Zmodo 1080p 8CH HDMI NVR 1TB HDD – 8 HD WiFi Wireless Weatherproof Security Cameras System with Night Vision – Hassle Free Installation No Video Cable Needed

 Had this camera system for less than a month and it already prevented us from being robbed while vacation! The motion alerts are frequently due to shadows shifting or bugs, but within 4 days of installing a camera over our front door the notification was real.

Tuesday, 11:20pm. 400 miles from home. Motion alert on my phone. Front door camera. Random sketchy guy scoping out our house while we are on vacation, looking in windows from front porch. He sees the cameras and (after ringing the doorbell for show) takes off with his accomplice. All of this caught on video, sent to police and neighbors within hours of the incident.

I can’t recommend these cameras enough. In fact, my in-laws and several neighbors have bought them since this happened.

Here’s how they work. Others have detailed the setup process, so I won’t go over that again. But once installed, the 1TB hard drive stores video for up to a month (mine has been installed for 23 days and has not filled up). You can access this remotely through the pretty decent Zmodo app. ALSO, you can select a region for each camera’s motion detection feature. If motion is detected within the area you selected, your phone gets pinged and you can view a series of 5 compressed still images recorded over a period of 5 seconds (easy on your data plan). These are stored in the cloud, so you can still get to them if some really crafty thief steals your Zmodo hard drive! The motion alerts occur a maximum of once per camera every 5 minutes. So there is a chance you will miss something here in that 5-minute period. BUT, if you go back to review the video (in the app), all motion is highlighted so you can skip to the highlights. The motion alerts are stored for 24 hours but can be saved to your “gallery” in the app, or just screenshot it. Also, video can easily be recorded to your phone. In my android, saved files show up in a “Photos” folder in my gallery. They are a nice size, small enough to email short clips, say, to the police after you are almost robbed.

The alerts come in all throughout the day, some from clouds covering the sun (shadows disappear), others from actual human actions. After a few weeks I have learned to tell the difference without having to go to the app. If I get 5-6 notifications within a couple of seconds, it’s a cloud. If they are staggered by 2-3 seconds it may be someone walking around the back yard. 2 at a time, may be a car pulling in the driveway. You get the idea.

Video quality varies depending on setup. Cameras pointed out at my open backyard are mostly hazy at night, but for nearby objects video is great. Daytime video quality is fantastic. Resolution is 720p, which is the sweet spot in my opinion. Any lower and picture quality suffers. Any higher and your network and internet connection will likely struggle to keep up. As it is, my network is showing signs of being overloaded so I plan to purchase an additional wireless access point. I have an ASUS AC68U, a quality router. You may want to account for this in the cost of ownership. That and getting them wired. Mine are temporarily wired using extension cords but I’ll probably need an electrician to wire them more permanently.

A couple of features I wish they would add would be the ability to jump to the video for motion alerts instead of having to scroll to it. Scrolling the video can be tedious. In addition, it would be nice if 1) the motion detection area didn’t have to be a rectangle and 2) you could tweak the sensitivity.

Thanks for reading!

This review is for 720dp 8-cams zmodo with 1TB NVR. The phone app that works with this must be clicked from the icon link at zmodo.com. The main drawback for me is that It won’t let you view all cams simultaneously on your phone. Only one cam can be viewed at a time and it takes about 3-5 seconds to load everytime you switch cams to view and that’s slow, probably cause it’s wireless. No instructions in the box. It’s hard to figure out how to view the cams on pc. I tried but can’t get the cams to open up. Although all the devices where added to the network. It’s very very frustrating to get it all figured out. Zmodo customer service line is automated where you will be asked to hold for 30+ minutes or choose to be called back when your turn is up. I never got a call back. It works and price is good. $399 for 8 cams with 1 TB NVR. But I regretted buying this. I should have paid more for a better system. Hey, we always get what we for. Get something cheap and live with it. Pay more for a good product and you’ll be happier. One cam was broken but amazon gave me credit to buy for two-cam package to replace it. Amazon customer service is the best! No wonder they got so successful in online commerce.

The PAID cloud service is the ONLY WAY TO RECORD VEDIO and is extremely misrepresented (there is no sd card slot). After you BUY the camera you need to PAY TO USE IT! You will pay $5-$10 per month depending if you want to access your videos for 7 or 30 days. Even then, the recordings are NOT IN HD (only live viewing is), and the recordings are near worthless. While it is true that it “records” 24/7, it only will show you one still picture once every 10 seconds. If there is movement dectected in a well lit environment it will show you the first 10 seconds of real video but then go back to 10 second pictures of any activity for the remainder of the movement period regardless of time then contunue with one picture every 10 seconds until the next movement alert after things have been still for a while and then take another 10 second video followed by one picture every 10 seconds, etc. While in night vision, there needs to be A LOT OF MOVEMENT to trigger a recording, and even then only about 1 of every 5 are recorded. We needed to catch a package theif. We got 10 seconds of him on the sidewalk (too far away to ID) then a blurry pic of him approaching, then another blurry pic of him running away with our latest delivery. If this recorded as advertised we would have gotten the whole crime not blurry 10 second pictures. We now know someone steals our packages (as we already did) but now also are out our most recent package in addition to this worthless camera purchase. If you only record one pic every 10 seconds, just say so. It may be enough for some applications, but false advertising for everyone else.

Customer service is horrible. I have been on the phone on hold for 5 hours today. With no luck of getting a hold of anybody. One camera doesn’t power on. Two cameras won’t stream live video but will show on tv . No luck on fixing this.

Don’t buy this system. Its terrible and I just returned it. No live support (they never answer the phone, only online chat), cameras go in and out, dates and times change on their own constantly, cloud storage only worked for a few days and not the guaranteed 60 day trial, etc. If you are looking for a great system, get the Arlo Pro by Netgear.

Horrible setup and troubleshooting. Worst customer service ever