Concord CNK8845P-A

[Edit: failed completely after five months] Good hardware let down by awful, fragmented and outdated software – We recently had the misfortune to be visited early one morning by a low IQ moron in a car, who decided it was ok to reverse up our drive and use it as a burnout launch ramp, leaving us a delightful strip of rubber as a souvenir. Fortunately the ground was slightly damp and the tire tracks weren't too strong and should be easy to clean away -… Read more

apparently oven cleaner is good.

Despite this sort of behaviour being unusual in our area, I decided to make things a little more awkward for the moron and his friends, should he be stupid enough to return for an encore, by installing a CCTV system at home.

After some research I decided on the Concord CNK8845P-A system from Jaycar at $999. Four cameras (expandable to eight) with infrared, a two terabyte hard drive, network capabilities and (most importantly) hard wired, not Wi-Fi - too easy to hack. Apparently the Concord range of hardware is essentially the same as Swann, but branded for Jaycar and the like.

The box contains the main unit, four cameras with fixings, four 18m IP cables, one HDMI lead, one network lead, a usb mouse, the power supply and two useless user guides.

The Installation Guide is frankly a joke. While it did give the theoretical basics of installing the system, it was disturbingly light on actual detail, essentially saying "connect the bits together, turn it on, configure it". The cameras each come with 18m four core IP leads with RJ45 plugs on the end and what turned out to be waterproof connector covers (four pieces each) for the terminals. I worked these out because I work with computers all the time, the rest of the family didn't have a clue - a simple line drawing showing them assembled was all that was needed but none could be found. The Setup Guide was of equally little use.

Once I had the system up and running I discovered the next delight - an on-screen keyboard. The unit comes supplied with a mouse but I discovered that it will not recognise a usb keyboard or mouse/keyboard combo, thus requiring all typing to be performed on a pathetic on-screen keyboard using the mouse. Why, for God's sake, why?!? Even if it has to be configured after system startup, is keyboard support so hard to do?

When the unit is started, it displays a setup wizard. I dismissed this as I just wanted to confirm the cameras/cables were all good before installing them. Unfortunately I could not find how to re-display wizard anywhere in the menu system later on, only a full restart will display the option and that only if you haven't told it not to display it again - otherwise you're probably stuffed!

Having setup and connected the installed cameras, connected it to my network and completed the wizard, I decided to try to complete the configuration of the system over my network.

Oh dear...! Entering the IP address of my system into my laptop browser (Chrome) brought up a disturbing message, requesting that I use either IE8 or later, Firefox 51 or earlier, or Chrome 44 or earlier. For those who don't know, those versions of Chrome and Firefox are about FIVE years old (and IE8 is TEN years old!) with all their inherent security issues and, since I use Linux not Windows, I can't use IE anyway.

From what I've read elsewhere, the web interface still uses Flash and/or OCX, a vulnerable and dying technology that is no longer supported by Chrome or Windows 10, and only just on Firefox with effort. I find it disturbing that a security company should still have such arcane technology in their hardware - I'll be disabling that interface asap and Concord/Swann should do the same or replace it with a proper web app.

Next, I visited the Concord website and downloaded the huge manual for the system and the Windows software package. After setting up a Windows virtual machine, I installed the software but soon discovered that, while fairly comprehensive from a usage point of view - watching the camera views, saving/viewing videos and the like - it is pretty useless for properly configuring the system.

The next option to try was the (Android) mobile app. Finally, here seemed to be something other than the device console, with its awful on-screen keyboard, that could configure the system to a reasonable level. The app is linked to the system by simply scanning a QR code from the console screen, at least there is no requirement to create yet another website account.

While the mobile app (Android only tested) is comprehensive and enables the system to be quite well configured (though not completely by any means) it should be pointed out that the interface leaves much to be desired. I write software for a living, including mobile apps, and the interface can be quite muddled and unintuitive. I won't go into all the aspects of the app but will say that it can perform quite a significant amount of the day to day configuration of the system, all remotely. Additionally, if suitably set up, the app is able to view the live cameras video feed, view recordings, take photos, control recordings and configure emails and push notifications.

