Luma Surveillance Reviews

We are an AV firm and Luma was one of our major surveillance system offerings, that is until LumaSurveillance became pretty much unusable. The hardware is great, essentially rebranded Hikvision. But the most important thing, accessing the camera system, at least as of the last few years, is almost impossible. You'll notice there was about a three year gap in any app update until around four months ago where they've released a few. None have made any noticeable improvements. Hours spent with tech-support with promises of them "looking into it". Our customers invested a lot of money in these camera systems only to be totally frustrated in the end. Even more frustrating for us as an integrator is that there's nothing we can do, and nothing the manufacturer is offering to help with. Dev team, just get rid of LumaSurveillance and build a new one from scratch.

You would think that in the 2020’s it would be fairly simple to come up with an app that connects a house-mounted camera to your phone, tablet or laptop. You’d be wrong! My AV contractor recommended this product and it is a complete disaster. No way to figure out how to sign in to it; once you are in the connection maybe lasts a day or two; good luck trying to figure out how to reconnect to it; and in the rare moments when it is connected the interface is so clunky I can barely see what’s going on, and good luck trying to review activity over the last day or so. I paid a lot of money for this product and it has yielded nothing but frustration. Am going back to my off-the-shelf Nest cams.

Just had an 8 camera, 4K video system professionally installed. Sometimes LumaSurveillance will load the camera images, sometimes it won’t. Also it’s about the least intuitive app I’ve ever seen. The problem is not my internet speed, 800MBS, it was tested by the installers and they confirmed its excellent. I will likely have this system removed and exchange the equipment for something that works.

All these negative reviews are spot on. I paid $8K for this system & cannot view videos or load the system. the remote playback feature does not work so i can only view live video. And that only works half the time. my internet system and wi-fi are state of the art. This is the worst product I have ever bought in my entire life. Avoid at all costs. DO NOT give this company a dime.

If you have an installer pushing this system, HIRE A DIFFERENT INSTALLER

LumaSurveillance is almost useless. Cameras either don’t load or take forever. Which does NO DAM GOOD if I hear a noise outside and want to check it out. By the time you see anything, if you ever do, on LumaSurveillance , you would be dead from the burglar

I have another app that can access the camera immediately. So WHY CANT LUMAs APP DO THE SAME????????? Save your money. Go elsewhere. Snap doesn’t care about their customers

We purchased the system on the recommendation of our technology company, and thus far it has been an absolute disaster. It kicks us off of the cameras randomly and it’s almost impossible to log back in without getting technical support. Once you get technical support, it lasts for maybe a day or two then
back to the same issue. LumaSurveillance is not use your friendly. Avoid at all cost.

If ZERO stars were an option, I would give LumaSurveillance -10. The camera quality is OK but LumaSurveillance is absolute trash. I can view my ring camera footage in seconds but to takes forever to view anything on the Luma App. It doesn’t support Mac so if you want to download the videos, you need a PC. I have a 20 year old Windows laptop I that I only use to download videos. Luckily, it’s not too often. This company should ashamed of itself.

It’s honestly hard to imagine what could be updated on LumaSurveillance to make it worse than it already is, but I’m sure the developers will think of something. If you’re considering this for home security purposes, my suggestion would be that instead you invest in an Etch-a-Sketch and leave it by the door with a note, requesting that would-be thieves and vandals use it to sign-in, so that you have a reasonably accurate record of what happened on your porch.

I have had this system for several years (set-up by the company that manages my home security system). LumaSurveillance has been problematic since day 1. To use it, I usually have to first close LumaSurveillance fully and then reopen it. If you just go to use it otherwise, it won’t work. LumaSurveillance itself is clunky and hard to navigate- it hasn’t improved at all and is a far cry from the kind off app you get from Ring or Blink for example. An app overhaul is really needed.

Purchased an existing house with the security camera setup with Luma: please if you are considering any security camera system that rely on Luma app, AVOID IT AT ALL COST.
I do work in tech and this is one of the worst app you can think of :
- user experience is CRAP
- app behavior is unpredictable
- trying to view past event is a game of luck; sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t and of course no reason
- app updates are non existent
- and the list goes on

I was not aware how crappy the builder did by selecting that system but right now I am replacing almost all the security camera area with some other system: actively considering Nest Camera (older models), Wyze (with SD card) and Ring.

