Customer Reviews

Lorex LIVE LW2702 Wireless Digital Security System

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Overall, this is a great system. I was impressed with the reception and the graphics. That being said, I had to return it for two reasons. 1) The system did not come with a remote control. I called Lorex customer service and they can easily take care of that. 2) Although the system is described as an indoor/outdoor system, it is NOT weatherproof. I always thought that if a surveillance system was outdoor, it could withstand the weather. When I called customer service about this, they pointed out that the lens cannot get wet, otherwise it may not work correctly. In addition, there can be no moisture allowed into the system itself. I only discovered this after hooking up the system.
Just keep in mind that although it is a good sytem, it is NOT waterproof.

I am a retired Techno-Geek, a geezer-geek if you will. I have purchased and installed many systems in my time, but from a very good performance vs. very easy installation vs. good value basis, this is one excellent little system. A lot of good thought has gone into designing it, and it worked perfectly upon installation. Someone in one review complained of the blurry camera - but the cams come with a protective plastic film over the lense ;-)

This little rig has a nifty little remote that will allow you to select motion record or continious record, and all of the functions - this is very cool. The system took me about 15 minutes to get turned on to check the functions of everything, and another 2 or 3 hours to select the position of the cameras at the back and front of the house. Once positioned, all I had to do was to plug them in and turn them on.

The only complaint I MIGHT have is, I would like to see the camera power cables a foot or two longer to help with camera placement. I will be extending one cable my self. Perhaps Lorex could sell or include one EXTENTION power cable of about two feet in length. T

he audio speaker is not very loud, nor is the alarm. It won't wake you up from a sound sleep, but if you are in your office working, it will let you know that the UPS person is at the door. A main key to this system is "how very, very simple it is to set up and install to get good results."

Camera to screen (I love the little screen on my night table) range is about 50 to 75 feet. Yeah, we would all love to have a cam to screen range of 300 to 1,000 ft, but that is beyond the ability of most technology right not. This is a good little home/light commercial system. I plan to get another one for my wife's business.
I hope this helps.

I got this system from Costco for $299.99. Works great right out of the box. Good range on the cameras. Mine are 60 feet or so apart on opposite sides of the house and I get good reception anywhere inside on the receiver. Night vision range is better then expected. I'm not using the audio feature, so I can't comment on it. I want to add two more cameras, but there $170 each from Lorex, so it's cheaper to buy a second system from Costco and keep the second receiver as a backup. Upgrade to a 16 GB card ($35 on Amazon) and get 24 hours of video recording.

Length:: 0:56 Mins

I uploaded a sample video. The clarity of the recorder is just great. We have 2 cats so I can tell you, small animals do not trigger the motion recorder. This is my second set I use one for the house and one for the garage. Night vision is excellent. There is a zoom feature that will give you more detail. I highly recommend this system. Easy install. You need to have an outlet to plug the cameras and monitors into (no batteries).

I was expecting to be "wowed" by this system. I was not. This is probably my third edit of this review and by this stage I can say I am truly disappointed. I was actually more wowed by the slingbox solo I bought to work in conjunction with this Lorex. Overall, for a system that is touted to be cutting edge (at least in its price bracket) more thought and creativity could have gone into it.

The FIRST and BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT, DRAWBACK and DISABILITY with this product is that you can only ever use one receiver/LCD display monitor. This is not good enough for the office setting where monitoring is desired by more than one person from differnent locations in the building at the same time. I tried to circumvent this drawback by buying the Solo Slingbox with the hope that while my receptionist monitors the cameras from her reception desk out front I could also monitor the cameras online on my laptop in my private office. This could not be done thanks to the fact that once you engage the AV feature on the Lorex (which is required to send the video feed to the slingbox and thus to the internet)the display on the Lorex LCD monitor is cancelled.

