ANNKE 8-Channel 3K AI DVR Security Camera System with 8x 1080p Cameras & 1TB Hard Drive

Update: nearly 3 years later working well. Also has come in useful for multiple contested delivery claims and a cleaner who put the key in an odd place and forgot where! Also remote monitoring of property when on holidays for extra peace of mind. I bought the 8 camera version for my long and oddly shaped property. The outcome: the quality on the cameras is stunning and high resolution. The software from Annke is really good and *quite* intuitive, but just read the manual and online support. It worked straight out of the box and has a host of features such as motion detection (you will have to play around with sensitivity and area settings here otherwise you'll get a LOT of notifications), recording timetables etc. The included 1TB HDD stores a LOT of footage - I'd estimate around a month if not a lot more. It gives us a lot of peace of mind, being able to monitor the entire exterior of the house as well as connect to the system via our mobile phones, tablets etc when we're out and about or even inside the house! It'll be invaluable security for when we're on holiday in the future too. The actual deterrent of a legitimate CCTV system can surely not be understated either. The installation, as expected, was the marginally tricky part - but not because of the product. Took me about 2 days in total - I'm fairly 'handy' but by no means a professional - so I would wager that most people could manage this. Sound out your house and make sure you have a good drill (and bits), ladder, screwdriver, CABLE TIES and electrical insulating tape available. Installing the cameras onto fascia/the house is fairly easy. You have to be creative about how to hide and protect the wires and connections that come out of the camera side - I opted for heavy cable tie use (about £2.50 for 100 cable ties on Amazon or similar) and wrapping heavily with standard electrical insulation tape - others might buy small junction boxes. I then bunched these up behind the cameras, so there is a slight unsightliness to the camera connection but it can be mitigated by proper thought-out planning and creativity! It's now barely noticeable as I tightly tied them to the camera. I had a long 10mm drillbit for going through the external walls, but I had to get a long 16mm (£5) due to the fact that the camera (blue) BNC cable connector is 15mm. Also worth bearing in mind is the fact that if you plan to put multiple BNC cables through a single hole, you will need room in that hole to accommodate the BNC cable wire(s) (~2mm each) as well as pushing another 15mm connector through. You may therefore need to drill two holes that overlap to give you the required space to push the 15mm connectors through. I then sealed up the holes with silicone sealant. Make sure you have cable TIES as well as cable clips for routing the cables to ensure it looks neat - or you'll end up with a mess. Plan it all out before hand. It's very simple overall - simply decide where you want the cameras and map out how long it is - the cables that come with the product are very long, and there is an option to buy longer cables via Amazon if needed. You will also have to plan how to deal with your many many many feet of spare cable before it feeds into the CCTV monitoring box.... I opted for cable ties and an old food box! Beware of the adjusting screws on the camera though as they 'strip' very easily! You will need to make sure that you have an HDMI cable and monitor/TV for the CCTV box to connect to in order to set it up - and you need an internet router nearby to connect it to via a LAN cable. I did not do this however - I bought a 'Powerline Extender - TP-link AV1000' from Amazon which extends your internet through your house via the existing electrical lines and connected the LAN cable from it to the CCTV box - so you don't technically need it to be beside the router - and it works really well from the garage of all places! Overall, the entire operation cost me about £200 and it's really incredible value. It's been running for a week without any problems so far. I would highly recommend this piece of kit. The peace of mind that CCTV provides you is amazing, and with the additional functionality that the included software has, it has allowed to be notified of any visitors, cars etc. We've now installed a similar set up in our parents' houses to great effect.
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Fantastic system, great price, easy to install (simple DIY), great buy.
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While understanding that no system will stop a determined burglar. I bought this system purely as a deterrent to would be opportunist burglars. Pros. Considering this product was less than £200 I found it good value for money. Its was essentially plug and play, The device works well through HDMI to our TV. Connection to the Windows Computer by way of Ethernet and Modem was obtained using the user setup book, but was difficult to follow. However perseverance prevailed and once I filled in the blanks from the booklet set up to our PC was successful. The system can only be used on the PC via Internet Explorer. Obtaining the iPhone app was straight forward and once I understood the Setup instructions am able to maintain uninterrupted connection through WiFi at any location over 4G and HotSpots. The default setting for compression is Basic, changing to H.264+ compression showed no discernible loss in picture quality, but the compression was much greater. On Basic with the 8 cameras operating I obtained a few hours short of 14 days continual recording. I have yet to fully saturate the 1TB HDD so I cannot state from use how much can be stored but it appears to be more much more than adequate for home use giving no excuse to purchase a larger HDD. Picture quality is good for the price of the unit in both day and Night time. See sample photograph. Cons. My system was intended for EXTERNAL observations ONLY. The Motion Detection is too sensitive and while it did give positive alarms on persons entering the protected zones, I found it was constantly giving false negative alarms and together with e-mail warnings I was rapidly inundated. I spent a full week trying to fine-tune the system. It was so bad I had no option but to reset the system to factory defaults to ensure all alarms were cancelled. I came to conclusion that the motion detection was for INDOOR use only But that aside it is still a reasonable system for the price. I would recommend the system with the caveat for the limitations i have mentioned above.
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Pretty good for tow price just when shipping to Australia please provide Australian power cords
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Why are you selling a UK product on the Australian website. With no compatible power adaptor????
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