5.0 out of 5 stars annke 8 channel dvr.

2026-01-10    -james kinsey

Annke 8 channel dvr was easy to set up and set all the functions i wanted . connects to i phone went easy also. it gives alerts to the phone and the event sensitivity works really well. i called the phone number for some help. they did call back the next day, but i had figured it out. i recommend this brand of dvr.

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact and works

2025-12-24    -Liz S

The system works good. Trying to adjust the time is complicated and still working in it but everything else was easy to set up.

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad

2026-02-24    -Albert

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...

Great little unit

2026-02-16    -Tristan Metcalfe

Perfect for what I needed as some cameras where already set up at our rental. Everything plugged straight in, created a account and off it went recording. Setting up the app on phone for remote viewing was quiet simple too using the QR code.

Very happy.

2026-02-01    -Kate

Works well! I was nervous to buy this as read that changing from my Swann camera HD recorder can be complicated. Works a treat and was pretty much plug n play. Just a few little setting changes to view remotely, but very happy.

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact and works

2026-02-02    -Liz S

The system works good. Trying to adjust the time is complicated and still working in it but everything else was easy to set up.

Very happy.

2026-01-23    -Kate

Works well! I was nervous to buy this as read that changing from my Swann camera HD recorder can be complicated. Works a treat and was pretty much plug n play. Just a few little setting changes to view remotely, but very happy.

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice DVR for the price, worked with my Swann 960H cams (3 month review)

2026-02-15    -Darius

[6/16/23] Day 1To 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.

Great product

2026-02-15    -Jiajarka Sampson

I was able to install easily and set up with a phone app. Good quality image and easy to use with Iphone and Ipad. However, I cant give 5 stars as I could not get it to work with my PC which is where I really want to be able to see it. When searching for solutions I could see that I was not alone and many others had same issue.

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice DVR for the price, worked with my Swann 960H cams (3 month review)

2026-01-25    -Darius

[6/16/23] Day 1To 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.