Night Owl HD Reviews

by StephanBrown

The Night Owl system itself is pretty good. Here are the biggest concerns with NightOwlHD .

Motion notifications: I often get a notification but when I press it, it opens NightOwlHD and goes to the previous camera, or plays a video from earlier in the day, or sits there spinning. Even worse, the notification doesn’t indicate which camera had motion so you don’t even know which one to go check manually. This really makes the system almost worthless to me and seems like it would be so easy to fix. (This is not occasional. This is well over 50% of the time). (The other two camera systems I have both list which camera right in the alert and pull it up flawlessly in NightOwlHD when there is motion).

Live View: NightOwlHD constantly (several times a day) goes back to blank on Live View and I have to manually go in and add all the cameras back in to the view. To make matters worse, it’s about a 50/50 shot whether NightOwlHD will respond when I go to add a camera or I may have to come back and do it a few minutes later. Makes it really hard to trust the system when it’s so buggy and you don’t know if it will be there when you really need it.

by Blisterd*ck

I so wanted to give a good review, but this system and app are terrible. The cameras are OK, not great. NightOwlHD , which is supposed to notify you of activity via alert notification, only works when you are actually in NightOwlHD . Whenever you leave NightOwlHD , it disconnects from your cameras. This also means that if you hear a noise in another room and want to quickly check what it was, you have to keep restarting NightOwlHD until MAYBE it connects. While I haven't had issues with skipped video, it's impossible to sort through the video at all, so if it did catch someone while you were away, you would need to watch through the whole day to actually be made aware of it. I had a recent break in and this system fails to make me feel safe. At the price it's at and the amount of customers they have, they should be able to meet even our lowest standards. They do not. Seriously, don't waste your time. Return this system now.

by Spas369

Save your money and do not get this camera system when I try to view my cameras on my device it’s constantly coming off disconnected. When I do open the camera system off and it comes up it takes forever for the actual picture to show up by then it is too late. Buy a camera system worth your money just don’t by this camera system. For example when I hear a noise outside I pull up my camera system to see if there is anything going on to where I need to call 911 rather than going to my door by the time the pictures show up on the camera everything is over and I could’ve went outside to look myself and jeopardize my safety. I plan on buying a new camera system and throwing this one in the trash where it belongs so don’t buy this camera system where you will be doing the same thing that I am going through it is not worth it.

by P Rodriguez

NightOwlHD is completely outdated, when you open NightOwlHD it does not open the camera view, you have to select the veiw, and then it loads the cameras! The push notifications stop working one day, and has not worked every since. The last app update was 1 year ago, developer, you need to revise NightOwlHD with the new OS updates. Also needs a revamp of the appearance, it looks like an app for iOS 4.

Update February 22, 2020: NightOwlHD now crashes, I’m unable to use it! The system is awesome, but NightOwlHD needs a major overhaul. I don’t know why Night Owl still has a lot of problems with NightOwlHD , and refuses to revise and update NightOwlHD . I’m in a point that I’m going to throw a good system on the trash and get a new one with a company that offers better support.

by SeaJay0343

When I bought this camera system two years ago I believe NightOwlHD was at 3 stars, unfortunately it has declined over time and now sits at 1.7 which is poor. My wife and I are probably just going to sell the entire thing because it is frustrating trying to connect when we are on vacation. We always get the same “disconnected” error when it clearly is connected straight to our modem. There are systems line Blink that you can connect to within seconds. Night owl however, if you don’t get the common disconnected error then it’ll take a while. I don’t recommend using NightOwlHD for safety. As someone mentioned in the reviews that if you needed to see what a noise was from outside your home chances are it’ll be too late. NightOwlHD is what’s going to kill this product. The cameras are great and quality as well but NightOwlHD is a major fail.

by 250 Miles And Nothing

I bought and installed this system so I could keep an eye on my second home 250 miles away from where I live . Cameras work ok , but app is pure junk. Initial set up and motion detection activated constantly. Went back into the set up and moved motion select to medium hit ok and that was the last time I received any notifications of motion alerts. Call support and spend a good deal of time with nothing changed . I wanted to factory reset it , but I can not find out how to do that. Video that is captured when motion is supposed to have happened shows nothing I have given up on trying to get this system to work. Wish I had never bought this system but to late to take it and get my money back. Believe me I would not recommend this system to anyone

by La Flakiis

I just bought this system last 1 week ago and it has its advantages and disadvantages. But the main reason why I bought them was to see from each door we have. It seems to always happen at night when the box goes down all of a sudden and I can not see the front door camarera with NightOwlHD ....mater of fact I can no see any camarera with NightOwlHD at night! During the Day I have my TV on and watch the cameras from their but beside that I can’t see it either way!

