Amcrest 4K Security Camera System w/ 4K (8MP) 8CH PoE NVR, (4) x 4K (8-Megapixel) IP67 Weatherproof Metal Bullet POE IP Cameras, Pre-Installed 2TB Hard Drive, NV4108E-IP8M-2496EW4-2TB (White)

I was researching for companies that created cameras/nvrs that didn’t require some ridiculous external account to be created. Amcrest was one that stood out to me, and I am more than happy with the results.I started the process with grabbing the Mac Address and blocking it at my router, just out of paranoia. However, I setup logging so I could analyze what kind of data was attempting to be sent out.The one thing I did notice, which I really don’t agree with, is the nvr DOES call out to Google DNS servers by default while trying to setup the network settings. My primary firewall blocks these requests, and the router redirects all DNS requests to my internal DNS server, so this didn’t affect me – but I think that’s something Amcrest could improve on. I also noticed that if your primary and secondary DNS servers are both inaccessible, the system still defaults to trying the Google DNS servers. Amcrest, please remove this default setting altogether. If primary and secondary fail, just make the DNS requests fail instead of trying to go out to Google for the request.The only other network call I noticed was that these DNS requests were for some AWS server. I decided to start a packet capture at full verbosity, and threw the results into Wireshark. Turns out these DNS requests, after getting their destination, were simply for the firmware site they have. Analyzing all the data, I saw nothing of concern for privacy. I will say, though, that I declined everything during the setup process – including checking for firmware. I’m not entirely sure why it’s still trying to do checks for the firmware, but I’ll look into that. It may be the individual cameras doing it.In the end, I connected these cameras to my Home Assistant server, so the NVR itself is 100% offline – blocked at the firewall completely. Home Assistant handles watching the footage. Caveat to this is getting notifications for motion detection and other alarms… Still working on this, but I can say that if anyone out there is looking for an NVR setup that doesn’t require big brother, Amcrest is the way to go. Their software allows you to connect to your NVR by direct IP/Port, and does not do any hops in between to some external server(s) like other brands do. I’ve got the 4 cameras their nanny cam and can at least confirm this is the case for these cameras and that one. I cannot confirm if this is true for any of their other devices (yet). I also cannot confirm if there’s anything beyond the DNS Firmware requests if I had the thing sitting on the Internet for a long time since I have it completely blocked out… But overall, I think Amcrest is the BEST option available for anyone who cares about their privacy and doesn’t want some employees snooping in on their lives. ��