SECONDLY, in motion detection record mode you cannot select different record times for individual cameras. I might set the record time for 15 seconds (which will be applied to all cameras) and a thief triggers the motion record at the door outside for camera 1. I quickly let the unsuspecting thief in thinking he is safe so he is inside within 5 seconds of triggering the motion record. Once he enters he immediately does something that I want to be recorded. However, camera 2 on the inside cannot begin recording until the 10 remaining seconds from camera 1 are completed. Additionally, from all observation so far one has to come within 8.6 feet of the camera for the motion sensor to be triggered. The affect of this is that when you're in motion detection record mode so much activity can occur outside of the meager 8.6 feet which will not be recorded! Any brilliant thief who comes within 8.6 feet (roughly 3 footsteps) of the camera probably has plans of disconnecting or covering the camera. MORE WORRISOMELY is the FACT that in motion detection record mode it takes about 5 seconds before the system starts recording after the motion sensor is triggered. Alot can happen in 5 seconds that just will not be recorded. At my office it takes just 5 seconds to trigger the camera and then go out of sight before anything is recorded.

THIRDLY,there is a loud feedback noise whenever I press the 'Talk' button to engage two-way intercom. This is so although I have the volume on the lowest and although the cameras are not near to the receiver. I contacted Lorex. The service technician was very pleasant and attentive. It was obvious that he was not familiar with this system though but he sure tried his best to get up-to-speed quickly. After we did all the troubleshooting and failed he decided to replace the product and gave me a RMA ticket number. We'll see how that goes. It appeared to me after that the mic volume is too high or that the mic is too sensitive. When I partially covered the mic with my finger this stopped the feedback noise. I decided to stick a small piece of paper to cover the mic hole. This has drastically reduced the feedback noise to almost 0.

FOURTHLY, if you're going wireless go all the way man! Having to plug in the cameras to an electrical outlet greatly restricts the flexibility of this system. Consideration should be given to using size "C" batteries.

FIFTHLY, I wonder whether the video illutrations in the ads were produced in some studio. What I see in reality on my display is no where near what is shown in the advertistments.

SIXTHLY, although I have not tried it as a matter of theory it is probable that you're better off not using this outdoors. I say this because depite there being picture illustrations (eg page 59 of manual) of outdoor use the manual clearly states that the cameras should not come into contact with water (rain) or moisture. If you try to circumvent this by creating a housing you are met with the warning that the cameras should be properly ventilated. Any ventilation creates the risk of the camera being exposed to moisture so either way you might be trapped.

SEVENTHLY, the screw heads could have been tougher. I wore out mine on my first installation. Admittedly, this is probably because I didn't drill any holes in the board but I have come across screws that could've better withstood forced screwing.

EIGHTlY, I read a review somewhere that there was a problem with the remote. I am beginning to have the same problem after 3 days of installation. I have to keep pressing the buttons to get action sometimes. I hope this is not the beginning of the end.

All in all this system is what it is. I didn't get what I didn't pay for. I truly think I made a bad buy. I am usually sceptical about reviews that appear too critical but given my present experience with this system I am really sorry for anyone who disregards the warnings in this review. It's one thing to complain that an item doesn't work well. A customer can always say "O well probably that item was defective". With this Lorex system although it works 'well' it is not programmed to do a great job. This system has potential and I see no reason why the inadequacies I mentioned cannot be addressed.

This wireless camera system includes a 7" LCD monitor and 2 cameras with sound pickup (expandable to 4 cameras) for $290. It transmits over 2.4 GHz and the transmission is digital over a reliable data channel so it doesn't suffer from the interference problems common with analog transmitters. The wireless transmission seemed robust and is by far the best I've seen of anything in this price range.

It records to an SD card and has some night vision capabilities (using IR LED's in the cameras). It also has a PIR motion sensor in the cameras so can record on motion. The motion triggering is somewhat buggy though as I found it will record for the preset time period (5/15/30 seconds) after detecting motion, but will not continue to record past that period even if there is still motion occurring. Not ideal, but still usable. It has a function to allow automatic overwriting of the oldest recordings on the SD card.

It also has a 2 way intercom mode between a camera and the LCD display. It's convenient to run the cameras and/or display from portable power as the display is powered from 5V and the cameras from 9V.

