Swann Security Reviews

I bought this camera system for a vacation property so I could monitor it while not being there. The cameras went up easy and set up was easy. The issues I have is using them. Remotely, it’s very glitchy. Often it can take one to two minutes to do a playback. Recently I find I need to switch from mobile to high just to review it. Even then, it takes a long time to watch the video because it starts and stops, over and over. The other issue I have is that it constantly drops cameras. I’ve had 3 cameras that worked just fine and then they disappear from my app. Then miraculously come back days or weeks later. I just don’t understand it. I did an overhaul on the system a few weeks ago, even replacing Ethernet cables. It worked fine for a few days and then another camera disappeared. On that, there’s always one camera that constantly records video for playback and the others don’t. So one camera will leave 50 videos a day and zero for the others. I feel as though the the product is good, because from the NVR and monitor it works great, but SwannSecurity is terrible. I have Arlo cameras on my other house and I can adjust the cameras so many different ways from SwannSecurity . The Swann app is terrible compared to the Arlo app. You can’t hardly do anything from SwannSecurity , including watching your cameras.

Recent news—- I bought a brand new up to date 1080p and it still has problems with SwannSecurity. So even the new magnetic cameras doesn’t stay connected and doesn’t stream. Absolutely the worst security cameras. Don’t waste your money, DON’T rely on on Swann cameras to watch your house.... Below explains some of my issues with tech support. —. My 4 small 1080p magnetic CAMERAS DON’T WORK since swann went to the new app. I have been with the old app for like 5 yrs. and never a problem. I have these cameras to watch on my 92 yr old mother while I’m at work. I have talked to numerous techs since app switch in June and nothing they will not stream.” On Sept 22 I got a phone call from a tech named Frank who said his supervisor approved 4 new cameras to be sent to me. I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED THEM YET!” I called and ask for them to have Frank Marino call me, but i get no where!!!. The dummy’s that answer the phone keep wanting to warranty out my 1080p spotlight camera on my patio. BUT I’m not having problems with that one. However they send a refurbished spotlight camera and i never asked for it... Update spoke to a girl named Liz who said she would stay on top of this and was going to call me back, she never did and Frank still hasn’t called me back. Unreal these camera don’t work with SwannSecurity, but they were fine with the old app.

How are apps this bad still in use? Interface is terrible. App will log you out every other day or so, and best of luck in being able to log back in given that the system and user access are entirely separate so you will end up with 7 different passwords, none of which will work. Want notifications whenever something happens that you have your camera’s monitoring? Too bad. Maybe your neighbors will tell you what time someone was at your door and you can go back and search for that video clip, otherwise you’re out of luck. Even if you had a notification, SwannSecurity and Camera feed wouldn’t be able to actually load in a timely manner to make any difference. Let’s say by some magic you are able to log in and see something you want to record and then share across your neighborhood group.... best of luck. No export capability within SwannSecurity . Can’t export video even if you can find out how to make a video recording. Dissatisfied would be an understatement. If the install hadn’t have taken so long, I’d be replacing the entire camera system because SwannSecurity is so terrible.

I am not sure how SwannSecurity has achieved an almost 5 star rating or any rating above 3 stars really.

Within the last year, the rating had been hovering around 2 stars and likely plummeting due to much much much dissatisfaction from customers who used to use the Safe by Swann app, but had to migrate over to Swann Security. They have made much improvements to the Swann Security app, but it still stands no where near the Safe by Swann app in terms of reliability, responsiveness, and user friendliness. We have been open to giving SwannSecurity a chance, but about a year later, we are now reconsidering these Swann security cameras (again). SwannSecurity is slow, buggy, and we are almost never able to see live views. Most of the time, it’s just checking out recordings IF it even picks up recordings. I know it’s a Swann Security app issue because we didn’t have these issues with the previous app.

Overall, make sure you’re reading some of these reviews before buying any Swann security products. It’s a shame if you purchase something and you cannot adequately manage security through their app (that is supposedly worthy of 4+ stars).

I bought one floodlight with camera to try it out and was very happy for the most part except the application took forever to open at times and that was very frustrating especially after receiving a notification but......I decided camera was still good so I bought 3 more to place in different areas of home. I now regret doing it because the application seems to be worst. I get notifications (like 60+ at times) and try to open camera live view to see what’s going on and nothing, won’t open, just “spins” saying trying to connect then once it does finally display if at all I try to click on view individual camera and again takes forever to actually open up to view and use mic or just to monitor movement. Most of the time I end up just closing SwannSecurity because it’s too frustrating. Internet connection is good and I keep up with updates so I know it’s none of that to be an issue. I have since purchased a Ring and see the difference so definitely regret buying the swann products and WILL NOT be recommending to anyone!