System is a little pricy would be nice if they would take the time to fix NightOwlHD ! Might just return the product tomorrow since it does me no good! I keep receiving notifications about “motion detection” mainly at night but the camarera will NOT load! During the Day I have also noticed that it does not send an alert for the motion detection. I can see the cameras but just no alert is sent to my phone.

by Post Pro

I am having the same issues over the years much like everyone else. I’ve had the hardware for several years now. It is an adequate system, but you will be replacing the external power supply for the cameras about every 18 months. But NightOwlHD is a whole other store. It borders on useless most days. It disconnects from the cameras / system constantly. About every 45 days you will surely have to uninstall and then reinstall everything. It will notify you of movement when no one is there but not allow you access to the cameras so you will be hopping in your car for frequent visits unless you have another security system in place.

This has been my experience over the last several years. That is why I am sitting in my office on Christmas Day writing this review. The system is crapped out again. 🤬

by Cplcota

I used to enjoy NightOwlHD (easily 4-5 stars) and worked well for what it is. However, as soon as I updated to iOS 14 NightOwlHD has become almost unusable. Lucky to get the feed to load - when I do, it is frozen and unusable. Still works well on old iPad that is not updated and Apple computer. But please please please - provide an update for ios14 compatibility so NightOwlHD works again!!!

update: Developer response generic and shows little interest in customer feedback for acceptable user testing. I will need to look to another competitor on my next upgrade. While the system is decent directly to the monitor - NightOwlHD is a critical aspect of the need to the consumer. Without being useable or updates being provided the system becomes obsolete. Thanks NightOwl! Enjoyed it while it lasted.

by Solbeto

In reading the reviews here I noticed a lot of complaints about NightOwlHD being outdated and from a consumer stand point I can’t comprehend why such an irresponsible responses Night Owl is giving.
I understand that newer wifi type digital systems are out and from your business stand it’s probably more lucrative for customers to migrate to newer systems, and apps that only work with your paid cloud service thus generating more profit for you. You have to honor and service each and every system you advertised and sold until they all literally die or there is no way to fix them.
It’s very easy to advertise your product as a no-fee system and then as your financial goals change just “leave us hanging in the sun”....
Fix NightOwlHD asap so our systems will continue working properly.

by Jotctjb

The HD cameras on the Night Owl system look and work great. But this review is for NightOwlHD which does not give me remote access to see my camera displays. This is a priority function needed for a home security camera system, and one promised on purchase of this system. I have 8 cameras installed professionally around my house but can only view the camera feed from my home. This is a gaping hole in the expected security standard I thought installing these cameras would provide. What a shame.

NightOwlHD never has worked properly no matter how many times I have gone through the setup wizard, re-downloaded NightOwlHD and completely reboot the system. I think it’s time customer service reaches out with a solution and/or provides options/reimbursement for a rather expensive cost of installation and setup.

by Thasro

My system is outstanding. All 8 ports have a camera connected to it. Wish the system had more than 1TB of space. The system works great and I have no issues reviewing records while I am at the system itself. My issue is when I want to view it from the mobile app. It really needs to be updated for the larger screen devices. It should also stay connected for a few mins after closing NightOwlHD instead of terminating the connection immediately. I have the fastest internet connection available in my area but the lag time is horrible when viewing recordings remotely with NightOwlHD via my cellular data AND when I’m connected to the same WiFi network.

by Cadillac Master

The camera love view after the most recent update is pretty much unusable. I used to be able to swipe back and fourth between the blank camera views and it would pop up. This no longer is the case. It won’t ever load unless you click on ‘device’ and then wait for the device to become available. Once it does you select it and then it connects but it defaults back the 6 camera view not the 4 camera view I had it on. From there NightOwlHD works ok until you close it. Once you close it this song and dance starts all over. This recent update is horrible!!! Fix it!

by Smatson1002

The camera system is pretty good....

NightOwlHD on the other hand not so good. The notifications only work sometimes. The videos you save can’t be sent in a text on the iPhone. When viewing live video NightOwlHD doesn’t keep the phone from going to sleep, if you want to continue viewing you have to manually turn that off in the iPhone settings. Would be nice if you could also set the cameras to always come up in HD mode instead having to change it every time you open NightOwlHD . When you do get notifications it doesn’t tell you which camera had the alarm then when you swipe to open the notifications it just sits and spins nothing ever opens.

by BUrNNiNNaToR

I still cannot load my cameras at startup. I click on ‘device’ and select mine then it works.

App is not optimized for iPhone X.