The problems I found (in no particular order):

(1) It causes intermittent interference with my logitech wireless mouse which uses the same 2.4 GHz band.
(2) There is color distortion such as visible with the white colored trees (that are actually green).
(3) Night vision capabilities are meager, but the best I've seen for anything in this price range.
(4) The resolution is supposedly 640 x 480, but the picture noise is high enough that it is roughly equivalent to decent quality 320x240

Overall, it's a good usable system for the price, but the image quality is lackluster, especially at night. And the image quality is marginal (at best) for identifying perpetrators though it's still the best I've seen in this price range.

Length:: 0:29 Mins

I am pleased with this purchase and added two cameras to the system for the max 4 camera system. For the price ($249 on Amazon for 2 cams and monitor) it is well worth it. Those who are looking for HDTV quality picture should keep looking, but it will COST you. For what I use it for it is perfect. I set it to record motion at night and when we are away from home.
***update**** I now leave the cameras set to record motion 24/7. With a 16GB card I have more than enough memory to capture a month's worth of normal activity.
Don't judge the picture by what you see on the little 7 inch monitor. Just use the monitor for alerts or reviewing. If you capture something worth looking at twice you can insert the card on your computer to see it on your Computer screen or just connect the cable (provided) from the 7" monitor to your big screen TV and you will see very good detail. At least as good as any surveillance video I've seen on the six o'clock news. I really like the two way audio as a safety feature for my wife and kids to "answer the doorbell" when I am not at home and a stranger rings. I'll try to add sample video clip of a nightshot I captured of me testing the sensor on my motion sensor activated porch lights. It will give you a laugh as well as an idea of it's night vision.

I love that the system is ridiculously easy to set up and well priced. But I'm bummed that while I have two cameras set up, I can only record one camera at a time, essentially rendering the second camera useless.

While I appreciate the effort, the motion detector is a joke. I am recording both sides of a street corner, and it often activates unnecessarily on one camera, but does not always activate when there is someone walking right in front of the other. Because my motion detector is schizophrenic, one camera is randomly activated recording nothing of interest, and temporarily prevents the second camera from capturing something that might be important. I wish that you could continually record a few seconds of each camera in automatic mode (where the monitor switches back and forth between the two), but you cannot. Automatic mode ONLY records using motion detection, which, as mentioned, doesn't work well for my particular needs.

Instead, I am forced to choose just ONE camera to continually record with, which is fine. I've chosen the most important camera, and it records 24 hours a day. My biggest complaint is that when that camera is in record mode, the monitor does not allow me to so much as VIEW camera two! Since I can rest assured that camera one is capturing everything and anything whether it needs to or not, it would be nice to at least have an eye on camera two, even if its not recording! Instead, I don't have a clue what's happening on camera two, because the other one is recording. Quad mode only records with the lame motion detector, and does not allow you to record from one camera and still see the other.

I have also noticed that the monitor flickers continually if it doesn't like the exact lighting configuration of what I'm recording, and this drives me nuts.

There are couple of important issues associated with this camera set that requires a close attention and consideration. This product has a motion detection feature which is one of the failing features that is greatly important feature for me to serve the purpose. this item supports only up to 16GB SD memory card, and it records when motion detection sensor detects a moving object. I installed both cameras at close distance and set up to record automatically, but it wouldn't trigger the auto recording function even when we were moving right in front of the cameras. You really have to be at close distance to get it working. If the item had an internal or at least external attachable hard drive then it would serve the purpose. Otherwise if you setup to record perpetually, it won't record up to 24 hrs because of the limited memory capacity. Therefore, consider the distance and moving objects nearby before you buy it. It won't work in driveways or farther street views because the motion detection sensor will not detect far moving objects.

I have a remote controlled gate at the end of a long driveway (appx 50') and placed a camera at the end to see visitors and hopefully be able to communicate with them. I was able to do both after a very easy installation. Motion detection is great. Records with ever trigger. I did buy the 16 mb card. I bought from costco online since it is only $299 there. I liked it so much I bought another one just for the cameras since it is about the same price to buy the cameras separately. Last night it rained and I heard this funny noise coming from the front door. IT was picking up the rain at the camera locations! I did not see a sensitivity adjustment unfortunately. For the price I cannot expect it. I cannot tell you how nice to see quad pics from around my property and to know if something does happen it will be recorded. Love it!

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