Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)

today on the hookup I'm gonna test out Amazon's best-selling 4k NVR security camera packages from Swan REO link and AM crest and I'm going to show you why after extensively testing all three systems I decided to recommend the real link 4k NVR system to my good friend who asked for help installing a camera system on his house modern network video recorders or Envy ours are purpose-built devices that combine the functionality of a POS which video decoding hardware and network storage for significantly less money than you could put together yourself when building your own system there is a huge range of software to choose from but even if you settle for the cheapest parts available you won't even come close to matching the value of an Envy our package in this video I'll be testing out the three best-selling 4k and VR packages on Amazon the cheapest package the real link are LK 800 b4 comes with 4 4k cameras in 8 port p OE n vr and the two terabyte surveillance grade hard drive the next most expensive is the swan 885 804 which also features an 8 port Pio EMDR with four 4k cameras and the 2 terabyte hard drive the last and most expensive option is the amcrest envy for 1080 an 8 port p OE n vr with four 4k cameras but without a hard drive for comparison's sake I'm going to add a $60 2 terabyte surveillance grade hard drive for testing based strictly on initial value the real link package earns the first point in this NVR showdown digging a little bit deeper there are some important differences worth mentioning first the real link and Swann cameras are not ONVIF compatible which means that they only work with specific nd ours from their own brand and that becomes important if you're going to want to upgrade individual parts of your system later on the amcrest system comes with their IP 8m turret cameras which are ONVIF compatible and can be easily used with any NVR that supports the widely used ONVIF standard and crest earns an easy point in this category for camera compatibility speaking of ONVIF according to the listing the amcrest ND r also has limited compatibility with cameras from other brands that support on v and in my tests i found that the amcrest VR was compatible with cameras that were manufactured by dawa and amcrest but not with any other camera brands that I own and that includes REO link ubiquity hikvision h fw s and to you this compatibility isn't particularly surprising to me since in my research it seems like the amcrest nd R is actually just a rebranded dawa n vr and although the documentation for the real link n vr says it doesn't support cameras from other brands in my test it actually had similar limited compatibility to the amcrest NV r and it was able to automatically detect and add all the network cameras from amcrest and h fw s in addition to of course detecting my REO link cameras but it wasn't compatible with hikvision ubiquity or dawa if you want to add cameras from other brands to the REO link NV r they need to be connected to your main network via a different POS which the Swann and V R doesn't appear to have any ONVIF compatibility and only detected Swann based cameras that were directly connected to the NVR in the NVR compatibility category i'm gonna give amcrest and rio link half a point each for their limited compatibility with other brands and no points to the Swann that has no intercom Pat ability with other brands the one area that you're going to be making the biggest sacrifice by using a dedicated NVR is the user interface which seems to be exactly the same as I remember it from when I bought my first NVR almost 15 years ago PC based nd ours like blue iris offer an intuitive and responsive user interface while standalone NVRs still require you to memorize the right combination of right and left clicks to get to the menu you're looking for and they rely on a clunky on-screen keyboard to enter information and change your settings that being said I didn't have any issues with NVR functionality all three brands were able to display the live view review recorded footage and export footage as long as you know which men used to use and which buttons to click but to me the amcrest NVR seemed to have a slightly better user interface than the rest so for NVR interface I'm going to begrudgingly give one point to amcrest for having the least terrible interface even though it seems like I'm being hard on these NVRs for their interfaces it's important to remember that dedicated NVRs are purpose-built devices that are relatively underpowered compared to a PC so they need to dedicate most of their resources to recording and previewing the video streams from you cameras and not to a beautiful user interface and even though the blue iris NBR interface is much better it's probably not $600 better which is about the difference in price between a dedicated NVR and a PC that's powerful enough to handle 4k cameras with blue iris one really nice thing about these envy ARS is that the setup wizards have come a long way in the past few years which means that even a complete novice user can be up and running in a matter of minutes this is one area that a dedicated NVR gives a much more enjoyable experience compared with a pc-based MDR like blue iris which can easily cause feature and option overload for a new user since all these NVRs were equally easy to set up I'm going to give them all one point in the ease of setup category in theory you won't even need to use your NVR interface at all because the mobile and PC based applications will provide you with all the features that you need but in practice that's not really the case for mobile apps the real link system uses their real link iOS or Android app which I've actually really enjoyed it gives you the option to select live view of any of your cameras or put multiple cameras on the screen you can view recorded footage from your cameras either by full playback or by motion events only and even though the real link app is by far the easiest to navigate and find footage you want saving footage was not always reliable exporting 4k footage from the mobile app didn't work and neither did exporting footage from the non real link cameras the only export function that worked consistently was my real link RLC 410 cameras which exported quickly and easily and at great quality hopefully these bugs will be addressed in future updates which would make the real link app my favorite mobile interface out of these three brands by far but for now it's a little bit buggy The Swan NVR uses the Swan HomeSafe app which allows for easy Live View but only in a distorted four by three format and the playback feature is similar to the clunky channel based search system that you find on the NVR which is far from ideal there is no option to save recorded video from the app to your camera roll though you can record clips directly from the live view into their app but I'm not really sure when that would be useful the amcrest NVR uses amcrest view Pro which has a very similar user interface to the Swan NVR but with slightly more polish you still need to search recorded footage by envy our channel but you do have the option to record that footage to the camera roll and every feature of the app just seemed to work flawlessly for mobile app usability I'm gonna give a full point to amcrest because everything worked exactly as expected but I'm also going to give a half a point to relink because their app feels the most modern and it has the best user interface if saving 4k footage worked on the real link app I would have given it the full point the Swan app combines the less than stellar user interface of the amcrest app with the bugginess of the real link app so no points for them next are the PC apps a good PC app should offer continuous live view as well as access to recorded footage this is another area where dedicated nd RS are going to be extremely inferior to blue iris which offers an amazing native UI and a web-based UI with full functionality the first software that I downloaded was called Swan view link