Swann Security 4+

Useless

I have three cameras two in Cyprus and one in the UK which are only 18 months old !!!the one in the UK only works intermittently when it feels like it !I have one in Cyprus which is just an ornament now because it hasn’t worked for months !and the other one is intermittent after weeks and weeks of trying to sort them all out it seems to me it’s an app problem but they don’t seem to be doing anything about it with another update which buggered it up in the first place! The live chat help just goes through the same crap every time which time after time doesn’t work they never answer any emails or queries or complaints over the cameras so I’m giving up and going to buy something else what a waste of money

Developer Response ,

Hi Remzroller27, I'm sorry for the issues you are having. Which Swann camera or CCTV system do you own? Please reach out to Tech Support for help with your Swann product. The 24/7 toll-free phone number in the UK is +44 808 168 9031. Regards, RV-Swann team

Useful app — avoid like the plague

The app is super useful. We have 4 cameras set up around our land. They’re all wired into a single recording box which is fun to watch as it catches foxes and RARELY badgers. Which are flipping HUGE let me tell ya! Couple of years ago during a heatwave, I’d spend the evening on the driveway part of the land playing Nintendo Switch. I was used to being startled by foxes and cats slinking past but the time a badger showed up…. Man alive I nearly fell out of my deckchair! Huge things. Massive.

Anyways. I found the IP addresses for the cameras and built a webpage that I host on a domain I’ve had since 2004, which shows all the streams at once SANS, and this is the big bit, NO TRACKING NONSENSE. Avoid this app 100% due to data harvesting and tracking.

It’s sold to advertisers, it’s used as research for ai construction. I know because as a programmer (as well as a general freelance director of sorts) I’ve seen it happen. It’s as human readable as “ALAN SMITH OF ADDRESS- VISITED [anything from dating to medical to secret work projects] DOT COM FOR X AMOUNT OF TIME, HER 20TH VISIT THIS MONTH”. It’s a building scandal let me tell you. It’s just a matter of which major news outlet is going to blow the lid first. And also shame on Apple for creating systems to be able to report such activities, to have that data shareable to apps.

Modes doesn’t work

Edit.
Thanks for the dev feedback, however my statement is still true. Modes does not work and the notifications and detections simply are hit and miss.
I’ve tried multiple times to reach tech support but I’m getting no answers.

Why is my review not appearing ? I had higher hopes for this app. It has multiple fundamental failings. 1. The modes feature is a good idea, but it simply does not work. No matter whether you have notifications on or off for a camera in a mode it still notifies you with an alert. This is on multiple IOS devices. 2. The cameras sometime show a previous feed instead of live during the live view. Which you can tell by the time stamp, but was especially noticeable when one showed a daylight live feed during darkness. 3. The app regularly pops up a message that the time is wrong, when it does not appear to be. 4. Often the after an alert there is no event to view, or the alert time stamp is wrong but the camera time stamp is correct. 5. It would be nice to access more of the config via the app or even via a web interface instead of having to physically visit the device.

Developer Response ,

Swann Reply 12 December:
Hi PhilH.
So that our app team can look into this further and a find a solution, it would be very helpful if we could find your account on our system so that we can look into it in more detail. Do you have an existing case number with our tech support team that I can track down your Swann Security email address from? If not, if you could type your email address just up until the '@' in a reply to this review I can try to find your details that way instead. Thank you. -SD, Swann team


Swann Previous Reply:
Thank you for your feedback. 1) You need to change Modes to accept any settings changes. You can then change it right back to the previous Mode. 2) Correct. Until the app syncs with the camera, a previous still image will appear in the thumbnail. 3) The time zone issues should be fixed. Be sure to check that all CCTV systems have the latest firmware - reach out to Tech Support for help if it doesn't at +44 808 168 9031. 4) Same issue - check the firmware on the CCTV system or any updates 5) In 2023 we plan to incorporate more CCTV controls in the app. Thank you for your patience. Regards, RV-Swann team