ANNKE 8CH 3K Lite H.265+ Security Digital Video Recorder, 1TB Hard Drive

Easy insulation. Easy set up.

very easy to install and reliable in operation

[6/16/23] Day 1 To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting much especially at this price. To my surprise, this is a nice and feature rich DVR. I have mine set to record 24/7 but you can set motion detection recording only if that's your style. User manual is clear and detailed, not a common sight with cheap Chinese brands. You can set email (only if connected to internet, ethernet only no wifi), audible, and visual alarms for events. One weird thing I noticed is that theres no way for the DVR to be turned off while it's plugged in, if you shut it down from the GUI it will prompt you to unplug the DVR, why? Not an issue but just weird. Saw someone else have problems with Swann cameras working, but my PRO-642 960H cams were plug and play, no additional configuration required. The DVR picked up the format, resolution, bitrate, framerate all automatically. I can't comment on motion detection and false alerts, but they're there if you want them. Overall I'm very happy with my purchase. [6/28/23] So far so good. 100% uptime with all of my cams constantly recording. Still very happy. [9/13/23] Drive has filled up and is overwriting old footage, this is desired behavior. Just mentioning it because it has caused playback and seeking through video to become sluggish. It's a hard drive, so this isn't really too surprising. Other than that it's still running and recording 24/7, it has had about 20 minutes of downtime in the past 3 months and only because of circumstances unrelated to the dvr. This is my final update. If something significant happens I'll report here but other than that I have nothing else to say.

I got this to replace a very old/dead BNC DVR. The existing cameras and cabling I had worked with this one no problem. The included firmware/software is a bit rough, with broken English, iffy OS/browser compatibility (it seems to favor Windows heavily, which should be up front in its marketing), and the software is rather sloppy. The upside however, is that the DVR supports farming out the camera feeds via RTSP streams, which means you can simply put them into Home Assistant (via the HACS "WebRTC Camera" plugin) and never think about the Annke software again unless you need to do something in the weeds. So points for that. So far, so good. Will update if anything happens long term.

UPDATE: Lowered from 2 Stars to 1. I bought the 8mp annke system after this one didn't work as advertised. That one was even worse. Writing a review for that one next. Stay far away from Annke brand. You'll get one response from customer service per day in broken english. They'll give you pictures of where to click and on what menus - but they do not match the system. For instance: they say "Click the 'page' icon and then go to blah blah blah" But there IS NO page icon. The user interface they're trying to coach me on is different than what I have. Different firmware or something. I don't know. UPDATE END. ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW. There is more bad with this setup than good. My main concern is that I can't backup video files in an easily viewable format. I've been fiddling with this for days now downloading all different players and converters and I've yet to play a video on my PC. How are the police supposed to examine the footage??? They're just coming to hang out in my living room to watch the monitor here? And what if I find the criminal and take him to court? How do they view the footage? This is a very simple feature that should take priority. Contemplating returning it since a LOT of the features just flat out don't work: CONS - There is no USB slot in the front of the system. Making it a pain to plug in a thumb drive to backup files. Something this dvr REALLY doesn't want you to do apparently... - The DVR records in weird 15-30 second chunks. I need to backup hours at a time. Impossible when every clips is 15 seconds... (see image) - It SAYS you can backup files as AVI. But you really can't. Broken feature. See images. - The H265+ might be incredible. I have no idea. I can't view it on my PC. Even after trying to download several players and converters as recommended by their customer service. I can only view video ON the DVR itself. - It's VERY difficult to search for a specific time. It just doesn't work. It shows a list of literally one thousand 15-30 second clips. All jumbled and out of order. How am I supposed to find a specific hour? I can't. - I can't export AVI clips. I understand the quality might not be as great. But if you CAN'T VIEW the H265+ mp4 files then who cares how clear it is? My home/cars gets vandalized way too often. I upgraded to this 5mp clearer set up to hopefully help police identify them. The police in my area are just bad. Lazy. I can barely get them to view my shoddy AVI files from my previous system. I will NEVER get them to download a specific player and install it in their computers there in order to just view MY security camera footage. Even if they were technically capable of it, which they're not, they're just too lazy to go through all that. They'll just say "The files wouldn't open". So, again, what good is this system if you can't show people the videos? Just so I can see with crystal clarity the guy who destroys my property and be upset about it? - Smart view: supposedly shows you a timeline of your recording. Regular is blue. Motion detected in red. So you can save time by skipping to areas where motion is detected. Very cool feature.... if it worked. It doesn't. There was no red on my timeline (there were a lot of cars going by). It works the same as regular playback. - Timeline displays time in 24hr format even though I set it to a 12hr format. - The instructions given to me by customer service don't apply to my dvr. They're telling me to click options that just aren't there. PROS - The rewind is very smooth. I'm really frustrated with this system. Custom service was no help with my issues. So much of this just doesn't make any sense. Why can't I output in AVI even though it says it's an option? Why can't I backup more than 2 cameras at a time? Why can't I backup hour long blocks? It feels so broken...

