I see threads on here all the time asking for recommendations on home security cameras so I wanted to give my input and positive review for a system I just installed.

Note: THIS IS A FULLY WIRED SYSTEM. I.e, you have to run a wire to every camera. Due to the way my house is constructed (single story with open attic all the way across), this was feasible and not too difficult. If you are looking for input on wireless systems, this one is not for you.

So I bought this system for a really good deal on Black Friday:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Q-SEE-8-Channel-4MP-IP-Indoor-Outdoor-Surveillance-2TB-NVR-System-with-3-4MP-Bullet-Cameras-and-3-4MP-Dome-Cameras-QT8516-6DK-2/207075142?cm_mmc=Shopping%7CTHD%7CG%7C0%7CG-BASE-PLA-D27E-SecuritySurveillance%7C&gclid=CIiJ3onUwdACFVE7gQodbcEEMQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

It only came with 6 cameras, but I already bought/installed a 7th camera and I plan on adding an 8th soon.

Overall I have been very happy with it. They resolution on the 4mp cameras is amazing. It looks great on my tv at home and also when pulled up on the app on my phone. The app was super easy to get running.

The interface is pretty easy to navigate. You can set how many cameras you want to display on your screen at once, where each camera is displayed on the screen, etc. You can also change all of these options on the app on your phone independently of the local display. It has features to monitor motion in specific areas and send alerts, but I haven't played with it enough to set that up yet.

Here are some examples of the view from the cameras. These are screenshots from the app on my phone. (For obvious reasons, I only want to show two cameras). The first picture is the view I get when I launch the app. Then you can double tap any camera to switch to full screen view of that camera.









Let me know if you have any other questions.

More/New cameras are on my list after some crud lately that we've been dealing with. My current ones are 600tvl, not nearly enough resolution at night. Good review. Thanks for the input.

Speaking of night time, I completely forgot to address that.

These cameras have excellent night vision. They have built in IR leds, and they work very well. In areas of total darkness you can see very clearly with just the IR, but the depth/field of view is kinda short. The IR runs out and you can only see a short distance. In areas that have some other residual light like a light on the house or whatever, the night vision sees just as far as daytime.

Here are screen caps of night vision mode from around 2am. Both of these cameras happen to have an extra light source near by so they have excellent picture and just as much/far as day time.

One final tip. Since I was running cables through the attic and in walls, I went ahead and ran an HDMI cable from the living room where the NVR is, to my bedroom tv. Then I bought a powered HDMI splitter with signal amplifier and I output the cameras to both my living room tv and my bedroom tv. I'm thinking about putting a small monitor in my kitchen and running an hdmi cable to there also.

How loud is the fan on the nvr?

Hopefully they've gotten better, and I'd imagine they have. But i got a Q-See system about 4 years ago and they were junk. The first camera went out after about 6 months. Their customer service department gave me enough run arounds and I eventually said eff it. The second went out after about a year. And the dvr system went out after about 18 months.

And for the above, the dvr fan was LOUD. Wouldn't recommend it in a bedroom.

You ever been in a tornado? It's about that loud.

Jk. Sorta.


It's about as loud as an older CPU fan, but it's constant. At full RPMs all the time. I definitely would not recommend putting it in a bedroom. I put mine in the entertainment center thing in the living room and it doesn't really bother me there, but if I could put it in a closet or somewhere quieter I would.

That definitely sucks. Hopefully mine fare better than that.