I too am confused why SwannSecurity is showing 4.7 stars. This has been a terrible security experience. We’ve had these cameras for a little over a year now since we had our garage broken into. The cameras and app were great for the first 4 months and then started to give us error messages or update messages every week and the cameras stopped recording, even when motion would pass. Over the course of several months we just gave up on the cameras; every couple of months the cameras will all of a sudden come back online and give us 100 notifications in a row, and then essentially shut back down. Most recently I got a notification that an SD card had been removed, and we never even inserted one.

This is a terrible and unreliable system, we’re going to buy another one because we need to know that if anything happens outside our house, it will be recorded, and these cameras are unable to provide us with that piece of mind. Do not purchase!!!!

Over a year I was using these cameras and they work flawlessly they were awesome then someone (ceo) though it would a great idea to change it up so he could stick cash in his pocket. I went from haveing 3 really nice camera to nothing at all 2 of them are garbage even tech support told me this it all happen when they upadated there app! just 13 months of owning the cameras it was very horrible experience hours spent on the phone . And Schwann security would not send me any new cameras either and tech support are the one who were responsible for it . Needless to say there service is horrible and I will never buy one of there products again! They could of at least made it right now if you look at there cameras they cheaply built plastic the cameras I had were made out a metel enclosure. That what corporate companies do make it as cheap as possible once every one is on there service ! Thanks for nothing!

I never write app reviews, but when you spend $2000 on a security system that does not do what it is advertised to do is really sickening.

SwannSecurity has so many limitations. I cannot turn on enforcer lights, I cannot temporarily disable enforcer/siren etc if motion is detected, you can’t make one single change from the NVR on your phone. I can’t adjust any camera settings either!

To top it off the playback feature is completely worthless. Every time I go look through playback the video skips through the entire motion recording. I have to change from “mobile” to “high” and I’m lucky if the video even loads! I do not have this problem with the home view safe app.

To make it worse, having to navigate through every single play back video is unacceptable. You should look at the unifi protect application and how their programmers are displaying motion. You should be able to scroll through video feed that way.

On top of all of this, my cameras do not detect all motion even at the highest sensitivity. My cameras are mounted on fascia boards in the 2nd story and when people walk by on the sidewalk (which is like 15 feet away, motion will not be captured). Sometimes it doesn’t even capture objects.

Very unsatisfied for what I received. I payed a lot of money for this.

I don’t understand how SwannSecurity is so highly rated.

I download an app called TestFlight where I was able to install a beta test app for Swann. The new update solved most of my problems. I am able to use the playback button. There still is a delay between the camera and device you are viewing the cameras on. I’m not sure if is my WiFi or SwannSecurity .

SwannSecurity and cameras are useless! They are never on line unless you open SwannSecurity and then they still won’t come on line. Swann asked me to do a speed test on my internet so they can “diagnose “ the problem. Why should I correct their bad products. Only reason I have not brought these back to Sam’s is because my father in law gave them to us as a Christmas present. My wife wanted them up so I put them up. Know they are a $500 decorations on my house!

With the new update everything work fine and perfect and thank you so much for listening to us and updating SwannSecurity and fix all the problems but there is only one problem right now which is the notification for the off-line camera
I am receiving a lot of notification for the off-line camera every time the camera is disconnected from the Internet even for a second I receive a notification and normally I’m getting right now like 3 to 5 notification per a minute.
So please if you can fix that

I've had these cameras for many years and in the beginning SwannSecurity worked just fine. Then I noticed even after the update how poorly SwannSecurity operates. Playback doesn't work and now I can't even see anything on the cameras from my phone for days now. They all have a blank screen with a play button. For the amount of money I paid for the cameras I'm extremely disappointed and will be looking into another set of cameras with a totally different manufacturer. This kind of stuff shouldn't be happening. You should be able to look at the camera and check on your house with no issues. Update, I can see the cameras on my phone, but can't play back anything. How frustrating that I would have to use the actual system to playback anything and can't on my phone. Time to search for new cameras

SwannSecurity interface is simple yet there are bugs to address. First I would like to see if I can have all my cámaras on a fit to screen. Basically see all my cámaras at the largest magnification possible while fitting into a single screen. I also noticed that changing timing settings in motion detection and person detection resulted in multiple error messages
Otherwise I satisfied with this product and wouldn’t mind changing my review to a five star if the above issues are addressed

After buying 8 Swann cameras my app worked until recently. Once I connected my phone to my Swann device after moving I found the the application not only fails to load half the time. But the other half of the time it simply freezes and resets itself after 10-15 seconds. In fact it was so bad that during an active car burglary my app literally froze and I was unawares that the burglar had a gun. Had I seen this on my camera system I would have not gone outside to confront said burglar. Not only will I be replacing my cameras and security system next paycheck. But I would not recommend this system to ANYONE as it will fail you when you need it most need it. I would rate this 0 stars if I could. Terrible service and terrible product.