Easy to set up and configure. Its only two weeks old so time will tell. Ill update if there is an issue.

Works with my existing system. My old dvr with bnc connectors died. I needed something to hold me over till I install a new system. This was basically a plug and play after a minor setup with a mouse. Not as clear but it does the job . Clarity not this units fault, more the old cameras fault.

Updated Review Below: Initial review - I bought this to replace a DVR that got fried by lightning. I attempted to install it about a week ago. The biggest problem I am having is getting all the settings done correctly so it triggers recording (I bought one with 1T of storage) and sends notifications to my iPhone. After reloading the software a couple of times from their website, I think I finally have the latest version. However, it does not match up with the screenshots on their support instructions. Like different terminology and different GUI look. I have sent email support requests in - the first got a 75% helpful response, and sent my second this morning. I am pretty certain the support sits in SE Asia - so I assume an answer will come overnight. We shall see. I am hopeful that I can make this work. The reviews for these DVRs are pretty poor all over the place. I would have gone with one of the wireless systems if I did not have so much pulled wiring and infrastructure already in place. If I get too frustrated, I may still do that. Updated Review - I received the support response referenced above that indicated I needed to connect a monitor directly to the DVR in order to access the menu that would allow me to tick the settings necessary to enable iPhone notifications. So I dug a monitor out of storage along with an HDMI cable to do that. Now I see a THIRD menu interface with the DVR... 1) Guarding Vision software downloaded from support site, 2) interface you see when you log into the device’s IP address, and 3) the menu through direct connection with the DVR. Each interface has a different look, menu commands and available settings. But with the direct connection, I was able to tick some of the boxes noted in the support documentation. Ultimately I was able to get the DVR to transmit and record video, send video to my iPhone/iPad, and create notifications on my iPhone/iPad. But this was still with a few hours of trial and error. It did seem like rebooting the device and exiting and re-entering the software had some impact on the effectiveness of changed settings. So in total, I estimate I spent 25 hours getting this thing operational. Way too much time. And the three different interfaces, ultimately requiring you to get to the direct connection to finally get it to work (even though the other interfaces seemed to be capable of doing it), made this too much of a project. By the way, once my “initial review” posted, the support team did offer to mirror screens with me to help to get this to work. I give them credit for that extension of support. They are on the other side of the clock, and since I had already gotten the DVR functional, I did not take them up on the offer. One clarification to my original review - I referenced poor reviews for “these DVRs”. That was a reference to this type of product in general - not just the Annke DVR. All the available DVRs seem to have their flaws - both in function and supporting material. Final comments - with some serious trial and error over time, I got this to work for me. Low cost DIY product. Documentation and support on the site needs upgrading. The three interfaces created confusion for me. Email support tried to help, but time delayed. I do not relish the time when I will have to “re-open this patient” to make any adjustments.

I bought this to replace an older Swann DVR that had stopped working and their app was no longer supported. This worked perfectly, it was a straight swap, I just moved the BNC cables from the old unit to this one and it worked. Setting up the app was easy and it has some great features like person and car detection. Great value, great product.

Replaced a 12 year old OEM unit with the Annke and I’m very impressed, easy to install, worked with my existing cameras and the app is fast and reliable, even the camera image is sharper with this new unit. Very happy considering my alarm guy quoted me $2000 for a replacement DVR

Chose Annke to replace a Swann box that died after 10 years of trouble-free service. The Swann cameras were all OK, and I enquired about a refurb Swann, but a bit too expensive for what I wanted. With the help of the Annke support guys I chose Annke model DW81KD. Mostly because the Swann cameras would work with this model. Great price too, and a solid box with a similar footprint to the Swann. There were a few teething problems, however Annke support helped out, and the system is up and running. If you are going to integrate a new box into your system, take some advice pre-sales before you do, as the support team are very helpful. This model is very sensitive and captures people and cars quite effectively. What is a bit of a hassle is the ability to stop the motion detection of trees. On the Annke box you have to draw the area you want captured, ignoring plants, trees etc. It's a bit cumbersome but I got there. The zoom is great, and I was surprised it worked with the Swann cameras. The playback menu is quite useful, as you can choose to look at 'just' people or vehicles - saves wading through frame after frame. If you are new to surveillance, it takes a while to get used to digging around in the menu. So, I'm happy I have great solution.

I had a broken Swann Dvr and bought this to replace it. Literally plug and play. Annke even seems to have a better operating system than Swann did with more reliability within the app.

Unable to get to work with Swann Cameras