It appears that Mac’s don’t like NVR’s or at least non of the NVR companies like Macs
With our world going crazy, here in the Bay Area, security camera sales are up there with bicycle sales and mountain home sales. Everyone is doing something. Defunding cops so we can feel safer isn’t something anyone believes and yet a majority voted for it here.
Considerations if you get security cameras
There are basically two companies that make all of the value priced home and small business security camera NVR’s and systems. Whatever brand you buy, the core electronics come from one of these two guys.
The name on the outside of the box determines what app you use to connect to the cameras. So far we have tested LaView (Hikvision), Hikvision, Q-See (Dahua) and Lorex (Dahua). Hikvision and Dahua are the two companies that make 90% of the DVR’s, NVR’s and cameras. The nearly 200 brands available in the US are marketing and app companies. They write the software that lets you see the cameras.
Some brands like Swann have migrated from Hikvision and the new pricing reflects the higher cost.
After years of fighting the apps from LaView which had horrible support and no functionality on the Mac, I switched to Lorex. Never mind that Hikvision was banned from any US government installations since they snuck in a back door to all of their cameras.
The Hikvision app is one of the better, as is the Lorex. Until last year the Q-see app worked perfectly and then suddenly dead. So instead of going with Q-see again, I chose Lorex.
Security Cameras and The Apple Mac
None that I have found work well on the Mac though. Thankfully with Big Sur there is an emulator so you can at least run the iPhone version of the app on your desktop. Lorex has a Mac app but it won’t run on Big Sur and the Chrome app won’t either.
The best scenario of course is the old fashioned method of hooking up a monitor and a mouse to the DVR or NVR and the second best is to run the app on a windows pc. Since upgrading to the M1 and Big Sur, we have been forced to buy a PC so eventually my problem will be solved.