Swann 8 Channel Security System NVR-8580

Very poor customer service slow response to my issue with power transformer that I address with Swan first time approximately 6 months ago they couldn't find the problem I mentioned first time I read comments from other people with same issue problem is transformer 6 months two weeks ago transformer is gone I ask Swan customers service where I can… Read more

purchase replacement, 4 or 5 days later they asking me for proof of purchase for warranty, my cameras are 5 years old I am not chasing warranty I just wanted to get my cameras in operation as soon as possible, I managed to find transformer replacement myself before I got response from Swan.

The service lets them down – I've had the NVR+NVW combination, product is great as long as it works. One day it won't. You'll go through their online stuff, figure out the model number equivalents, decipher their jargon, try something and fail. Then you are in the hands of their service division. I can honestly say that not one of their technical people has been able to help… Read more

me...ever. I'm talking years with different setups. In my last round I waited my turn on the phone, was then answered by someone who claimed they couldn't hear me and hung up. When I cooled down, I phoned back. A recorded message told me they didn't assist with my problem any more...and hung up. I'm looking around for a new system. Whether it's a Swann, time will tell.

Thus far all good!! In fact terrific – Purchased a 8CH system. Has only 6 cameras however. Install was DIY and not too difficult, running cables through Attic/roof a little challenging due to space etc. Cameras worked as soon as plugged in. Setting up was not easy to begin with as using a MAC not a PC and no monitor. However using a HD TV was ok to get it to connect to the next and… Read more ·  5

work ops. Now fine tuning of various features. Other reviews I have read possibly had issues due to not being able to make these adjustments easily rather than a system or hardware problem really. LIVE CHAT and Swann tech help I found really TOP notch. They are truly great, most helpful indeed. I cannot speak highly enough of them I must say.

NHD-875 camera – I’m very satisfied with my 8580, but the problem I have is with a NHD-875 camera. I only have one and since the update you can’t control nothing. The alarm settings will not give you the option to highlight the area for detection. Also you can’t even activate the light in deterrent settings. Seems like, from what I see, is that y’all have better customer service Down Under than I have in the States. Show reply

Good quality video and features, easy to install, PC and phone apps average, no built in WIFI – I chose the NVR system, as I read the cameras are better quality and only require a single Ethernet cable vs separate power & data cables. I also wanted a wired system vs wireless for stability and don't want to worry about having to access cameras to charge. batteries. System is well featured, was easy to install, 4K cameras work well at both… Read more ·  4

daylight and darkness. They have a good viewing angle and distance on both the bullet and dome cameras. However the PIR detection/alert system isn't great. The instructions do mention the cameras are most effective when people/objects cross the cameras, rather than heading toward the camera. But it's not always possible to mount the cameras in a position where the movement crosses the camera. I underestimated just how poor the cameras are in detecting movement towards them, so was forced to double up cameras in one location; mounting one camera in order to video the area I wanted to watch and an additional camera mounted in another position, essentially to detect movement in front of the door which the other camera would not detect only a few metres away.

Despite the cameras not detecting movement towards them, on 'pedestrian' setting, the cameras will go through stages of randomly bringing up 20 or more PID or LCD alerts in a matter of minutes, identifying what must be 'ghosts'! I had to turn off email notifications. I've masked out anything that moves, like the garden. Apparently my outside air conditioner unit (which wasn't operating) is a person and a bench seat next to it is as well. Also picks up a car in the car port as a person, despite 'vehicles' being disabled and lowering the sensitivity on both of these cameras to the lowest setting. I had to disable the pedestrian detection in order to minimise the false alerts.

Spotlights in the cameras are really good, they can be setup with movement detection and provide enough light so that the cameras will record in colour in the darkness. Also doubles up as a good sensor light when we arrive home at night and have to find the keys. Strobe and enforcement lights, along with audio in and out are also good options to have.

2TB hard drive is generous in capacity. Software on the unit itself is fairly user friendly. Although I cannot find a function to 'rewind' playback footage, instead if I want to go backwards, I am forced to click the position in the timeline, which can be quite tedious and time consuming. Love the inclusion of a mouse to navigate around. Setup of cameras on the system is quite complex, even for a tech savvy person like me, my partner said she would have no hope understanding how to use and setup the various functions. Instruction manual (sourced direct from the Swann website) is quite presumptuous in some areas, isn't up to date with the current version of the software which adds to the challenge. Menu layouts don't reflect the current version of software, and some functions aren't even covered in the instruction manual. So some functions I figured out from trial and error and others I still have no idea of what they are. So need the user manual updated to reflect the current version of software.

The HomeView and Swann Security Link apps (both Android and PC versions) aren't the most stable or user friendly. HomeView works, but is very limited in functionality and isn't the easiest to use. Android version has the option to manually switch the spotlights on, whereas PC version doesn't. I was eventually able to connect Swannlink View up through my phone, but can't connect through to the Swann unit on my PC using the same app. Won't auto detect the unit and won't accept my username/password combo. Shame because the Swannlink View app looks like it's more suited to the NVR unit compared to Homeview.

