GoSwift 4K Bullet - Buyer Beware (Nelly's Security)

[Tuckerdude]

Hey folks....

I normally don't try to trash on companies especially when I've had good history with them. But, I've gone through all the proper channels and not received any response so I'm here to do my part to prevent others from wasting their money.

About 3 months ago, Nelly's Security started selling the GoSwift 4K Ultra HD Bullet Cameras for $99 a piece. Now, to be clear (and fair) I have been buying cameras from Nelly's for several years now and always had good luck and decent service!

But I bought a handful of these cameras to add to a new property and almost half of them failed right out of the box. The cameras would come up for a few minutes, then slowly start to drop frames and after a while they would go offline again. The behavior was consistent across each of the first batch of cameras that I bought.

I contacted Nelly's customer support and spoke with someone there. They gave me a few things to try, but in the end had no answers. They told me they would check internally and get back to me, but that was 3 weeks ago and so far nothing!

Now, I realize that $99 for a 4K camera is kind of like..."You get what you pay for", but I always thought Nelly's Security would stand by what they sell. It's been VERY disappointing and makes me think twice about buying from them again.

So as the headline reads...Buyer BEWARE!

 

[alastairstevenson]

But I bought a handful of these cameras to add to a new property and almost half of them failed right out of the box.

I'm tempted to suggest that these days, especially with a reputable supplier, the common cause for that may not be the cameras themselves, but something in the test environment.
How were they hooked up, and what did you change in order to reliably determine that the cameras were faulty?

 

[Tuckerdude]

Hey there...

Yes I agree with you, I always assume first that it's potentially something on my end and can tell you that I have thoroughly tested (and repro'd) these faults in several different test environments including 3 separate physical locations and on different hardware configs.

As cameras go, this is definitely NOT my first rodeo and I've had my way around dozens of cameras from different manufacturers. From VERY VERY pricey and high end 4K PTZ's to cameras like this. So yeah, pretty sure it's not on my end.

 

[Sean Nelson]

Hey Tuckerdude,

Sorry to hear about the troubles. Your experience is definetely not indicative of what we want anyone's experience to be. Its one of our rules to never let anyone hanging on anything as that has always been my pet peeve when dealing with customer service in any arena. If we told you we would call you back and we never did, then I completely apologize.

As far as the cameras go, I will be completely honest with you and I dont want to seem arrogant when I say this, but it would be rare that half of your handful of cameras would completely fail right out of the box. Given that we have already sold over 1000 of these cameras which gives me an idea of any consistent RMA issues, we have not seen anything of the like. But nonetheless, I wont rule out the possibility, if that is indeed the case, we have an easy warranty process in which you can feel free to either get them refunded or replaced.

I honestly feel that this is a configuration issue In my humble opinion, this is probably a disconnect between the cameras and your recorder. This is a common issue that we have seen and it usually has to do with your cameras settings and your recorder not being able to accept some certain settings. Namely, the H.265 encoding always gives fits on third party recorders. The camera needs to change to h.264 and you may have to change some other settings as well.

As far as your camera dropping frames, are you seeing this directly from the GoSwift Viewer or from your recorder? If its directly from the GoSwift Viewer, then I would say lets take a look at getting them warranted as that simply isnt normal at all with these cameras. Here is a link to our returns page, we will service the warranty no matter which avenue you purchased the Goswift cameras from:
Warranty & Returns

You can feel free to contact me directly if you wish as well.

 

[Tuckerdude]

Hi Sean...

I'm glad to see you jump so quickly on this! It feels more like the Nelly's I have come to know. I'd appreciate talking to you directly, so let's do that!

 

[Sean Nelson]

PM Sent

 

[alastairstevenson]

A result for IPCT !
And it will be interesting to hear of the outcome.

 

[Tuckerdude]

Hey Folks...in fairness to Nelly's I just want to say that I was able to talk to Sean and we discussed the issues I have been having.

