Lorex Review: Double the Cameras
The Lorex wire-free home security system has a couple of outdoor or indoor cameras and a hub that connects more than five cameras to the home network. The additional cameras cost about $180 each. In addition to the hub and the cameras, the system also comes with a couple of USB power cords and USB power adapters, camera battery packs, mounting brackets, a quick start guide, a microSD card, and a LAN cable. The hub is a tiny silver-and-white cylinder that stands 3.6 inches wide and high. It is meant for indoor usage only. It also has a small status LED on the front that is green when all the sensors are connected and functioning properly, blinks purple when it is ready to pair with the cameras, and blinks red when it has lost the connection to the internet.
A tiny speaker at the bottom and back is a microSD card slot, a pairing button, a USB power port, and a LAN port. The hub also comes with a micro SD card for storing the recorded videos and will also accept media of more than 200 GB. You can connect the hub with the home network using the LAN port or connect it wirelessly using the dual-band Wi-Fi radio. The cameras are weather-resistant with an IP65 rating. They are white, with a silver base and a glossy black face. The dimensions are pretty small and can be mounted on any wall or placed on a flat surface using the brackets included. The front of all the cameras has a motion-activated LED light on the top and a speaker at the bottom for both-way conversations. These elements, along with a built-in siren, make up the Smart Deterrence functionality developed to scare off any unwanted intruders.
There is also a status LED, a light sensor, a motion sensor, and a microphone. The status LED flashes green when connecting to the network or pairing with the hub, flashes purple when getting a Wi-Fi signal from the hub, and goes solid red when the cameras are connected successfully. Around the back are a mounting screw thread and power port. A removable cap on the bottom hides the rechargeable battery pack and a reset button. The battery is rated to last for more than eight months before needing a recharge, but this varies with the use. You can charge the battery while it is still placed in the camera utilizing the power port or remove it and charge it inside the house. Under the hood is a Wi-Fi radio for connection to the hub.
The camera takes video at 2k and has a wide field of view and zoom. It utilizes a couple of infrared LEDS to give black-and-white night vision when the Auto Night Vision is on and low-light color night vision when it is disabled. The camera will give push alerts and record the video when the motion is detected and store the video on the SD card of the hub. Also, the hub will give a chime when the camera detects any motion. If any user enhances the Person Detection setting, they will only get alerts when any person is detected. The hub and cameras utilize the same mobile app as the other Lorex products and appear on the Devices screen and the other installed Lorex devices. Tap the play arrow for a live stream that can be seen in full-screen mode by rotating your phone sideways or tapping on the full-screen button at the lower half of the video panel.
Other buttons below the video panel are a video pause button, a mute microphone button, and an SD & HD button. Below the buttons is also a timeline of the recorded video events. Below are the Privacy Mode, Light, Siren, Talk, Record Video, and Snapshot buttons. To get to the camera settings, tap on the three dots in the upper right corner. Here, you can select between performance modes such as high, optimized, and power-saving, disable and enable notifications and auto night vision, check the battery status, enable privacy mode, adjust talk and siren volume, configure the motion settings, and update the firmware.