Although I came on this thread 3 years late. WD products are not ARE NOT worth it. I purchased the 8MB 4 cameras, 6 terabyte purple harddrive 4k readyview security system and it's not a good product. Infact Western Digital and Microcenter bricked so many systems via IP. Like a subseven backdoor virus. Note... all of the security feed was being secretly shared with law enforcement and government agencies... out of nowhere customers nvr and cameras don't work no more. If anynone sees one for sale skip purchasing anything from western digital or microcenter. Avoid buying the system at all. In fact stay away from anything that is tied to a cloud or can be remotely controlled. These same convenient features are the very same reasons that people are complaining about being stuck with very expensive bricked products... Another camera company did this as well call ICee. When businesses discontinue products it's not always a deal to buy it...
WD ReadyView Cameras / NVR
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- May 12, 2016
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This product was being discounted to fire sale prices when this thread was started and was discontinued some time ago and is unsupported (meaning no software updates). I think some of your other comments are inaccurate and misrepresent things that may have happened. Ring is the company that was secretly sharing video with law enforcement not WD.
I don't think WD deliberately tried to brick any of these devices, but did abandon them; there are a number of things that could have happened. First while a device like an NVR may not get software updates your web browser is constantly being updated, inevitably things will break eventually. It's possible for something like an expired certificate to cause some significant headaches and function as a bit of a time bomb. Blocking the NVR from connecting to the internet or setting the date wrong on the NVR and your computer temporarily may allow you to resolve this type of issue. There is a review on Micro Center where someone had problems when cameras were unplugged and plugged back into different ports. I'm sure there a solution to this it's just poorly documented. It should be possible to plug the cameras into a PoE switch and monitor them using software like BlueIris instead of the NVR (may require camera disassembly and finding the reset button). The cameras are actually made by UniView.
Of course in 2023 you can get much better cameras (as you could in 2019) and shouldn't buy this, but the hard drive in this may be more reliable than some of the newer models and could be removed from the NVR.
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I bought one of these a couple years ago. It has been good for me. The system is a rebranded Uniview system, it may have been discontinued by them as well.
This system DOES have a web interface, but the plug-in required for it to work will only work with Internet Explorer. Fortunately I have been able to run Edge in IE mode to access it. As for regular viewing, I use EZ Station 3.0. Also, there is a HDMI port and USB mouse support. Honestly, the Web interface works best.
Anyway, unless someone points me to some real documented security risk, I will continue using it.
Bringing up this old thread...
Years later, I'm trying to move on from the WD Readyview NVR. A year or so ago, I bought a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE. Recently they added support for third party cameras in the UDM! The problem is that I can't get the cameras to play nice. They are on a different IP address range, using 172.16.0.xxx where the UDM is on 192.168.xxx.xxx. If only I could get the cameras to switch the IP range, I think I would be in business.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Years later, I'm trying to move on from the WD Readyview NVR. A year or so ago, I bought a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro SE. Recently they added support for third party cameras in the UDM! The problem is that I can't get the cameras to play nice. They are on a different IP address range, using 172.16.0.xxx where the UDM is on 192.168.xxx.xxx. If only I could get the cameras to switch the IP range, I think I would be in business.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
- May 12, 2016
- 4,618
- 3,972
The cameras should have a web interface. You should be able to log in and change the ip address.
BTW, I'm referring to the individual cameras, not the NVR. You'll have to power the cameras with a POE switch, put a PC on the same subnet and/or factory reset and attempt to access camera's web interface.
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