Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you've ever asked yourself, "hey, it's 2018, I wonder what software from 1996 is like" then you should pick up this system. This is what happens when you have a single product owner dumping every requirement they can think of on a developers desk and then walking away. No UX. No QA. I hope someone involved in the development of this software at Reolink sees this and takes offense. They should. I'm offended that you think I'm dumb enough to find this an acceptable experience for my money. And when I talk about software, know that I'm talking about All three facets. The NVR software is probably the most reliable, but it's ugly as sin, mouse clicks don't always register, and the word "intuitive" simply does not exist in the Reolink dictionary. So I bumped over to the Android and iOS apps. They look better, but they're far from bug-free, and the notification system is G-A-R-B-A-G-E on both systems. They try to play it off on the Android notification service, but that's a cop-out. We have had Netgear Arlo for a few years now and they're getting us notifications within 5 seconds. Reolink is taking about 2-4 minutes. That's unacceptable. Someone can clean me out in 2-4 minutes. Streaming playback also doesn't work at all, and even if it did...wowsa it looks like it'd be a friggin nightmare trying to find the right clip. The Windows app is probably the worst offense of the three. A few key examples of how badly it's been made are the lack of 21:9 support(stretches video feeds out), the inability to resize the windowed app(it's either full-screen or a very small pre-determined resolution), and then just a million horrible design choices and bugs. Like when I go into a settings menu, there are tabs for each area, but each tab has an X so I can remove that tab. Why? When I leave and come back, the tab is there again. Why why why? Then when I'm in full-screen mode and I click the button to go into windowed mode, it just opens a menu to select a resolution. What? What resolution? wtf is that? Jesus it's bad. There are things called best-practices. There's something called quality assurance. There are standard practices that help companies make decent software. Reolink clearly ignored the playbook and just winged it. I'm guessing the pressure from new competition like Nest, Netgear, and Blink sent them into a panic when they suddenly had to pay attention to disruptive technology. They were forced to make a decision; make a proper investment to build proper software that would sustain their business over the coming years OR throw a token amount of money at the problem to outsource the app dev to the lowest bidding vendor who knows the bare minimum(hence the bargain basement bid). Now Reolink can say "hey, we have a mobile app!" when frankly...it's that very app(along with the Windows and NVR software) that is prompting me to return the whole system. Thank god I tested this all before running cables throughout my house. Steer far clear from anything Reolink. They've made a business decision to not compete with the new realities of their industry, and you'll pay that price if you buy their system. I'm disgusted.