The camera quality is very good, but SwannSecurity quality is not good. App doesn’t pull up sometimes without disconnecting from WiFi which is very timely when trying to quickly see who is at our house when the notifications go off. Just this week we stopped getting any push notifications for any detections. I’ve tried deleting SwannSecurity and reinstalling, signing out and back in, adjusting all settings both on SwannSecurity and the receiver itself, restart the receiver and more... nothing has helped. At this point the entire system is essentially pointless for us due to not receiving notifications.

The system itself is good for the money, not the best interface but not the worst. SwannSecurity seems to work while using it but it absolutely refuses to be closed. Never since owning an iPhone have I had an app freeze and scramble my phone. When I close SwannSecurity it freezes my phone for 5-10 mins 100% of the time I use it. I’ve assumed an update will come out but it’s been a few years and nothing. SwannSecurity was a huge selling point for me and though it works until it decides not to, I can’t use an app that renders my phone inoperable for any amount of time. We’re planning to move and I think I’ll try a new system. Tech these days even the most affordable systems are getting pretty good.

Our system worked fine for about 8 months and then the camera kept going off-line with no alerts. I had to reboot the system almost every day by disconnecting the power to it for 30 seconds. I called customer service and they had me reprogram the entire system. It worked fine again for about five days and then the system started needing to be rebooted again every day to make work. Now after a 12 months, rebooting doesn’t even work. No motion alerts, only the live camera works when you manually open it and that seems random. Not worth the trouble anymore. It’s become a very expense spotlight.

Absolute horrible App. You cant view anything after a millie second SwannSecurity glitches and doesnt let you view. It glitches all the time horrible app. Im going to sell my cameras now not worth it. By the time you can view the camera it maybe bedtime and you may not see the burglar. Again horrible trust me its bad. This is horrible do not buy these cameras let alone dont download the swann app its very bad. Im surprised SwannSecurity is still running. I would never recommend SwannSecurity not even to my worst enemy is that bad. Trust me regular 1975 cable doesnt glitch like this absolute wwste of money my time and energy. I hope people read this and see im indeed more than this horrible app is worth. Dont down load thanks.

The Swann Security app has many flaws, it’s very glitchy and doesn’t even allow swiping up and down which blocks the viewing of other cameras. It gets stuck when you open it and I can’t even use the menu options most of the times. SwannSecurity needs to be fixed as it’s almost useless at the moment. I also suggest adding playback in which we can scroll through exactly what time we want to see as available in other security camera apps. Otherwise, the camera and hardware is great, it’s just SwannSecurity which is having many problems. As soon as this issue gets fixed, I’ll bump it up to 5 stars.

Deal breaker. My businesses are split (8 locations) between Swann and another brand. The Swann Security app will not allow me to see individual location NvRs I have to scroll through ALL 64 CAMERAS and hunt the one I need to see instead of being able to pick the NVR of the location I need and then looking at its cameras. This is counter intuitive, not business user friendly and unless I’m missing something, this cannot be changed. I don’t believe this was like this in the previous version. I’ll gladly change my review given this changes or can be changed. Otherwise will be suggesting the other brand to future franchisees and future stores.

Cameras are never connected. Cannot watch from phone while out of house, because cameras are offline, live view has stopped, play back mode never works and when it does decide to play... it’s super choppy starting and stopping. Constantly getting error messages instead of playback or live view. I just had motion detected at my garage but can’t see anything through SwannSecurity on my phone because I am getting “live view has stopped” message. Wish I had ordered a different brand of camera. Why have them to watch your house while not there... if you can’t watch your house? Defeats the purpose of having the cameras.

Can’t turn speaker off when in single view screen or on playback. Can’t maintain a video stream in live mode or playback. High image doesn’t work at all. Should play back next event like HomeSafe instead of stopping on the one playback event. Playback control not working at all.

Be great if event image could be beginning of playback video like night owl instead of the figure of a person.

Many of us have multiple devices and need to be able to select which device, and cameras on each device, to view or playback.