App always silences other audio apps, even though my cameras do not have microphones and doesn’t playback audio.

I have 4 screens of 9 cameras but only have 8 cameras. I suppose I could use the other screens to ‘rearrange’ my camera setup.

The ‘Help’ selection is not help, it’s a tutorial on using NightOwlHD , it’s helpful but could benefit from a redesign.

Need the ability to save video to iPhone ‘Photos’ app.

Need better controls in playback. Need multi camera playback too, at least four cameras.

Should be able to save video quality to HD. Especially when connected to WiFi, video quality should be HD.

Playback controls should be reorganized in order. Such as: previous clip, rewind/reverse (by the way it just slows down the video), play, pause, slow motion, fast forward, next clip.

Remove ‘audio’ if cameras don’t support audio. Remove PTZ if it’s not available.

In portrait mode, set camera screens to widescreen format.

There, now you don’t need to figure out what to fix or how to.

by Love Grace 😊

I think the system is great but NightOwlHD is not and without NightOwlHD being efficient then the system is of no use!
First of all it is ridiculous that I have to constantly re-select the cameras I want to see for my live view....perhaps there should be a save button to save the cameras you’ve selected and edit button to change them around...or it should just save automatically.
Next when I get an alert on my phone 99% of the time when I go to check I can’t see the video, it’s just loading even when I’m connected to WiFi so I know it’s not an issue of me not having service on my phone.
If these issues were fixed NightOwlHD would receive a 5 star rating from me....please update NightOwlHD to fix these issues!

by Fucthamucker

Whenever I open NightOwlHD to view my cameras I have to swipe to the next screen and stay there for about 30 seconds until I can swipe back to the main screen and get views of my cameras. Sometimes I have to hit the square and add/select the camera channel to view live. Not sure why that is but it eventually comes up and I would like it to come up automatically when I open NightOwlHD . Second thing is viewing recorded video. When using NightOwlHD or logging into the system I find it hard to scrub the video to the point I want to review. Either I go to far or not far enough and I have to wait u til the video plays out to see what I want to see. Is there a way to add a feature where we can actually type in the time we want to go to and have it jump to that time? That would make it so easy to review recorded video without having to wait until the video plays out to the point you want to review. Other than that, the system works great for me. Thanks!

by Bcgbubba

The cameras and system were easy to install (I have a construction background and running wires through, attics, crawl spaces, and walls is easy) and the internet connection was easy to set up. Now.....the instructions in NightOwlHD that tell you how to set up recording, alarms, phone notifications, remote playback, etc....those are terrible. There are a ton of grammar errors(English was not likely the tech writer's primary language), so it takes a long time to understand that a lot of the instructions are poor or missing. I honestly can't even figure out how to change the time stamp displayed on the video feeds....I feel like I'll eventually be able to use this whole system and it's features, but I'll have to figure it out on my own. One review was right...download NightOwlHD and explore it before buying this system or any system.

by Sorry4ever

I love Night Owl. And here's my review, written on June 16, 2017:
I wrote a review about two days ago but I do not see it anymore. I wanted to say that I had a problem a few days ago where I felt that I needed to delete NightOwlHD in order to resolve the problem. But deleting NightOwlHD did not resolve the problem. In any case, NightOwlHD is now working for me. I was very happy that the developer was conscientious and had the insight to get involved and resolve my problem even without my having to call Night Owl directly. Very good job. If I could find the words to express how I feel about that without sounding all mushy, I would do it right here. Thanks again Night Owl. You're great!

by Devinoid

I’ve been using Nightowl systems for close to 10 years. They just keep getting better! Their Mobile app has greatly improved its loading speed and stability. It actually works great. You can immediately record as you monitor and also take picture. I’ve done both with no issues from my office. The one feature I’d strongly wish they incorporate in later revisions is the ability to lock the displayed cameras so that NightOwlHD opens to that locked prearranged display to avoid having to manually set them. GREAT PRODUCT!

by Fawnya Only

The cameras work fine but NightOwlHD needs a ton of work. At first it worked great! Bought them a year ago in September after our house got broke into. Then notifications stopped coming, had to uninstall and reinstall, then that quit working so you had to just randomly check them to see if there was any activity around your house, now....I can’t even access them remotely anymore!! After Christmas, I will be buying a different brand of camera and throwing these away. They are pretty much worthless if you have to sit at the monitor every night or morning to see what’s going on while you’re sleeping or not at home. I will be writing a review of NightOwlHD everywhere I can. I’ve read the reviews, there are HUNDREDS of complaints.....not ONE fix!! You don’t care about the customers!! FIX this before these cameras become extinct because of this stupid app!!!!!