Swann Smart Wireless Indoor/Outdoor HD CCTV Security Camera Kit with Night Vision, Works with Alexa and Google Assistant - White

Things started off well, installation took just a few minutes, hooked up to the app with no issues and was mounted to the front of the house, all good..However, despite trying every setting possible the camera would either record nothing or every 5 minutes so the battery had to be recharged everyday, it would not record us leaving for work or parking on the drive but would record the wind blowing a small bush, the camera had to be reset and resynced to the app and account a couple of times, and the final straw was the magnetic mount would no longer hold the camera in position so we ended up with just footage of the doormat.The app itself is ok, connection to the camera is very slow, its not obvious as to which activity was on the cloud and what was on the sd card (sd card clips were hidden away)The wifi for the camera is terrible, even next to the router it would report only a 35% strength signal.Nice try but awful product

Really good just what I wanted and does all it says . Battery doesn't last that long just a few days

I have encountered quite a lot of difficulty with this product. It says the charging lasts for a few months but it doesn't. The only way it would last was if nothing much activated it. It's quite cumbersome to delete the images to clear the memory, as you have to delete EVERY image individually, there doesn't seem to be a purge way of doing it. The Cloud copy, however, can be cleared in one hit. The picture quality is quite good but, again, my internet reception is quite poor, so the camera quite often doesn't work. It keeps flashing a blue light indicating that the internet is down when it's not. It mostly says the camera is off-line, when it shouldn't be, as my mobile says that the internet is connected. I would definitely NOT buy another one. In fact, I've debated whether to send this one back!

For a security company, I would expect a firm such as Swann to be on the ball. However that simply doesn't seem to be the case when they produced this camera.I've held off writing this review because I was hoping that the quirks I was experiencing would settle or that I would find a purpose and place for this camera to be useful and effective. I've had the camera for about 2 weeks now and used it in a variety of ways, of which, most didn't perform the way in which I was hoping (or expecting).Firstly, the positives. A good quality and well built unit with good picture quality in daylight and indoors. Sound quality from the camera using the inbuilt microphone is better than most I've come across and delivers good clear audio in both live view and recording mode.The camera comes with a magnetic mount that can be stuck to a surface using the included 3M pads or by using a couple of small screws and clipping into the keyhole slots in the base. The base metal ball seems like a coated metal, but I'm unsure as to whether this is a non-ferrous metal or not.The issues people have been experiencing where the camera is slipping down the ball and facing the floor hasn't affected me yet, however, the camera will move in wind which isn't ideal and additionally if it's for security, the camera will need to be mounted well out of reach to stop hopeful criminals whipping it away and running off with it!Now for the not so good...I've tried this outside next to my current Swann hard wired HD Cam and it simply wasn't fast enough to pick anyone up that came up the drive. Often I would get a notification 20 seconds after someone had been to the door and when I checked the footage all I could see was the back of the person leaving the drive. This is no match for my hard wired came with constant recording DVR.My next task was to use it to record some wildlife, namely the birds in the garden at the feeder... Again... This simply didn't work as I got about 150 notifications of which it actually recorded an actual bird at the feeder about 5% of those. It's simply not fast enough.My next was to have some fun to find out who was stealing so many chocolate biscuits from the kitchen cupboard. This wasn't that effective either to be honest, as it seemed to capture the action, all be it a little late, but didn't always trigger. I've tried playing with the sensitivities and although this does improve the situation, you will be recharging the camera every 2-3 days with the higher sensitivity setting.Wifi range is pretty standard, although I have to say that even 3 meters from the router, in the same room with a clear line of sight to the BT HH6 it only registers at 63% which makes me wonder how good the antenna really is.Lastly there's the matter of the settings. You can select home, away or night mode, customising each of these depending on your needs, such as setting the camera to not trigger when home etc. This feature is great in theory, however changing between modes is simply frustrating. When changing from home to away mode, the app says that the mode has changed, however it's as if the camera simply doesn't update until you've closed the app, waited a few minutes, opened the app again waited and then closed it, whilst pacing around in front of the camera hoping that it will pick something up. Several times I've set the away mode and it's ignored everything and everyone that's walked, run, danced and waved at the camera, making it too unreliable for me really.I'm now in a dilemma... Do I keep it and hope that they will push another update to fix the quirks or should I return it and try something else... I bought this on a whim in the hopes that it would be a useful camera for security at the back of the house where I don't really want to run cables. Unfortunately, It's become a paperweight as I simply cannot be bothered with trying to negotiate with it.Update 27th October 2019:It’s now been 6 months into use and I can honestly say there’s been no improvement. In fact it’s the opposite. The camera has behaved strangely at times and drained in a few days without even being armed. Regularly the camera looses the WiFi signal despite sitting on the side only a few meters from the BT Business Hub v6.The other day the camera status LED was flashing a kind of purple colour and it simply wouldn’t respond to anything. Not even when the reset button was held down. Eventually after several days I managed to get it to restart by plugging it into power after it completely drained only to find it’s just as useless as before.Probably my most disappointing purchase of the year. Downgraded to 2 stars as it really should behave better than this.

