User-friendly NVR and remote viewing?

I've been tasked to recommend a small setup for a non-profit, likely 3-4 cameras max.
Personally, I run a Dahua NVR5216-4KS2 and several IPC-HDW5442T-ZE (from Andy). The cameras are fantastic, but I've never 'mastered' the NVR. The interface seems like a prettied up version of systems I set up 25 years ago.

Other than BI, are there 3rd party NVRs that have a more logical interface and one that delivers a smooth experience to less technical end-users?

Dahua (and Hik) seem to have a poor security / vulnerability track record. Any improvements in that area?
The most recent firmwares are 2 years old now for my system.

I'm trying to steer them away from 'lesser' cameras like Reolink, but the NVR & remote friendliness baked into those is hard to overcome.

Can we 'have both'? Great cameras and better NVR/remote features?

Gigapalooza said:

I've been tasked to recommend a small setup for a non-profit, likely 3-4 cameras max.
Personally, I run a Dahua NVR5216-4KS2 and several IPC-HDW5442T-ZE (from Andy). The cameras are fantastic, but I've never 'mastered' the NVR. The interface seems like a prettied up version of systems I set up 25 years ago.

Other than BI, are there 3rd party NVRs that have a more logical interface and one that delivers a smooth experience to less technical end-users?

Dahua (and Hik) seem to have a poor security / vulnerability track record. Any improvements in that area?
The most recent firmwares are 2 years old now for my system.

I'm trying to steer them away from 'lesser' cameras like Reolink, but the NVR & remote friendliness baked into those is hard to overcome.

Can we 'have both'? Great cameras and better NVR/remote features?

Click to expand...

How much are they willing to pay ?

So the general answer from business that sell security camera systems for a one time fee, is to expect limited upgrades.

Basically IoT business model .. make a product, sell, and do not spend much developing it further once the units are sold.

If you want constant updates then expect a monthly service fee .. and still sooner or later as the units age they will no longer be supported .. like pcs and windows os ..

I do not think there is a great solution for what you are asking for.

I've yet to have a Dahua NVR hacked.

The latest models are quite good, quite secure (more so than your average PC) and IMHO far simpler to use than most PC based VMS systems.

bigredfish said:

I've yet to have a Dahua NVR hacked.

The latest models are quite good, quite secure (more so than your average PC) and IMHO far simpler to use than most PC based VMS systems.

Click to expand...

At what point did Dahua NVRs become 'quite good'? And did firmware updates resolve the past issues?

mat200 said:

How much are they willing to pay ?

Click to expand...

I understand your point of view as a commercial business, but this is a volunteer effort for a non-profit.
I'm determining options and budget, and setting expectations accordingly.
Nowhere did I define expectations as 'constant updates and will work forever' - nor do they expect that.

As to the firmware updates (or lack thereof) - yes I expect to see more than 24 months of updates after spending $200 per camera. That's not unreasonable.
Having a service contract with a 3rd party does not fix that.

Gigapalooza said:

I understand your point of view as a commercial business, but this is a volunteer effort for a non-profit.
I'm determining options and budget, and setting expectations accordingly.
Nowhere did I define expectations as 'constant updates and will work forever' - nor do they expect that.

As to the firmware updates (or lack thereof) - yes I expect to see more than 24 months of updates after spending $200 per camera. That's not unreasonable.
Having a service contract with a 3rd party does not fix that.

Click to expand...

Yes I understand .. however it seems the options are limited

NVR systems .. Hikvision and Dahua oem are imho the best option for most, as they each have many models of cameras to pick from.

Blue Iris or other VMS on a PC + Hikvision or Dahua oem cameras which meet standards are good.

There are other vendors of cameras, however few here have reviewed them ..

Reolink .. while they are getting more versions of cameras they still have significant limits on better performance in low light. So for most of us that means they fail to meet our requirements on that.

Then there are cloud based cameras .. which often imho has good ui but bad image capture issues and reliability.

This is why I recommend getting to the core requirements and go from there.

For me it was getting chances at an ID image in both low light and daylight.

Gigapalooza said:

Personally, I run a Dahua NVR5216-4KS2 and several IPC-HDW5442T-ZE (from Andy). The cameras are fantastic, but I've never 'mastered' the NVR. The interface seems like a prettied up version of systems I set up 25 years ago.

Other than BI, are there 3rd party NVRs that have a more logical interface and one that delivers a smooth experience to less technical end-users?

Click to expand...

I saw many NVR interfaces from many brands and I must say that the latest Dahua NVR UI is the good one in NVR world...
Better (much easer to use, much nicer and much modern) is only Unifi Protect.
But Unifi protect is very proprietary system, which only works with theirs no so good cams.

In Dahua NVR UI there some problems in a few places... But every major firmware release brings many nice updates every year...

In Your case problem is that You bought very old version - 5xxx-4ks2 is a NVR from 2017... It had many major firmware updates up to 2022, but now is a deprecated model.. It was replaced by 5xxx-EI (-AI)..

Gigapalooza said:

Dahua (and Hik) seem to have a poor security / vulnerability track record. Any improvements in that area?
The most recent firmwares are 2 years old now for my system.

Click to expand...

Poor track record is a very old story for Dahua..
In a last 5 years they redone all private protocols, default settings on cams/NVRs. Now everything is encrypted..