Need to sync playback on multiple cameras. When searching for an event and multiple cameras where set to record the event it would be great to know which camera triggered the event. Maybe a star on the trigger icon.

Need more screen layout options and Select if screen layout is to be by name or camera order. If viewing multiple devices the cameras on the devices should be shown separated and not mixed together.

Not sure why Swann is moving away from homesafe. It works pretty well. Just needs intelligent event search and faster way to playback an event.

I am a software developer for a major company. I don’t understand why all Swann apps are not updated when major bugs are present or when improvements to their devices have been made but not to their apps. Swann view has not been updated in almost 2 yrs. These apps are really poorly writing and so many people who have purchased their products are so dependent upon them.

The performance of this application overall is terrible. It is worse than a beta. It does not scale the camera images to the screen on iPad. On both phone and iPad devices, connection time is lethargic and resolution is poor even with extremely fast Wi-Fi coverage. Manipulating the settings for the cameras does very little good. Even on the lowest setting, hundreds of notifications per hour. If a tree branch moves or a moth flies in front of the camera, it will alert, forcing you to eventually, after a day max, disable all notifications, thereby negating one of the prime attributes for selecting this security system. Recordings are cumbersome, and it set to record on an alert, because of the hundreds of spurious alerts, and the lack of ability to scrub search with your finger on the timeline bar, you’ll have hundreds of videos a day that are impossible to review. Because of the terrible performance of SwannSecurity , the swan security systems are basically low res cameras that are slow to connect.

First Overall Swann obviously did a lot of hard work on this version. The playback and the user interface is a huge improvement. I run version 1.11.5 on both my iPad and IPhone. SwannSecurity works far better on WiFi then on 5G (verizon in the US). SwannSecurity crashes far more during 5G then on WiFi and sometimes does not work at all during 5G. The biggest issue on the IPad version only is that when you click on individual video channel you cannot get back to the main menu to choose playback, other channels etc. This bug is on the IPad only not the IPhone version.
Also the manual record does not work in the IPhone or IPad version. You get the following error message “Error Failed to start recording due device error”. These bugs need to be fixed. Once they do this I will give it at least 4 stars. Swann is on the right path. They need to do testing before releasing.

I like to be able to see what’s going on on my property while I’m away and while I’m home. I like not being able to worry about going out of town because i can always look and see. I had a camera system from a company that rhymes with snorex that had an app that was confusing and hard to use. The quality of video was poor. There were no notifications. Half of the time I couldn’t even view my cameras. With SwannSecurity I can view live and playback any time with no issues. SwannSecurity is simple and easy to use. I get notifications anytime my system goes down and I am able to do so much more than before. Highly recommend SwannSecurity and this company for all of your security needs.

Layout of screens and menus are ok however push notifications not working. Won’t sent notification to my IPhone 5s or wife’s 6. Originally was getting notifications for about a week then stopped on both phones. I opened a ticket with Swann and it went to level 2. They could not figure it out and originally suggested it was a problem with app software. Then they suggested I contact Apple to see if phones were blocking the pushes. I decided to load HomeView Safe and got pushes normally, thereby proving it’s not Apples fault. Support had no explanation and suggest I just live with it until another version update comes out and maybe the problem goes away. I just gave up and settled on using their older app HomeView Safe. Support was responsive and tried their best but bottom line is they couldn’t fix it and have no idea of the cause.

Two stars. SwannSecurity is only beneficial on WiFi. Not everyone can be on WiFi all day everyday. Security settings at work prevent SwannSecurity from working on the company WiFi. I work 9-10 hour days and drive nearly an hour for work. That’s a lot of time away from home and not having reliable resources to peek in on my home makes for stressful and worrisome days. Especially when there has been known issues of attempted break ins. Without properly working apps, the entire system is worthless to me. I have a $600 or $700 system and can’t rely on it the majority of the time. I guess I should have listened to everyone around me telling me not to buy a Swann and look into other competitors.

Fix SwannSecurity to allow compatibility for LTE data. And no don’t tell me to check my providers network signal. I have full signal, everywhere I go the signal is strong.

SwannSecurity is definitely a step up from the “home safe view” app, but please address these features:

1. Playback in the event history does not offer accurate time scrubbing through the event. Rewind pause etc do not work. A playback feature with a scrubbing bar that covers the entirety of the event and offers scrubbing without refresh issues would be appreciated.

2. Where is the recording feature to start playback “before” the event? On most playback events I see the back of someone’s head walking away... how about playing me what prompted it to begin with?!?