and it didn't work at all with the 4k Swan NBR after looking around the Swan website a bit I found a different app called home safe view that sent me to a very professional Dropbox link to download the home safe view app was able to add the NVR and the live view worked fine but even though the search function worked in found recorded footage I wasn't actually able to view that footage relink offers their own program called the real link client which to my surprise was actually the exact same program as Swan link view in this case I was able to add the REO link NVR easily but initially I was pretty unimpressed by the REO link client because it kept crashing the NDR I was able to trace the issue to the amcrest 4k camera that I had added via ONVIF after removing the amcrest 4k camera the rest of the cameras functioned perfectly and the playback was buttery smooth even though it did still use the same calendar and channel based search function that I've already complained about plenty of times in this video am crest offers its own unique program that worked decently well after I got the hang of the interface and it offered both live viewing and a decent user interface for viewing recorded footage in this category both the real link and the amcrest had working solutions but neither of them were great and they were miles behind blue iris in terms of features and usability so half a point here for both amcrest and rio link absent programs don't matter at all if the cameras aren't able to perform their primary function of recording motion on your property each of these NVR have highly configurable motion detection with standard options like scheduling motion sensitivity and zones the Swan and VR also includes a bunch of other options that have to do with the PIR sensors on the front of each camera these PIR options were the feature that I was most excited to test because I've been really impressed with the PIR sensors on my battery-powered cameras that I've been testing in theory PIR should be less susceptible to false motion events because it tracks the movement of heated objects rather than just changes in the image contrast but in my test it just didn't work not only was it slow to detect me often not triggering until I'd been in frame for a few seconds but it seemed to have equally as many if not more false alarms than a standard contrast based detection I expected to give the Swan an extra point in this category but in practice it's just not any better than the real link or amcrest cameras at detecting motion so one point for each system here for having passable working motion detection if you really want to be sure that you have footage when and where you need it I'd always recommend enabling continuous recording for those zones and it's one of the things that makes hard-wired cameras vastly superior to the wireless battery-powered cameras that are becoming so popular so with the NVR portion of this comparison out of the way here's the current score but these packages also come with four 4k cameras and that makes up a significant portion of the cost and value so let's take a look at those first let's talk about the installation I love the real link mounting system and I think it should be the standard for all bullet style cameras a single heck screw loosens all of the joints just enough to allow the camera to be aimed properly and then easily tightened in contrast the swon cameras have the worst mounting system imaginable a separate screw for each axis and two screws for the roll adjustment and to top it all off when I finally got the camera into the position I wanted I tightened the side screw only to have the threads break free and become unusable meaning that camera can never be properly aimed again the N crest cameras that come with this kit are turret style well-designed and easy to mount and aiming is done with a single set screw like most turret cameras for mounting one point for each amcrest Andreo link and zero points for Swan in fact the experience with the Swan was so bad that I'm tempted to take points away from their score but I want next let's check out the daytime clarity of these cameras to do this i mounted each camera in the same location and i held up a sign at 10 feet 25 feet and 50 feet for comparison the winner for my last video was the real link RLC 410 which produced this image at 25 feet this time the real link 4k camera came out on top and while you can tell that these images are higher resolution than the cameras in my last video the compression artifacts are very noticeable the swon camera had the worst distortion followed by the amcrest and as I said the clearest image came from the real link which was able to produce an impressively legible image of the 72 point font from 25 feet away one point to the real link for daytime clarity at night the results were very similar with realing producing a really impressive image from 25 feet and that result only becomes more impressive when compared to the other two cameras which had pretty poor nighttime performance so score another point for real link for nighttime clarity and the real link has really emerged as the clear winner as far as camera performance is concerned it's clear that all these companies are doing post-processing on their images but real link seems to have really perfected their algorithms check out this image from 10 feet away the real link image looks almost fake but it's just a result of their specific post-processing as I mentioned before the downside to the real link cameras is that they're only compatible with the real link 4k and VR and not with blue iris or NVRs from other brands but the good news is that the real link NVR does output in our TSP stream for each of its channels so you can still add them to home assistant and they even work with the new stream protocol so you can embed them in home assistant notifications and you can even stream them to your Google cast devices and I want to reiterate here that the video quality of these cameras is absolutely insane for the price for under $500 you're getting four fantastic 4k cameras a POS which a two terabyte surveillance grade drive in enough computing power to preview and record 4k video if you don't already have an existing system and you want the best value the real link 4k NVR package is an easy choice and it gets my full recommendation if you already have an existing system using amcrest or dawa cameras the amcrest system is also pretty solid and if you want the option to switch to blue iris later on the amcrest 4k cameras will be able to be reused in that system unlike the REO link for gate cameras aside from video quality the main thing that prevents me from recommending the amcrest system over the real link is the price at six hundred and sixty dollars the amcrest is over thirty percent more expensive than the real link and compared with the other two packages the Swann system is just bad I'd like to be able to say something positive about it but overall it's just bad and you shouldn't buy it as I mentioned earlier after finishing this review I helped a friend install a REO link system in his house and we finished off the kit with the cameras that I recommended for my last POV camera video the REO link RLC 410 and 425 megapixel cameras the results are amazing and I can't believe that the total cost for a system of this quality is just over $600 if you want a camera system but you don't want to run wires I'm also working on a review in comparison of all the major battery-powered wireless cameras including longevity and battery testing so make sure you're subscribed if you're interested in that thank you to all my awesome patrons over at patreon for supporting my channel and allowing me the freedom to buy and test hardware from competing brands to give you guys the best information when it comes to making decisions about your smart home if you're interested in supporting my channel please check out the links down in the description if you enjoyed this video please consider subscribing and as always thanks for watching the hook cats [Music]

