WTH - $180 4 Channel Surveillance Kit?
Scanning through Amazon, the #1 selling surveillance DVR kit and the #3 overall surveillance video equipment (behind only 2 baby monitors) is a 4 channel kit for less than $180.
I know prices continued to decline but I did not realize anyone was selling such kits for under $200. It also "includes 4 indoor/outdoor night vision cameras with 60ft of cable per camera, a pre-installed 500GB security hard drive."
This makes the low cost QSee HD kit a high roller package at $699.
The manufacturer of the $180 kit is Zmodo, a Chinese company I have not heard of before that is evidently marketing/selling directly in North America.
Anyone have experience with this company or their products?
Zmodo isn't THAT new - just google the name and you'll find videos from 2011 on setting up their systems. I'm sure I've seen the name around long before that, too. A quick search on another forum finds 22 pages of posts with "Zmodo" dating back to June 2009.
Oh, and Zmodo has a 4 channel HD IP kit for $480 on Newegg. It's the same basic setup as the $699 QSee one but does not include a hard drive.
Oddly enough, I'm in NC visiting family and my father-in-law setup this same system (but it appears under a different brand name). Overall it has a "decent" image. The cameras are larger than neccessary by modern standards, but actually produce an adequate image. The little DVR has a direct TV interface and a web UI as well. For $200 it's really a solid little DIY system.
Zmodo are the SEO champs... some of the links I found below are heavy into Google AdWords and keyword search listings right on each of their respective splash pages.
These sites are all owned/operated by Zmodo:
- http://www.cctvhotdeals.com/
- HS361
- Global Shopping for CCTV Camera Systems, Wireless cctv, Home Security Camera System
- Global Shopping for CCTV Camera Systems, Wireless IP Video Surveillance, Home Security Camera System
- Global Shopping for CCTV Camera Systems, Wireless IP Video Surveillance, Home Security Camera System
- CCTV Shopping Mall on eBay
- Storefront on pricegrabber.com
This wayback link shows they had at least 2 US 'offices' in the US on 8/8/2011:
STE A,1401 Interstate Dr.
Champaign, IL 61822
Tel:217-903-5674
Fax:217-351-2929
Toll Free:866-551-6881
and
17870 Castelton St., Suite 200, City of Industry, CA 91748
This wayback link (about page) shows another US office around the D.C. area (no address; see map at bottom)
This wayback link (from this year, though when i go to zmodo.com it doesn't show this page) shows they use InstallerNet to handle local installs... :)
Also, it appears that EP Technology Corporation is their actual US entity... I imagine the other US addresses are probably just fulfillment centers.
Take a tour of Zmodo's Shenzhen factory....
Saw them on woot.com several times last year.
Good luck with the PSU units on these POS kits. I used to have a retail store and sold various cheap DIY kits. The most common brand we stocked was the Vonnic brand. While they are a good value for the DIY guy that just wants to keep an eye on his driveway and front porch or what have you, they just don't last long. If you were for some reason looking to purchase one, try to get the type without a hard drive pre-installed. They use the cheapest of desktop hard drives inside those kits. Heck, a good AV hard drive would cost about half of the kit purchase price alone!
Anyways, I would highly recommend anyone buying these kits to "86" the wall wart / power brick PSUs and upgrade to a better one, like a cabinet style with fuses. Figure 1.0A per camera if they have IR. You can get away with 500mA per camera usually if they don't have IR.
I honestly see a wide gap in quality between the cheap Chinese crap like Vonnic and the top tier Chinese brands like Dahua and HikVision. I know that Vonnic has since changed to Korean based manufacturing, but they just don't have the support that a US based manufacturer/OEM can provide.
You know that I have used a lot of Dahua products and think they are good for value based projects, but I would not use any of the cheaper Chinese units. The cost difference just isn't that much different for much better products with familiar UI and apps.
I'm new here. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, but I'm just posting it for an FYI.
Just installed a Zmodo ZMD-DD-SBN8 system (purchased from Amazon.com - 24 out of 27 five-star reviews) at a small not-for-profit (503c) company because we had homeless people and others climbing the back fence and stealing "stuff". We did catch someone last week. The cameras work ok, given the price of the unit, but the dvr software leaves a bit to be desired in terms of setup and use, in my opinion.
In my research, I found a comment that Zmodo was one of 26 brands manufactured by a "Ray Sharp Company in China".
I haven't been able to find that exact comment, but here is a link to one that is very similar.
This article mentions that there are 18 manufacturers, including Zmodo and Swann, that are using firmware from Ray Sharp Company.
I don't know if Ray Sharp manufacturers and markets these units under different names, or they are just licensing their firmware.
Again, just an FYI. Any clarification appreciated.
I sell surveillance products direct to end-users via a website. We did carry Zmodo for a while, but dropped them as a brand, due to unacceptable lelvels of DOA (dead on arrival) product, and zero customer support. A shame, really. I thought the products that didn't die right away gave pretty decent pictures.
For the record, the cheapest 4 camera kit we sell that isn't utter garbage and has a decent chance of surviving for 2 or 3 years is $250, and that's before Black Friday deals and specials.
But, yes, Zmodo is known in the direct-to-end-user-surveillance-website-sales community as the lowest price product on the market. Expect a $99 kit in the next 12 months.
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