The system can be set to notify users via email and push notification to the app when the cameras are set to automatically record if they detect motion and etc. In addition, the recordings can be automatically ftp'ed to a remote server and/or to the Cloud but only to DropBox or Google Drive, not MS One Drive. The main problem I had was that the push notifications are very unreliable - it took almost 18 hours for these to start working and even then they were not particularly reliable, the emails turned up with great regularity but the notifications didn't - very disappointing. In addition, trying to configure the emails to send via my own email server failed completely and I had to use gmail - the system's error messages were utterly useless.

In the end, the final configuration of the system simply had to be completed on the console, with that awful on-screen keyboard, there was simply no other option. It is disappointing that, with all these different interfaces, the entire user experience was appallingly fragmented and inconsistent.

So, after all this effort, how do I find the system?

It must be said on first impressions, that it is very fit for purpose in most aspects. The camera images and recordings, both day and night (IR), are of excellent quality. In daylight the images are clear and bright, to be expected being 5MP, easy to view either on the console, via the Windows software or the mobile app. At night the infrared LEDs on the cameras illuminate well and the resulting images are equally clear, albeit in IR monochrome.

The movement and heat detection sensors on the cameras seem to work well, almost too well, requiring considerable tweaking of various zones and image masks to fully configure to reduce false positives. There are a whole swathe of settings I have yet to sit down and configure - the downloaded manual is 135 pages and appears very comprehensive. It is a shame that the four page NVR Installation Guide and eight page NVR Setup Guide weren't more comprehensive - they were almost a waste of paper, even the downloaded manual wasn't any help with the installation and the Setup guide barely offered more than a reprint of the Wizard screens.

Sadly some of the more advanced feature of the system in the "Intelligence" section - Perimeter Intrusion / Line Crossing / Stationary object detection are only available if you use 4K cameras. While I can understand that Face Recognition and perhaps Pedestrian detection might require the higher resolution images, I think it a bit rich to require 4K cameras for all the other "inteligent" features which should be easily dealth with using 5MP cameras.

The cameras included in the system (5MP) have no microphone but the system is apparently capable of recording audio too. I would like to change the front door camera to one with a microphone so I can record the conversations of visitors such as delivery drivers and the like, I can then put the spare camera to cover the street. Unfortunately the only Concord camera with a microphone is almost $300 and has extra unwanted functions like 4K, floodlights and a speaker - theoretically permitting two way communication, though I don't know if the system supports that. Swann do sell a similar camera to the provided ones with just a microphone but Jaycar have it listed as discontinued.

[Edit: I have since been informed by Concord Customer support that the camera will work on the system and would permit two-way communication via the mobile app. However, my own testing found that the audio volume of the in-built speaker is pathetic, barely audible indoors and utterly useless for outdoor use.]

The firmware update process of the system seems a little confused with some updates apparently being automatically downloaded and applied and some requiring an intermediate USB Key step.

To conclude, therefore, this is undoubtedly an advanced CCTV system. To suggest that this is just a simple consumer product, that anyone can easily install, is a little disingenuous. It's true that some of today's more technically aware kids might be able to configure this system but they probably wouldn't be able to do the cabling, so many families would likely struggle. The truth is that it took me about six to eight hours to do the installation of the cameras and the cabling properly, then at least another hour to perform the initial system configuration. Bearing in mind that I write software for a living, can install home networks and build PCs, I also completely rewired my home in the UK (legally), I think that I'm far more capable of this sort of thing than Joe Public and I found it hard - the average consumer is, I believe, going to struggle to do a good job of this. A UPS (uninteruptable power supply) is an additional piece of necessary hardware if you want the system to continue recording if the power goes out.

I would love to rate this product higher but the fragmented interfaces for configuring and using the system, the woeful installation documentation and the, frankly dangerously, out-of-date web interfaces mean I have to penalise it. I'll be more than happy to increase the rating if a firmware update kills or replaces the web interface with a real one.

I cannot in good conscience give it more than two stars, primarily due to the poor security issues and awful use interfaces, and that is being generous. It deserves more but that requires effort on the manufacturer's part.

[Edit: after just five months of use one of the cameras repeatedly showed "Signal Lost". After replacing the cable and the camera it started faulting again and, this morning, showed the same message on ALL cameras - I have returned the unit to JayCar and upgraded to a Swann system]