3. Why bother with “notifications” tab, if when you click on each notification the UI dumps you to live view? How about linking the notifications to playback of the actual events you are being notified about? Seems simple enough? Why is this still an issue?

4. What is all this extra crap text in the Notification Center with each push alert? Why do I need to see user, camera set, military time second and date BEFORE I see the text that someone is at my “front door”?
Just push an alert that says “Front Door”.

Thank you for your consideration.

I can only give it three stars again because I am having hard drive saving issues; where the HDR will crash, resulting in the inability to save video until the system has a soft reset, like unplugging it and plugging it back in. It will only record for about 48 hours before the HDR overlaps and then begins to overwrite; resulting in the HDR crashing and the inability to save future recorded videos. Playing back recorded video is what holds the most value.

Second issue is I cannot view live video from my phone in HD resolution, normal resolution is fine though. Other than that, I guess I would appreciate some more features. Feels like it’s been a while since an app developer update.

I’ve been with Swann for years now and they are a pretty good company, love the cameras. From viewing through the monitor it looks amazing, from viewing from this mobile app it looks pretty good but when I am on cellular and try to play the live view on high quality mode it just loads super slow and then just goes blank and tries to reconnect. I have an unlimited plan with great cell reception so it isn’t my phone, is there anything that can be done to fix this? Last thing, why are there so many apps!? It’s so difficult trying to find the right one. Other than that great company.

Ok, a few early bugs.

- 5 minutes after pairing my NVR SwannSecurity crashes.
- Two of my cameras are configured with generic names and not the ones from my NVR (Camera2, Camera4, etc.). Six out of 8 came over OK.
- I’ve repeatedly attempted to change the camera names to something meaningful but the change never saves.
- taping into a camera panel in live View locks you into that mode. There is no .

Imagine what I’ll find in the next 10 min.

If this doesn’t take any backward steps in the near future I’ll likely add 4-6 of the new WiFi PTZ cameras to my security package.

Swann is an extremely respected name in home video security, which is why I leaned toward them in choosing a system. Initially, their app was lackluster and left much to be desired.

But, as they have said, they listen to their customers. I somewhat ‘held my breath’ seeing if they would really listen. Listen they did! Last update to SwannSecurity (late 2019, latest version) was a VAST improvement (leaps and bounds IMHO) for user interface.

Just a few more improvements would make this a 5 star app. For example, when the system does it’s weekly update/restart, you have to manually go in to SwannSecurity in order to get notifications (almost like a refresh, would that be the right word?). I live in a high traffic/low crime area so I don’t check my notifications all the time or need to check SwannSecurity daily. A minor inconvenience overall, but enough to keep it just out of the 5 star range for me.

Keep up the great improvements guys!

This new update is way better my cameras look better and I can play back but the only thing not working is when I filter to only play motion or anything besides putting All it doesn’t work. I have to press All so I can see my play back! I have an iPhone X

Updates have been better but this last one it takes too long to log in it didn’t used to do that I don’t know if it was because the iOS update or SwannSecurity itself live stream still has bad quality but the playback feature shows in very good quality and I can zoom in

I have had the Swan surveillance system for 4 months now. I use SwannSecurity many hours a day. I can honestly say SwannSecurity works pretty darn well! The main problem for me is that I have to activate the screen by touching it every 30 seconds or so, since it goes dark. I had another system for years that wouldn’t lock the screen, while in Live View. Otherwise, very easy to setup, excellent quality, great picture. I would recommend, but hopefully they can add an option to prevent lock screen in Live View.

Wish SwannSecurity would actually work! Safe by swan conversion to this Swann security app had been a joke! Go through the setup and the wrong name for my camera WiFi is chosen. Selected manual setup and it won’t continue the setup process. Terrible experience with this update and conversion! Wish they would take their time preparing everything on their end before launching updates or conversions over to another app! Everything was working fine before all this mess! Could someone fix this already? I don’t want to have to wait until the end of June 2020 for my camera to operate correctly!

I am being forced off SAFE by Swann App to this crappy app that won’t even connect my HD INT cameras that I purchased with my money! Now these lame arse folks at Swann will make my cameras useless if they don’t fix SwannSecurity so I can view my cameras. It took me 30 minutes to try over and over to pair my one interior camera and it continues to fail on joining network! So I can’t pair my cameras they claim I have to because my old app will be discontinued, wow! Which Moron at Swann called that move. Please fix your app, I smell a lawsuit if not! Btw my old app took less than 2 minutes to reconnect it, it’s not my ability or camera, it’s your stupid arse app!!!