Was disappointed & surprised to find a modern A/V device that does not have built WIFI Whilst it is 'WIFI ready', in this day and age, you wouldn't expect to be required to buy an optional WIFI aerial. I want to set the unit up out of sight in different room to the modem, so hard wiring the unit to my WIFI modem is not practical. There is no mention of the option of WIFI in the user manual. I only found out about the option of the USB aerial via a Google search. But once the USB aerial was sourced and installed, the WIFI is effective and easy to setup when following the instructions that come with the USB aerial

28/04/22 update. Got some sort of software gliche, can't seem to search on more than 3 cameras at a time. Spoke to a lady from support on the phone, took about 10 minutes just to get her to understand what I was saying. She had no idea, so sent an email to Swann support as the website wouldn't allow me to lodge a support ticket. They asked me for the software & hardware version. I replied and several weeks later nothing back from them. Will have to send another email...

Can't setup more than one android phone with the Swann Security App. My partner needs it on her phone as well as mine. Installed on my phone ok. When I tried to set it up on her phone (with the same email address, username and password) it comes up with an error that the device is already paired. But there is no device showing up on her phone. Uninstalled/reinstalled, tried again. Same thing.

Also, on the Swann page it says the NVR8580 must use the 'SwannSecurity' app. However when it comes to a Windows PC, it says there is no SwannSecurity software available, so must use Homeview, which according to them isn't designed for the NVR8580. And it isn't. It will display the cameras and some basic search functions available, but that's it. None of the other functions are available... So why don't they release a Windows version of the software they actually recommend to be used with the NVR8580 ?

It's a fairly decent system, let down by a poor support team and subpar phone & PC apps. They really need to fix it!

Not worth the money – Purchased system 6 months ago. Constant problems, live view works 50% of the time (which is great when you get a notification of movement on the driveway but cant see whats there), just shows a black screen or an error saying live view unavailable. For a system over $1000 its woeful. Unfortunately will have to rip it out and replace with something else. Show details

Pretty good but with the occasional glitches – As noted in a previous review, I until fairly recently owned (and subsequently returned) a Concorde NVR CCTV system, the system was far too unreliable and eventually failed completely. The local JayCar store in Clarkson WA are quite simply brilliant, they had previously helped with cameras and now allowed me to exchange/upgrade the unit for an… Read more

equivalent Swann unit without any problems.

The new Swann unit looks remarkably similar to the Concorde one, apparently they all come off the same production line. I suspect the Swann units may be made to a higher standard and better quality, otherwise why would they be more expensive? Nonetheless I could not see many differences between the back panel and the cameras are all but identical.

The NVR8-8580 is an eight channel recorder with a 1Tb hard drive and comes with four 5Mpx cameras, each of which has infrared, led spotlights, a speaker and a microphone, connectivity is PoE (power over ethernet). In addition, I had previously bought two Concorde 4K cameras which I also exchanged for the equivalent Swann units.

For those who don't know, PoE means that the power and signal for the cameras is transmitted using ethernet cables - these are similar to the (usually blue) cables you connect PCs to the modem or network with. The cables provided are about 18m long but only have four wires in them (a normal CAT-5 network cable has eight, so don't try to connect your computer with any spares!).

Interestingly, although all the cameras in both systems should be compatible, being PoE, I could not get the Swann unit to talk to the Concorde ones, due to a password issue. In theory I should have been able to extract the credentials from the Concorde camera to enter in the Swann but my previous experience interrogating Concorde cameras made me shudder at the thought - much easier to simply exchange them.

Once installed, with all six cameras and a cheap computer monitor connected, I spent some time going through the various settings, configuring each camera's detection zones and recording schedules, with movement profiles for the 4MP cameras. The main benefit of these 5Mpx cameras is that the spotlights, which can be configured to turn on with detection, act as a deterrent and can even sound a siren, though I have not used this as it would annoy the neighbours (it's quite loud).

The 4MP cameras can have a whole bunch of additional smarts enabled and configured, such as face detection, car detection, line crossing, zone detection - there should be few reasons for anyone to be able to approach your property undetected, day or night.

The software on the unit is quite similar to that of the Concorde unit, right down to the stupid on-screen keyboard - it still won't allow a real keyboard to be connected and enabled. However, one major improvement I did notice however was that the console could directly configure the cameras, unlike the awful Concorde one - instead of fighting with old and out of date versions of Internet Explorer to adjust the camera's speaker volume, I could simply go to a configuration screen and move a slider.

The main screen shows one of a number of different views - one, four, six or eight cameras at once - all selectable from the main screen. It is also possible to cycle through the cameras at a selectable speed.

The next thing to try was connecting to the mobile app, this proved much more difficult than it should be. In theory I should have just scanned the barcode on the console but time and again it failed to connect, showing no camera feeds. Despite a number of attempts to fix the problem using the Swann support number (50 minutes wait time) and their support forums - truly useless, no help at all. It was eventually my own investigative efforts, with my knowledge of software, that led me to the solution - one simple checkbox on the network tab in the settings was all it needed and suddenly the app was working with all camera feeds enabled. Just one simple line in the quick start guide was all that was needed, clearly no-one at Swann had actually tried following their own instructions.

