchased this system as a replacement for Samsung cameras which were failing and have awful (completely unavailable) customer support. We had very high hopes based on the Amazon reviews, but I have to conclude that the reviews are planted, especially the comments about the wonderful Firstrend customer support.Something to note here is that the cameras supplied with this system not only do not have microphones, they have no way to attach them. Also, despite the fact that the cameras are all POE, they have a split pigtail. One end connects to the RJ45 of the network cable. The other is an open DC power connector. The RJ45 connector has some water proofing features, but it’s obvious that, as others have pointed out, these are inadequate and you should coat the connector end with silicone caulk. There is no provision for waterproofing the DC connector. If these connections are to be exposed to the outside weather, you’re going to have to cover the end of that connector with silicone caulk as well.As many people have indicated, the small printed document that comes with the system is a joke. Between the lack of clarity and outright errors (maybe it was an attempt to document an older version), it’s just about useless. From the first time I plugged the NVR in, I ran into trouble. The system complained that the installed 2T hard disk wasn’t formatted, which wasn’t unexpected. I started a format and the system crashed. When it rebooted , the NVR reported that the drive was still unformatted, but now it also indicated that the drive size was zero. I thought perhaps they had shipped a bad drive, so I tried several enterprise-class 4T Seagate drives (not desktop drives), and the system either refused to see them at all or would start a format and then crash.Something else to note is that you must have access to the physical console to make any changes to the system configuration. The iPhone app only displays the current camera views or allows playback of recordings. You can not adjust any feature of the recording setup including the motion detection area or inclusion / exclusion times. You can not add or remove cameras. You can not change ANYTHING. This may not be important to everyone, but if you have this system monitoring a facility that is mostly unmanned, you will not be able to make any changes without going to the premises. There is no way to retrieve recordings to your iphone. There is supposedly a way to download recordings to the desktop software which runs on Windows or MacOS, but I was never able to get it to work.I had a long list of problems that needed to be resolved, the most critical being the hard drive issue, so the next day (a Monday) I called Firstrend customer support at a number I found in an Amazon review (because I was unable to find a phone number ANYWHERE with the product I received) and got a recording saying they weren’t available, please leave a message or send mail to their Hotmail account. I left my name and number and emailed them. The next day I woke up to an email from their customer support person ‘Neal’ saying that they needed my Amazon order number, model number, and serial number of the NVR, which I immediately replied to. The next day I got an email saying that they needed a picture of the software version screen (they couldn’t have asked for this in the first email?). I emailed what they requested and tried to call, got the same recorded message. I also received a canned response through Amazon from them saying that if we had any questions to email or call them. So I called the number listed on that email and all it did was ring. By Friday, I was still waiting for a response and fired off yet another email, at which point I got an answer from them saying that my emails from that week had ended up in their Spam folder, but they had sent me a new firmware version, did I get it? I responded that I had not and an hour later got an email with a link to the new software version.After installing the new software release, I tried a 6T Seagate drive and, despite the notes about the system only supporting 4T disks, the NVR seemed to correctly format the drive and it started saving motion detection and continuous recordings. By Sunday morning when the system still seemed to be recording correctly, I put the system cover back on, but by Sunday night all the recordings were gone and the console said that the drive was unformatted and the size was zero. I emailed them, again. Tuesday morning I got an email saying they wanted to call, but didn’t have my phone number – really??? It’s been in every email I sent them, asking them to please call me and stop this daily back and forth. Sent it to them, again, and an hour later Neal called and wanted to facetime with me to look at my system. We spent about an hour on the phone going over issues and he had me reinstall the original drive and the system started recording again. He also helped me find a way to name the cameras. By the time I got off the phone, I thought things were going to be fine. I should note that Neal’s English was very good, but he’s obviously in Asia somewhere. During the facetime session, several times I saw his computer screen and it was covered with Chinese characters, no English. I suspect this partially explains why they’re never available to answer the phone when I call from the US, since they’re 12 hours ahead of us.I quickly found out that despite the NVR recording the name of each camera, the motion detection notifications that were being sent to my phone via the iPhone app did not use those labels. Each alert was identified by just the channel name of the camera. When you have lots of cameras installed, remembering what camera is on what channel is tough – especially for other people who are using the system.When you set up each camera, there’s a screen that you use to acknowledge which camera you want to install. All IP cameras the NVR is able to find on your network are listed there. When I did the initial setup, all of my old Samsung cameras showed up on there, but the NVR was unable to access them. I assumed from this and some notes I found, that the system would accept most IP cameras. One of the things I asked Neal was what cameras were supported, as the software clearly was written to support PTZ cameras, which Firstrend does not sell. I should also point out here that the Firstrend IP cameras do not have to be plugged into the 8 ports on the back of the unit. Years ago, I had run CAT6 cable to my garage because the wifi Samsung cameras couldn’t reliably see the network. I installed a POE switch there and plugged Firstrend’s cameras in, and they worked just fine. In fact, the 8 ports on the back of the NVR can also be used as a small hub – I plugged my printer into one of the ports and had no trouble accessing it across the network.Despite the fact that I still was not receiving responses to my emails, I decided to move forward with installing the new cameras. This involved several hours of removing the old cameras and installing the new ones. The alerts were still driving me crazy, but I decided that I would eventually get used to it. Two days later, the drive failed again, with the same problem as before. The NVR said that the drive was unformatted and size zero. I tried to reformat and the system crashed. I pulled the drive out and put it into an external SATA enclosure and was able to successfully format and use the drive on my Windows desktop – there’s nothing wrong with the disk!As a test of the PTZ functionality of the NVR, I bought an Amcrest 4MP PTZ interior camera. The NVR found it w/o an issue and I added it to the system. The PTZ functionality of the camera and the system was great! The only issue I had was that I was unable to set the motion detection zone on the camera and it didn’t appear to be sending motion alerts to the NVR. It’s possible that had I taken the time to use Amcrest’s software, I might have been able to resolve that.I emailed support one last time and told them that either I get a response or I would be returning the system to Amazon. The next day (now two weeks after my first email to them) I got an email saying 1) they were sending the request for relabeling the alerts to the developer (how did anyone think that was ok in the first place?) 2) Firstrend NVR does not support PTZ (even though it clearly does) 3) their system only supports their own cameras (again, clearly not) 4) as far as the drive failure, open the case, disconnect the hard drive, and reformat. They suggested that if I’m not happy with this, I should send it back to Amazon. This last point was obviously a “we don’t care” and it pushed me over the edge. What good is a recording system that routinely loses all your recordings and you have to open the case and hard reset the drive before it will work again? How is the average homeowner supposed to be able to deal with any of this?At least removing the Firstrend cameras wasn’t nearly as difficult as installing them. Now I’m back pouring through Amazon reviews trying to find something that actually works. I sincerely hope that this review will help others to make a more informed decision before spending their hard earned money on something that may be very time consuming and frustrating, all for nothing.EDIT 6/9/20 - I see they’ve dropped the price (that I paid) by $160 just since my review was posted. I wonder why......

