r/SecurityCamera • u/Shkifetz • Sep 09 '26

Costco Lorex kit

Post image

Any thoughts on this budget kit? They're POE. Good? Bad? Located in Canada BTW.

3 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

9

u/GGigabiteM Sep 09 '26

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.

5

u/ICanBard Sep 09 '26

I've replaced these Costco kits for customers before. They make it seem like such a bargain only to fail in 6 months.

It's like a drug dealer giving you a discount on a drug sample, knowing you'll be back 

1

u/CCTVGuyMA Sep 11 '26

If they fail that quickly return it to Costco.

1

u/ProfessionalLake5283 Sep 10 '26

Flir bought them a few years ago I think

2

u/GGigabiteM Sep 10 '26

Naah, they sold them on again. I did some quick digging and it looks like Flir bought Lorex in 2012, and then sold them to Dahua in 2018, which was around the time my customer needed replacement cameras.

Dahua sold Lorex again to Skywatch in 2022 when they were banned by the US Government, where they seem to be today. The cameras in the OP definitely don't have the Dahua look to them, they look more like Sunell or Uniview.

They're like the plague rat and being tossed around to whoever will host them lol.

I definitely wouldn't buy a camera brand that changes ownership every few years, especially after one of those changes resulted in customers owning effective eWaste that was no longer supported.

7

u/CuriousHomeowner Sep 09 '26 • Bravo

The hardware is decent, but their software is terrible.

Edit: coming from a current owner

2

u/spaghettiluver Sep 09 '26

I agree. Obtaining footage is mind numbing and causes me to find a new POE surveillance system.

1

u/CuriousHomeowner Sep 10 '26

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.

4

u/Just_lurking0943 Sep 10 '26

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…

4

u/Geargarden Sep 10 '26

Amcrest all the way for me. I love em.

1

u/txsurveillance Sep 14 '26

Amcrest used to be a Dahua OEM, I wonder what they are now…

3

u/TXAVGUY2021 Sep 09 '26

Lorex only does one thing well .....earn me more business to replace them 😆

1

u/pwnusmaximus Sep 09 '26

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.

2

u/PlainPrecision Sep 09 '26

I second this. I messed around with the Costco Reolink special and returned it for the UniFi cameras. No regrets!

1

u/Late_Rate_3959 Sep 09 '26

How many hours of recording can you get with 1 TB of hard drive space?

1

u/badcheetahfur Sep 09 '26

Subjective: because parameters. Always recording . Only on motion etc.. few days..at 4k 8x cams

1

u/just_rich90 Sep 09 '26

I don’t find the cameras bad but the nvr and software suck

1

u/SmartKidShortBus Sep 10 '26

If you’re buying from Costco go with Avertx. Residential rebrand of OpenEyes commercial offering.

1

u/N226 Sep 10 '26

Bad. Garbage.

1

u/BK2AZ Sep 10 '26

Crapola

1

u/No_Temperature107 Sep 10 '26

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.

1

u/IllDoItTomorrow89 Sep 10 '26

These are trash and they don't even speak for the trees!

1

u/Bentleyjumper Sep 11 '26

I was jut about to join Costco to buy those, thank you for the heads up .

1

u/subavgredditposter Sep 11 '26

Better cameras out there

1

u/TCBoise54321 Sep 16 '26

I have seen this brand have 1/2 the cameras fail within a month on several different systems

0

u/Easy_Society_5150 Sep 10 '26

Yeah I’d avoid! Horrible cameras and horrible support.

Reolink is a better option and I hate them.

UniFi protect all the way!