So-so camera, awful app

I do a lot of reviewing for a website, so I was interested to see what Swann had available for the Mac and iOS. I used this app to set up an ADS-460 SwannEye HD Wi-Fi camera, and it took numerous tries, resetting the camera, and two hours before I finally got everything working … somewhat. What’s wrong with the app? First, it appears to have been written by a non-English speaker, as the startup splash screens have some very interesting uses of language “More info, more solicitude” being an example. But this thing is just REALLY bad. It crashed numerous times on a Mavericks machine, kept “losing” the LAN connection, although the WAN connection was still working so it HAD a connection. Regardless of how many times I tried to set an administrator password, the only one I could use (different from the Swann registered password) was their default camera admin user name and password (“admin” and “123456”) — trust me, if you get stuck, you’ll want this information that’s from the Instruction Manual.

At one point the app wanted to update the firmware on the camera, but I was right in the midst of writing my review so I cancelled it. I was never able to find a way to get it to ask me to update again. The sound monitoring function didn’t work, either. And why have buttons for controls that don’t work on certain cameras. Either make an app that works specifically for a certain camera, or set up your app so that it hides buttons that won’t work with one model of camera.

I could keep going, but I won’t. It’s just a poorly written app and a relatively poor camera, too. Thumbs down on this app.

Steve from the Ranch about SwannEye HD Pro