Please do yourself a favor and AVOID Luma system if you don’t want to cry every time you use that app.

...as in as soon as you open LumaSurveillance you are teleported to the state of the art ten years ago. Horrifying user interface from almost all perspectives. No, you can’t pinch to zoom anywhere. Yes, landscape aspect ratios are oddly squished if viewed vertically. Saving to the camera roll takes an extra step....and the list goes on.

I wonder if any of the people that work here have opened up a modern cloud app and seen a modern UI. There is no excuse not to bring this level of service and quality to an NVR system which should actually have less bandwidth overhead than Nest etc.

I would be better off using this as a doorstop or a new frisbee than using it for a security system that is reliable. I was told Arlo and Blink are too “DYI” to be any good. If so I have no idea what I have other than a piece of junk.
The amount of connection errors I have plus the near impossible playback controls with LumaSurveillance equates to daily frustration and zero reliance on my house being safe. Luma should be embarrassed by this product. As I look at the versions it is a telling sign with the manufacturer has not updated LumaSurveillance in 2 years.

I have struggled with LumaSurveillance for 7 years. Connectivity can be hit or miss, sometimes requiring a reboot of my devices (both IOS and PC). Playback is so poorly designed that many times it may work once, but when you switch to another camera, it stops working. Plus, the selection process of devices and cameras is hit or miss.

It was installed by my AV consultant, but I would never buy it again, knowing what I know now.

Am augmenting my surveillance with Nest cameras. Not entirely thrilled with them either, but at least they work reliably, and the software is logical and clean.

Why do I have an app on my phone to view my cameras at home? To actually view my freaking cameras!
Why do I have to open, close out and then reopen LumaSurveillance 20-30 times before I can see some of my cameras, not even all of them???

Snap, your cameras are awesome but LumaSurveillance is absolute garbage and has been for years. Whoever developed it should be drug out in the street, tarred and feathered and then made to eat gravel for a year as punishment for being so epically useless at their job.
Now I see you have a new App in beta… that one gonna actually work? That one gonna work with the older generation cameras and NVR?

This is so bad. LumaSurveillance has some other relatively stupid functionality quirks, but if you figure them out you can get around it - such as trying to set the beginning time for a playback. But the most annoying thing is that if I’m sitting in my house and I want to access my cameras, I have to disconnect from my Wi-Fi. What? Wi-Fi should be the BEST solution not a solution that isn’t even available. With so many bad reviews, the dev team needs to take this seriously and revamp the entire app. There’s other solutions out there… heck Nest is a fraction of the cost and works almost flawlessly.

As of the last update, on my IPad, when I select to see the recorded video from a previous time period it flips my screen to a vertical presentation instead of horizontal. It cuts off the fields where I should be able to fill in the dates I want to see. I normally view my screen in the horizontal position.

I am 8 hours from my cameras. Periodically, I need to record surveillance. No problem doing that, however, LumaSurveillance doesn’t export to the phone. Photos are the only thing you can export. The website will not work on an Apple computer. The only browser it will work on is Internet Explorer, and as of November 24, 2018, that doesn’t work either.

Took me a while to figure out all functions. I was frustrated and considered going a differnt direction but stayed the course. I am good with it. I use connected directly to my IP address both at home and away. The Ovrc sign in method was a bit quirky. Overall it's a good and reliable app.

I’ve been in the custom A/V industry for over 25 years. Yes, LumaSurveillance has some issues, but you should always design a project with an NVR in mind and cameras connected directly to it. I love the OvrC platform, and the ability to add additional storage is a major plus. This brand is not for the end user— it is for an integration company to design, install, and service. If the end user is upset they should contact a reputable firm that is an authorized reseller.

New LUMA VMS app for Mac and windows works on both OS, and yes you can zoom with the LUMA app with no problem.. if you have problems with LumaSurveillance, you probably have a terrible network, and should learn about network setup before setting up surveillance. Great product