I cannot recommend buying from Lorex for several reasons. The main reason is the tech support is not too good. As a side note I am quite familiar with many brands of surveillance systems. I have setup systems such as QSEE, Nightowl, Hikvision, Arecont, Lorex, etc. That includes systems that are analog or digital, DVR, NVR.
First of all the system came with a bad camera. That is fairly normal. I have purchased many systems that had bad cameras right out of the box. Night Owl is well known for having bad cameras. Lorex is no different. However this is where the problem lies, it is very difficult to get a bad camera replaced with Lorex. One has to jump through hoops to get a bad camera replaced. First you have to go through many troubleshooting steps to prove camera is defective. Then I had to send at least 10 emails to get camera replaced. Lorex wanted camera serial number, model of system, serial number of system, Device ID, place purchased, Date purchased, and copy of receipt. When I sent them all this info they would reply that they needed more info. As an example, I would send them the receipt in an email, then they would respond back that they needed the receipt. It was like they were not actually reading the emails I sent them. It took three weeks to get camera replaced. I tried calling them many times. I would wait on hold for more than an hour every time I called. The techs are polite, however it is unacceptable to have to wait for more than an hour to talk to someone. Some of the techs are quite knowledgeable, most are not. Many of the techs only knew basic things about the system. That is not the techs fault they need to be trained for all their products and not just go by a script. This system is a newer model and they did not know much about it. I had a problem with the frame rate of the cameras and it took weeks to solve. The technicians tried to help they just didn’t have the knowledge. They would ask their supervisor for help and they would email me the next day.
This was the problem, the cameras are rated at 4K @15fps live & @7fps recording, 4MP@30fps live & @15fps recording. When viewing video it is 15 FPS but when played back video it is very choppy 7 FPS. I could not set the cameras above 7 FPS no matter what I tried. 7FPS is very choppy 15FPS is much smoother. The specs of system says it can record 15 FPS at 4MP. The Lorex techs emailed me for weeks trying to help. They sent me many different firmware’s to try, none of them worked to fix the problem. They even messed up at one point by sending me firmware for the wrong DVR. When I would email them that the latest thing they asked me to try didn’t work, they would email me the next day. This took weeks. Also I kept calling them every day, however I would hang-up after waiting on hold for more than an hour. After weeks of this I finally was able to get through on the phone to a knowledgeable tech. I explained the situation to him. I told him he needed to try to replicate the problem on the exact same system I had. He said he would try that. A few days later he called back with a way to increase the frame rate. The fix is you go into a special hidden menu and change a hidden setting within the camera. It worked, however it crops about 15 percent of viewable area on all four sides of camera. That is a bummer because now your camera view is much smaller. The frame rate is now smooth but has less viewable area. Getting camera to 15 FPS took three weeks for tech support to solve. I think the settings are hidden because when you set camera to 15 FPS it crops the video. These settings are so hidden it took one of their better techs to figure out why it wouldn’t go to 15 FPS. The DVR is loud, that is because the fan is too small and spins too fast. This is a common problem with many DVR’s and NVR’s. Manufactures are trying to save 50 cents on a fan in order to cut costs. One may ask why I didn’t return system instead of going through this hassle. When I first got system and discovered that frame maxed out at 7FPS I went and bought another system. I figured I would return the other one. The first system I bought at Best Buy, the second system I bought at Costco. The second system had the same DVR but slightly different cameras. But all the specs were identical except the cameras had slightly different infrared emitters and were a different color. The second system from Costco had the exact same problem. The cameras would not go above 7 FPS, even though the specs said it will go to 15 FPS at 4MP. I now figured at this point that the problem was either the specs were wrong or that Lorex was shipping out bad systems. I would have returned both systems but I had already ran the Siamese power cables through my attic. Of course I was not going to pull out the cables nor was I going to purchase new cables to put back in the box for the return. As a side note, my house already had been wired with Siamese cables from a previous Night Owl system. However this Lorex system did not work well with the older cables, I got lines on the video. So I had to replace my older cables with the Lorex cables. I would have bought a surveillance system that had a NVR and not a DVR except I have an older style D1 camera by my front door that is connected with coax. To replace that coax with Cat 6 would almost be impossible because of a firewall. The camera was prewired when the house was built. A Surveillance system that has a NVR is usually better than a system with a DVR. Normally NVR systems cost more money but have higher frame rates. They connect with cat 5 or 6 and not coax. I wish I could have went with a NVR system but I didn’t have a choice. As for this Lorex system, the picture quality is quite decent in the day. At night the picture quality is ok except for one problem. When looking at something that has motion such as a car or a person walking, you get ghosting in video. As an example when someone walks by you see blurring and an after image trailing the walking person. If you have a lot of light the problem is not as bad. What I do like about the system is the hidden menu, you can change many, many settings such as the type of backlighting BLC, WDC, HLC, etc. You can change the trigger points of when the cameras go into nighttime mode on a camera by camera basis. These hidden settings are great if you are very familiar with security systems. Every home or business has different needs and lighting conditions. So the expert menu settings can adapt to your user environment. Most entry level systems do not have such settings. I understand why these settings are hidden, if you don’t know what you’re doing you can mess things up. I have to rate this system at one star. I would like to rate the system at a 3 or 4 stars, but I cannot. Returning a bad camera to Lorex is a pain. Also waiting for more than an hour for tech support every time you call is a pain. The company Lorex needs to hire more techs. It is unacceptable to have to wait that long. This could be a good product, but Lorex support ruins it. I don’t believe it to be the techs fault. They are polite and try to help you. However they are so understaffed it takes days or weeks to get a problem solved.
I recommend not buying this system for most people. I only recommend this system to somebody who would never need tech support. Or someone who doesn't mind waiting for hours on the phone. I would have never needed support if it wasn't for the bad camera, and wanting to increase the frame rate.