The cameras are quite good quality. Installation is easy, and I have no issues with any of the hardware that was provided. The software program that runs on the system, but the local program that runs the unit and the APP for mobile devices is crap. It frequently doesn't run, has to be refreshed, the unit doesn't make contact, you have to login to the company servers (a company in China if you do the trace) so who knows what access they have. Losing the password forces you to contact them in China to get a new one. You would think that if you are right in front of the actual unit you could do a reset. Nope.As a result, I'm keeping the cameras but looking for a unit to plug them into that has a much better software program. This one sucks.

i installed it and everything is in pkace. first, it was great view, but then when i connected it to the lan, it doesnt connect that why i email it to the company which i purchased this unit. mr neal responded it immediately and another personnel named OWEN help me perfectly and now my system is working awesome....thanks a lot mr OWEN for making my system work well. and now i can see my family when im out of the country

These cameras were easy to install. The image is quite clear. I had a hard time setting up motion detections notifications. I called the company and OWEN answered the phone and immediately helped guide me through to set it up. I am now getting the notifications. Owen was very helpful and worked hard and explained everything clearly to me. This type of customer service is what every company needs.

Support for installing computer programs is terrible. Over seas makes it hard to get support. Installing was great but connecting PC programs were horrible.

Two cameras are broken. One is cracked and one just doesn’t work at all. Customer service only calls after 10 pm cst.**REVISION 10/27/2019**Owen from customer service contacted me and is making my order right. They are sending 2 replacement cameras! This system works for our business needs and the image is pretty good for what we needed.FINAL UPDATE:Ultimately several cameras stopped working and I got locked out of my account. The manufacturer send unlock codes that were in a different time zone (8 hours ahead-ish) , so I was not able to access the account. The codes would not work during business hours. Ended up returning entire system.

Very well make, video quality HD. Just love it

After a few phone calls and deleting and re-installing the app, it finally worked. It seems to be working well now. A few headaches to get it up and running.