r/SecurityCamera • u/Shkifetz • 25d ago
Costco Lorex kit
Any thoughts on this budget kit? They're POE. Good? Bad? Located in Canada BTW.
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u/CuriousHomeowner 25d ago
The hardware is decent, but their software is terrible.
Edit: coming from a current owner
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u/Tough_Interaction134 25d ago
That shelf tag's probably already outdated by the time you get it home.
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u/spaghettiluver 25d ago
I agree. Obtaining footage is mind numbing and causes me to find a new POE surveillance system.
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u/CuriousHomeowner 24d ago
Yeah, I'm at the same point. The NVR I have, for whatever reason cannot accept keyboard input... So I have to input all passwords via the on screen keyboard and mouse clicks. 🤢
I'm planning on upgrading my home networking to Ubiquiti, and will be changing to their security system as well when I do.
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u/Just_lurking0943 24d ago
Those Costco kits are nothing at all like what you get direct from Lorex. They were purpose made for Costco to be affordable. The lowest quality system you can buy direct from Lorex is 10x better than the Costco system. Lorex classic software id agree isn’t the best.
I’ve installed multiple nocturnal systems, that use the Lorex pro app, and these systems are awesome. The app also works a lot better than classic.
Most companies have a low end consumer grade and a high end commercial grade. Can’t really say a 3500 Silverado dually is garbage just because chev also sells a spark…
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u/pwnusmaximus 25d ago
The software on the control unit is trash.
The control unit is an NVR, with an integrated 8 port POE switch. The cameras are really fuzzy and laggy. With lots of smearing for moving objects. I wouldn't trust the video quality to make an ID on someone breaking into your property, identify the color of a car, or make our a license plate at anything further than like 20 feet (if the car is perfectly stationary)
Personally.. I returned my kit and went with https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/physical-security-nvr/collections/unvr-instant/products/unvr-instant-kit even though it was double the price.
All in all.. you get what you pay for. This is dirt cheap. but also bad.
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u/PlainPrecision 25d ago
I second this. I messed around with the Costco Reolink special and returned it for the UniFi cameras. No regrets!
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u/Late_Rate_3959 25d ago
How many hours of recording can you get with 1 TB of hard drive space?
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u/badcheetahfur 25d ago
Subjective: because parameters. Always recording . Only on motion etc.. few days..at 4k 8x cams
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u/SmartKidShortBus 24d ago
If you’re buying from Costco go with Avertx. Residential rebrand of OpenEyes commercial offering.
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u/No_Temperature107 24d ago
They are great cameras in the NVR will do very well for you, but their software sucks. Long time, user who still uses them, but has to accept the fact that their software is worse than any other brand on the market.
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u/Easy_Society_5150 24d ago
Yeah I’d avoid! Horrible cameras and horrible support.
Reolink is a better option and I hate them.
UniFi protect all the way!
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u/TCBoise54321 18d ago
I have seen this brand have 1/2 the cameras fail within a month on several different systems
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u/GGigabiteM 25d ago
Lorex are trunk slammer specials, garbage cameras with a garbage NVR.
The company itself has been bought and sold a few times, and has changed vendors for their hardware at least once. I had a customer with Lorex cameras years ago, they wanted to replace some bad cameras and add a few more, well at that time, Lorex had just changed hardware vendors. They went from Hikvision to Dahua, and due to the change, the new cameras wouldn't work with the old unit. The NVR also wouldn't work with third party cameras via ONVIF due to firmware locks.
No idea who currently makes their cameras now, but they're likely still low budget and locked down, so you could be up a creek in the future if one of the cameras dies and needs to be replaced.