The camera has many drawbacks but for a simple, cheap basic camera it's ok.My first one was replaced after a month as it was super sensitive with literally 100s of false recordings a day which zapped the battery within 2-3 days. The second one seems better but I can't get more than 7 or 8 days battery life.Image quality is quite good for a cheap camera and motion detection is accurate but it is too slow to activate so it misses the person until it's too late a lot of the time. The main issue is the short video recordings and the fact that the camera will go to sleep after a recording to preserve battery, which is no good if there is more going on that should be recorded. You can choose a lot of the sensitivity settings but not enough.The app is ok but notifications are hit and miss (more miss than hit). Took a while to set up on wifi and I'm quite good on these things!Overall it's useful for an idea of what's happening but you couldn't rely on it for a serious cctv but then what do you expect for a budget system?! If you accept this then it will be fine

I've gone from 3 stars, to 5 stars, to one star with this very inconsistent product. I spent a very frustrating day trying to get some consistency out of it. The camera is great. But it is NOT ready to be a security system. Motion detection works, then stops working. Latency goes from less than a second to 30 seconds, or never. It goes offline, then comes back on when it feels like it. I upgraded the firmware, did a factory reset on the camera, then set it up again. Set all the permissions on my Android phone. Nothing helped. And SUPPORT is non existent. It is going BACK.I'm starting out with three stars as the camera seems a bit buggy. I will update after it has a chance to run for a while. Right now there is about a 3-10 second delay between movement occurring in front of the camera, and it showing up on my smartphone screen. I just tested my internet speed and it is at 100mbs plus.UPDATE: There is a firmware update for the camera. After it has been running for a bit the app will alert you to this. Go to the "about" link on the app and it will do the update. Patience! At times you will get an error message that the camera has lost connection. Ignore, this is part of the update process. The app will tell you when it is done. The update dramatically reduced the response time for the motion detector. Mine is very close to real time now.First impressions and start up: Setup took a bit, for a few reasons. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU GO TO THE SWANN WEBSITE AND DOWNLOAD THE 52 PAGE USER MANUAL FOR THIS PRODUCT. When the app asked for a location, I entered my zip code and it wouldn't accept that. It wants your full physical address. Pairing the camera went ok, with a little back and forth. At first, I just had a blank screen. Then I got a message saying "update is available." After that, it connected with no problem.When I was first having issues I connected with a tech agent at Amazon. He knew nothing about the product. I tried calling the toll free number for support, it is in Australia and is invalid. Their tech support center is all FAQ and videos. So it looks like we're on our own.I will move the camera outside to its intended location and update this later.UPDATE: It is outside now and operating fine, so far. Image clarity is very good.

This product does not work. Google 'connection error' with this product name and you will find an endless stream of posts and reviews from people who cannot get the device to work. The issue is unsolvable. It is not functional. Don't buy it.

I suspect that not having any antennas makes it harder for this little guy to stay connected to wifi.

This camera is a must have if you are like me and like to be able to check in on things at anytime. I have one on the front and back of my house. The video quality is great and I have not had an issue not being able to see things.I love how it has a motion sensor so you don't have to watch it all the time and like me, you can see if your packages get delivered to your house and not the neighbors! It is also nice to check in while on vacation.The app has been easy to use and not provided me any issues.I think the best thing about this camera is that it is wireless. The battery will last for a solid week, especially if there is low motion. It also is on a magnet base so it is really easy to take off and put back on.

Easy to set up and I have added a proper mount (to reduce likelihood of camera falling off/theft) and a solar panel (so I don't have to worry about recharging the battery). Two areas that could be better - the interface between the camera and the app is slow to respond when I change settings (a reboot of the app usually fixes that) and there is a lag between a person entering the area under surveillance and camera activation (so sometimes you only get thew tail end of someone walking through the area or you mis them altogether). I have the camera set on the highest sensitivity settings so it should pick up earlier and further away. Having said that, upgrades of firmware might improve as we go - let's wait and see.