Swann 16 Channel (8 PoE Ports / 8 Non-PoE Ports) NVR

[TonyB]

1. You'll be able to see all your camera's through the NVR interface (i.e. at the NVR's single 192.168.1.xxx IP address). You'll also be able to log into each camera on the LAN side individually at their assigned IP addresses as well. Some NVRs let you log into the camera's web interface connected to their integrated POE switch via an internal bridging technique (called Virtual Host on Hikvision NVRs), check with Swann.
2. Do the POE switches have any non-POE ports? My POE switches are 4 POE ports + 4 non-POE ports (8 ports total per switch) and I daisy chain the POE switches...4 POE cams on each switch, non-POE port one switch to the other non-POE port on the other switch and one non-POE switch port to the NVR's LAN port and another non-POE switch port to your LAN.

Ok, update time...

Since I have only 3 "additional" cameras at this time (8 in the NVR's POE ports, plus 3 others), I'm using just one POE switch now. FWIW, it's this one:

TP-LINK TL-SF1008P 10/100Mbps 8-Port PoE Switch, 4 POE ports, IEEE 802.3af, 53W

So, it has 4 non-POE ports. I used one of those to connect this switch to the NVR's single LAN port. Whether I have 1 or all 3 cameras connected to the switch, the HDMI out to our TV shows just the 8 cameras on the NVR's POE ports... I then went into Swann's administration screen to see if the software might be seeing the cameras, and I saw no such indication - just the 8 cameras on the NVR itself... So, not what we expected or hoped.

The good news is that I connected my router's LAN cable (previously on the NVR's LAN port) to the POE switch, one of the other non-POE ports, and I can see cameras on our computers and devices...

Thanks for the daisy-chain idea. Makes sense.

Given that I can't see these cameras on the NVR's LAN port, that's the problem now though. You sound rather confident that I should, I'm not sure what to make of this... Any ideas?

 

[alastairstevenson]

The good news is that I connected my router's LAN cable (previously on the NVR's LAN port) to the POE switch, one of the other non-POE ports, and I can see cameras on our computers and devices...

Normally you'd use the NVR camera configuration menus in the web GUI (or the Swann equivalent) to 'Add' the new cameras by their known LAN IP address and port and protocol so the NVR knows about them.

 

[TonyB]

alastairstevenson, thank you. I will play around more with the Swann menu to see if I see something...

Level 2 Swan support called a few hours early, asking if that would be ok, and it was for me. It was not all that helpful though. While I got her to state or agree that some have had success connecting a switch to the NVR's LAN port, she said that it is not something they can recommend or support. She said that she would try to find some instructions and email that to me though...

I then got a phone call from her about an hour later saying that Swann very much recommends using the non-POE ports on the NVR, and to supply power to each separately. For clarification, I asked if that meant that each port / camera should have its own individual power supply, as opposed to a multi-port switch or the injector device discussed earlier, and she said yes. Wow. She then said that each power supply (eight of them) needs to be rated at 12 volt and 1 amp. She would not recommend any third party equipment. Swann advertises this system as a 16 channel one, but they certainly don't help all that much to make that happen.

So, after that discussion, I really don't know if I'm going to hear back on how to make a POE switch work with this system. That remains my most desirable option, since I already have the POE switches.

I think my next step is play around more with the Swann configuration options to see if I can find anything that can help...

Edit / Add: Found a review on the Costco website with this commentary:

"After being told the only way the unit would work was to have everything home-run to the NVR, I figured out you can run multiple cams to a PoE switch and then run one line to a NVR camera port. To do this you just need to define each camera address. Very poor support Swann, but good product."

That is encouraging as that is what I was attempting to do originally. I need to learn how to define each camera's address...

Edit / Add 2: I have no idea why Swann didn't direct me to this document... I'm not good yet, but with the instructions here I'm now able to see the cameras on the POE switch. Just a matter of getting the IP info now, I would think...

http://www.swann.com/downloads/manuals/HD IP Cameras/Setting up the Swann HD IP cameras.pdf

Edit / Add 3: I'm being prompted to add the UID, for the camera. Where does one get that information - the UID for the camera? For the heck of it I tried for the NVR, and it of course said that it already exists... I'll try to add an image.