Another thing I have yet to get working successfully is the email mechanism. The device is supposed to be able to send an email under various circumstances (Disk Status, etc.) but even with all my years of software development experience and running websites, I have still to successfully send a test email. Not surprisingly the on-line help is not up to the task and I can't be bothered to wait on the phone.

The one area where the Concorde was marginally superior to Swann would be the mobile app. While the Swann app does provide the ability to view live and recorded streams, and to use two-way communication with the included 5Mpx cameras, it does not enable the configuring of the detection zones, which the Concorde app did. I also noticed that the app's help screen is quite out of date with the software, but all-in-all it's a much better app and experience. In addition, the Swann app does appear to be under active development and I have been able to communicate with the developers on occasion - a major plus.

The app also enabled me to try two-way communication via a camera one day when I was at work and some equipment needed collecting at home - the drivers arrived early so I was able to guide them, albeit a little laggy, to access the key lock box and collect the equipment all the time while I was watching and talking with them. The speaker isn't very loud but nonetheless adequate to the task, unlike the Concorde one. I also found using the app to be the best way to setup the cameras in their position, with about a four second delay (camera to network to internet to mobile) I was able to see exactly what view the camera had and tweak until I was happy.

Another new feature I discovered is a Windows application which enables the system to be monitored from a PC. Sadly I could not get this working with Linux but could run it in a virtual PC so that was a good result too.

This is not a piece of equipment for the faint hearted to setup and use, however. Physically setting it up is relatively simple but the subsequent configuration of all the options is a huge task. There are literally dozens of screens to configure the many, many options. From configuring each camera's detection zones to recording optIons and warning settings, it would take at least a couple of hours to get it most of the way there, then there'll be the occasional tweaking as time goes by.

If there is one point of disappointment, it would be the camera connection reliability. At least once a month I will open the mobile app and see one of the cameras is not connected. Usually I can fix this by disconnecting the camera at the back of the unit for a few seconds and reconnecting it, within a minute the signal is usually back. However this seems to then cause a bit of a failure cascade as I unfortunately nudge other cables and I have a spate of failures over a few days until it settles down again.

I'm not exactly sure what causes these failures but I suspect the network sockets on the back of the unit. This is because, while the provided cables are a bit average in quality, I have replaced two with longer (25m) high quality CAT-6 cables I made up myself and those connected cameras continue to suffer from the same problem. Sadly scheduling a regular reboot of the system does not cure the connectivity problem, I suspect the power continues to flow to the cameras and the state remains unchanged.

Overall though, at the moment I'm pretty happy with the unit - it is much better than the previous Concorde unit (not that that is saying much!). The system has yet to truly let me down (occasional camera failures excepted). The recording quality, both day and night, is more than adequate and once configured it is really a set and forget device.

False advertising- doesn’t write to MP4 or AVI and Phone App lacks basic features – Software errors occur on recordings downloaded directly from NVR to USB on both AVI and MP4 so normal apps eg Windows Media Player lose sound or picture. Useless for sending to police. Swann support says the software wasn’t written properly to work with Windows 10 and it will only work with a lesser known app called VLC. That’s false… Read more

advertising!! Also phone app lacks basic functionality such as sharing or downloading a recording or changing settings of the cameras (eg reduce PIR on windy days). I bought top of the range cameras and nvr, spending $2700+ and am so disappointed in the software and functionality. Even downloading on nvr is not user friendly. After you find the start of clip, and choose download, it changes your view to 30mins and places the start of your clip in the middle of the 30 mins instead of the start. If you then choose another camera, it makes you choose the time of the start of your clip all over again instead of retaining it. Many other frustrating elements to using software eg having to keep confirming changes on most screens but not all. Swann need to update all their software to bring it up to user’s expectations of 2021 features that are standard in many apps. The 4K cameras are ok but keep going offline so need rebooting. They also record frequent breaks / silence in the audio. I would also recommend Swann selling a larger memory than 6TB as it only holds about a week of 24/7 recording on 10 4K cameras when the nvr can take 16 cameras. The switching screens on the monitor of PIR is so frustrating as it doesn’t always change to new PIR on another camera happening at the same time.

Good customer loyalty – So I purchased the 8580 system. I was happy with the product. However a little over 18 months and a camera up and dies. I was told no warranty even though I had extended the warranty period. As you can imagine I was not please such an expensive home system didn't make 2 years before piece failed. I contacted support and expressed my… Read more ·  1

disappointment, to my surprise swann honoured the warranty and replaced the unit that failed. I was looking at changing systems, plus purchasing another providers system if the reliability of swann was not going to go the distance. But swann backed their product and their customer service with this act of good faith. So I intend to stick with swann and will use swann for my elderly parents home. On a note I find the mobile app easy to use for viewing and quick review. I do notice my cameras do drop out but never longer than a few seconds of which I get an email and by the time I check they are connected again.

Great product, support – Had the NVR-8580, with 8 cameras, for about a year now, had an issue with some of the cameras disconnecting, got hold of support and they advised me to upgrade the software. After 6 months I have not lost a camera. Really happy with everything, good value for the money. About to order some of the two way audio 4K cameras with spot lights.  Show details ·  1