I had 4 cameras hooked up to this unit and it worked well for a little over a year. I only used it on occasion, it wasn't on all the time (I used it in my RV while on trips). Even with very light use it only lasted a year and a half.

So I picked this item up do mostly to its small form factor. I only have four external cameras on my house so I didn't need a huge unit. I also wanted to fit it in an existing smart panel. Overall the item delivers as expected, however if you are looking for a unit that will allow push notifications to your smartphone this will require a firmware upgrade which is not as straight forward as YouTube videos would lead you to believe. Firstly, the firmware isn't easily obtainable outside of emailing the support address on the package (they are as responsive as one could hope for being halfway around the world). Secondly, simply loading the updated firmware to a USB drive and plugging it into the unit results in the unit wanting to format the drive for storage. There is a separate program (once again provided by support) that you run on a computer on the same network that pushes the firmware to the device. Once this is completed the Mobile Alert functionality becomes available. That being said, the motion detection function is quite finicky and takes some tweaking to get to the point it isn't sending you a text every 20 seconds. Overall a good value for a simple system. The UI on all of these units is very base level so be prepared to spend some time getting to know where everything is. I would post a link to the Firmware/Software, but I don't believe Amazon will allow me to post one.

UPDATE: 7/5/2020 This box has already died. Stopped working last week for no apparent reason. Will simply not power up now. Rating dropped to 1 star. This product was a waste of time and money. I highly recommend you finding something else if you want quality and reliability.UPDATE 5/6/2020: I was able to solve the video issue with an $8 BNC to composite video cable also ordered from Amazon. Once I had the video running, basic setup was fairly easy. Video feeds appeared onscreen immediately, and I can view the video feeds both hardwired locally and remotely through the app over wifi. Updated review from 1 to 3 stars on that alone. Will need some more time to figure out motion detection and how to record video. If I can figure out how to record and it's easy to review/playback, maybe it gets a 4th star. Can't ever give it 5 stars because the setup instructions are simply poor and I had to buy an video adapter to get it to work.Bought this to replace an old Hikvision DVR that lasted several years, but recently died. Out of the box, I quickly realized that they sent the wrong power cord. The jack on the back is microUSB, but they sent a USB-C cord. Luckily I had a spare microUSB laying around and could use it (it was longer too, the cord they sent was rather short). This was the least of my issues...Looks like you can remote into the DVR from an app that you need to download, but I spent 2+ hours and still don't have it working. The instructions start with the assumption that you can see video. I'm baffled why step one of the instructions isn't: HERE'S HOW YOU CONNECT TO VIDEO.If you're not tech savvy, do not buy this item. If you're a bit of a hard head like me and want to try to get it to work, read on.Connecting video is usually pretty easy, right? Just plug in an HDMI cable to a TV or monitor with an HDMI input...but after booting it up and some VERY loud beeping, I plugged into a computer monitor via HDMI and... nothing. Screen wouldn't even blink. After fiddling for a while, I tried plugging into a TV with an HDMI port and at least then I got a clue - "Output format not supported". Great - how do you change the output format if you can't access the box to change the settings?? There could be a button on the box to change the format, but they don't provide it. Nor does the provided remote seem to allow you to change the output format.Tried to get some online support. Don't waste your time - there's no website - it's just an Amazon page. I didn't feel like emailing and waiting who knows how long for a response. So I did a bit of googling and I found out that you can connect it via the "V-out" connector on the set of 5 plugs with the camera connectors (4 inputs for the camera and 1 out for the video). Would be something nice to mention up front in the manual, don't you think?Next problem. The V-out is BNC connecter (same as the cameras) and I don't have a cable that can connect to my monitor or TV to view. I was able to rig something that worked temporarily through the composite input on the TV, but it was finicky and kept cutting in and out, and I couldn't get it to work long enough to figure out how to make the HDMI output the correct format/resolution for my TV or to connect to the internet and get the app working. So I ended up ordering a BNC to RCA cable from Amazon and it's coming tomorrow. Fingers crossed that this solves my video issues.Next issue. It takes microSD cards - NOT regular SD cards. There are a couple answered questions here that say "SD" which mislead me, so I bought the wrong kind. The specs say it takes "TransFlash" which I now know are microSD. Don't make the same mistake I did, and buy a regular SD card. It still not clear to me that you can record video directly onto the flash memory. It's possible that the card reader slot is only to download video and save settings. Would be great if other reviewers who figured this out could post.Next problem, since I didn't have a microSD, I attached a solid state USB drive we had laying around. It had some old pictures on it according to my wife, but plenty of free space. I connected it all the while I was fiddling with the video issues. So... When I finally got the video working (temporarily) I see a box on the screen "FORMATTING HARD DRIVE". Great... Now the hard drive is blank and the pics are gone (thankfully we found another backup with the pics so they're not gone for good). So this box AUTO FORMATS YOUR HARD DRIVE when you plug it in!! and you don't know it's happening unless you can see the screen. (and of course no warning in the instructions about this either)I don't typically post reviews, but I felt people should know what struggles I've had.I will update the review and maybe add stars when I get the BNC adapter, IF... IF I can get it to work... otherwise I will be forced to return it and buy something requiring less effort and perseverance to get working.

You're not going to find a better dvr in this size and at this price point. I was hesitant to buy it at first because there were some negative reviews. However, being an Amazon addict I've learned that there are always going to be negative reviews, even on the best products. That said, i trusted my instincts and bought it. I'm glad I didn't let the negative reviews stop me from making this purchase. I bought this as a supplement to the 8 channel system in my house. This unit is installed in my garage. I use it to get the area behind my garage that is out of site of my main system. I've been using it for over a month now and I find it easier to navigate than my larger system. I don't have it hooked to the internet since I don't have access in my garage. I've been utilizing an affordable128GB tf card to save the data as opposed to a hard drive. I love how small this thing is. It's perfect for my garage since space is limited there. Overall, I don't have anything bad to say about this unit. It fits my needs perfectly.

It stated that there were batteries and received none.it were also supposed to give a software/setup disk also was not sent .Seems no wifi startup on it either.

I am using this unit as a 4-camera dashcam in a commercial vehicle, connected to a 12V vehicle power to USB converter and a 9" LCD dashmount monitor. Connected cameras are Ganz color standard-res cube cameras with Videology auto-iris lenses. The DVR and cameras run 24/7, even with the vehicle off and parked. Power draw is low, and it has run reliably even when the temps over the winter were in the negatives. I am not using the hard drive interface, just a microSD card. Record and playback is good, operation is not "Simple", but easy enough to work through without needing to follow detailed instructions. Recorded video plays back smoothly and shows no sign of being "choppy", even when playing back multiple recorded streams simultaneously.So far I've been running it about 8-9 months continuously, and so far I'm very pleased with the reliability and performance. It's not a device that a first-time user is going to have an easy time with, but if you have some basic skill with video surveillance equipment, you won't have much trouble setting it up.