Channel: The Hook Up

Views: 367,778

Keywords: home assistant, hassio, home automation, hass.io, smart home, diy, electronics, arduino, esp8266, nodemcu, wemos d1, automation, swann, reolink, amcrest, RLK8-800B4, 800B4, 4k, camera, system, bundle, package, amazon, SWNVK-885804, NV4108E, IP8M, T2499EW4, SWNVK, 885804, NV4108E-IP8M-T2499EW4, 8 megapixel, super hd, ultra hd, security

Id: -53MWDrB2Ks

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Mind boggling this only has 7 up votes. Excellent video that probably took a LOT of time to put it all together.

Have you tested out or tried Milestones Essentials? They make full on surveillance suite software, this is a toned down version with a LOT of capability. I'm in the process of trying to decide what route I'd like to go, as much as I hate pulling cable I'm thinking Dahua/HikVision with Blue Iris or MS would be ideal.

[u/jondabomb]

Thank you for making this!

[u/Jackald1918]

Well done! Professional and great info. Thanks for the time and effort.

[u/mfb61]

Excellent video! As a first time CCTV user/installer I'm looking to buy an inexpensive simple to use/install home POE CCTV system. After researching both Swann and Reolink cameras & NVR's this video has helped confirm my decision to go with a Reolink system.

[u/HoldMahNuggets]

Did you happen to test out smart assistant integrations for any of these? I was looking at swann specifically for their Alexa integration, and this video made me think again, but the reolink doesn’t seem to have any smart assistant integration at all.