No resolution yet, but at least we were able to connect and discuss next steps (a bit more testing and then return/exchange if needed). But both Sean and I agreed this was a "head-scratcher" that needs solving.

Thanks again to Sean for reacting so quickly!

 

[c hris527]

Hey Folks...in fairness to Nelly's I just want to say that I was able to talk to Sean and we discussed the issues I have been having.

No resolution yet, but at least we were able to connect and discuss next steps (a bit more testing and then return/exchange if needed). But both Sean and I agreed this was a "head-scratcher" that needs solving.

Thanks again to Sean for reacting so quickly!

Hate to bring up a old issue but was there ever a resolution to this? I have two of the same 4k cams that were bought by a client pre plague, Just setting them up now and it seems both are doing the same, I have a older one that I love and never had any issues with it.

 

[fenderman]

Hate to bring up a old issue but was there ever a resolution to this? I have two of the same 4k cams that were bought by a client pre plague, Just setting them up now and it seems both are doing the same, I have a older one that I love and never had any issues with it.

@Sean Nelson

 

[Tuckerdude]

Hi C hris527,

I don't have a definitive answer for you since I basically stopped buying that particular camera. However, anecdotally I will say that after testing a few of these in different scenarios here what I think (just my theory).

The camera seems to perform well if it's physically located near the POE source. Meaning, a reasonable cable length (20 feet or so) from the switch or other POE source. But if it gets too far away (like 40-50 feet), it starts to act up. I can't quantify this, but maybe there's just enough voltage drop over longer distances that the camera just resets! Again, this is just my theory and only based on having tried several of these in 3 separate installs.

Not sure if it helps, but thought I would post my thoughts here.

 

[c hris527]

Hi C hris527,

I don't have a definitive answer for you since I basically stopped buying that particular camera. However, anecdotally I will say that after testing a few of these in different scenarios here what I think (just my theory).

The camera seems to perform well if it's physically located near the POE source. Meaning, a reasonable cable length (20 feet or so) from the switch or other POE source. But if it gets too far away (like 40-50 feet), it starts to act up. I can't quantify this, but maybe there's just enough voltage drop over longer distances that the camera just resets! Again, this is just my theory and only based on having tried several of these in 3 separate installs.

Not sure if it helps, but thought I would post my thoughts here.

Thanks, I was racking my brain out last night, I used a power injector and my laptop and had no issues, its just trying to get them up and running on a Dahua NVR, timing out and dropping like ever other min, I have them configured proper, I'm using the built in poe ports right now but that may change, I get a drop then a failed to log in...time out. I checked the firmware on them vs the goswift site and it looks like its up to date. I grabbed it and brought it home on my system, same results, again my 1st gen of this cam runs perfect. Hopefully nelleys will chime in, they have been very good to me.

 

[c hris527]

Hate to bring up a old issue but was there ever a resolution to this? I have two of the same 4k cams that were bought by a client pre plague, Just setting them up now and it seems both are doing the same, I have a older one that I love and never had any issues with it.

So I do have a bit of a update, seems this is more of a Dahua POE (switch)port issue, Right now as it stands, over my LAN connected to a poe switch seems they stay up, I Can't even get the NVR (built in poe switch)to see them . This is on my Home network with a Dahua 32 Channel NVR. I do not use the poe ports on it so was surprised when they did not work.

 

[c hris527]

Seems for some reason, the Raysharps or GoSwifts do not like the Dahua built in POE switches or vise versa, same results with 2 NVR's . They drop and do not log back in or if they do its times out and re starts at different intervals. Using a separate POE switch and adding them manually was my fix for this issue. It was cheaper than telling the client that they had to buy 2 new cams. I will say for the price point those cams are very good. Perhaps a solution can be found for this but I have no time to mess with it now, I also have a older GoSwift I tested here at home but was running on a poe switch with no issues, I also tested that on the poe switch on the nvr and same issue after some time so 3 cams doing it.