Review Insights · Google Play
Swann Security
Swann Communications · 127,981 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
127,981 ratings
🎯 Build a better version
Top complaints - extracted from 54 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"cameras"
14 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "by the time the cameras record anything or let you know something there, its too late. what ever it is is gone. its very expensive too. not worth the money" - drm1388
2
"camera"
13 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "You don't want people have no tracking blockers on their phones to protect them because the app is allowing my location to be tracked and our devices turned off. what is happening to me as my stalking neighbors are tracking my location 2 bl…" - Stalking Neighbors
3
"system"
10 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "You don't want people have no tracking blockers on their phones to protect them because the app is allowing my location to be tracked and our devices turned off. what is happening to me as my stalking neighbors are tracking my location 2 bl…" - Stalking Neighbors
4
"swann"
10 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "So many problems have tried to contact customer service but don't get any response spent $ 600 for something that doesn't function properly years later nothing has been fixed it has got worse after having to change ny router now nothing wor…" - tim whitcher
5
"load"
9 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst app I've ever used. Constantly breaks, have to force stop the app so many times. God forbid you're not at home connected to WiFi otherwise you'll have to wait ten minutes for the cameras to load. honestly just a piece of trash" - Vicky Howarth
6
"live"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "You don't want people have no tracking blockers on their phones to protect them because the app is allowing my location to be tracked and our devices turned off. what is happening to me as my stalking neighbors are tracking my location 2 bl…" - Stalking Neighbors
7
"doesn"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don't purchase! Playback doesn't work, what good is a camera system if you can't view recordings? Apparently no one in the company is smart enough to fix it." - L A
8
"work"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don't purchase! Playback doesn't work, what good is a camera system if you can't view recordings? Apparently no one in the company is smart enough to fix it." - L A
9
"view"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don't purchase! Playback doesn't work, what good is a camera system if you can't view recordings? Apparently no one in the company is smart enough to fix it." - L A
10
"money"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "by the time the cameras record anything or let you know something there, its too late. what ever it is is gone. its very expensive too. not worth the money" - drm1388
11
"times"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst app I've ever used. Constantly breaks, have to force stop the app so many times. God forbid you're not at home connected to WiFi otherwise you'll have to wait ten minutes for the cameras to load. honestly just a piece of trash" - Vicky Howarth
12
"constantly"
6 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Very dodgy. It's constantly trying to ping Chinese websites like Baidu dot com." - Simon Howroyd
📋 All 54 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
You don't want people have no tracking blockers on their phones to protect them because the app is allowing my location to be tracked and our devices turned off. what is happening to me as my stalking neighbors are tracking my location 2 blocks from my house when I go live on the app. My camera system is to protect my family not to be turned off by my stalkers MY PEDO STALKING NEIGHBOR JAMES JUST TURNED OFF MY CAMERA APP. HOPEFULLY WITH THIS NEW UPDATE MY CELL PHONE # AND LOCATION IS NOT TRACKED
Very dodgy. It's constantly trying to ping Chinese websites like Baidu dot com.
Don't purchase! Playback doesn't work, what good is a camera system if you can't view recordings? Apparently no one in the company is smart enough to fix it.
having problems connecting my door bells again and the fee charged
Worst app I've ever used. Constantly breaks, have to force stop the app so many times. God forbid you're not at home connected to WiFi otherwise you'll have to wait ten minutes for the cameras to load. honestly just a piece of trash
the app is contstantly shutting down as soon as I open it. I have deleted and reinstalled multiple times and the same issue continues to happen.
Light, Camera FREEZE I moved over from iPhone where the App worked fine! Now I can't even load the cameras on my samsung. shocking!! Need some serious update.
This is the buggiest app I've had to use in a long, long time. PLEASE fix it.
there are some major issues since the update does not work what's happening ??
So many problems have tried to contact customer service but don't get any response spent $ 600 for something that doesn't function properly years later nothing has been fixed it has got worse after having to change ny router now nothing works at all try to get in touch with customer service sit for hours with no response DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY LOOK FOR SOMETHING ELSE SWANN TAKE YA MONEY AND DONT CARE AFTER THAT I HOPE YOU TAKE THE WARNING
glitch, works then doesn't work. camera's don't always charge sound doesn't always work. wouldn't recommend
not working properly. taking too long to load
sucks
freezes and crashes frequently
My experience is really bad. Maybe Google should weigh recent reviews more heavily because it looks like an average 2 stars over the last couple of years. What a joke. Just have Claude fix it lol I don't get it.
terrible
failure for the app to work correctly on a Chromebook. No date or time stamp can be viewed excessive time to load some cameras fail to load. Swann could look into developing a dedicated Chromebook app that will actually work.
regret of my purchase..poor app
useless application big delay when viewing cam
Biggest Waste of Money. The app is the absolute worst. Insane amount of errors and half the videos we cannot view. I have to restart the app 8x sometimes just to pick up the live feed. The cameras aren't great either. They pick up every tree shadows but sometimes misses humans until they've been in the frame for 30 seconds so we miss people sometimes. We are going to switch the cameras out for a more reliable system. Don't waste your money on these cameras or the app.
They keep taking features away. I'd explain but that's useless.
Terrible, so many missing options, the layout does not allow you to perform basic functions, it's clunky and difficult to navigate. even with the absolute best network, the streaming is horrendous. I'm very likely going to return the system for a refund, this is fail on a huge level given Swan security have been around for so long. incredibly disappointed..
keeps crashing
updates have destroyed all Swan cameras. they are more interested in more for cloud storage stealing your privacy to sell. camera's don't stay connected to WiFi they want your location to advertise on 3rd parties to sell you. I have started a dept of fare trading investigation into why swann security has made it that you can't use the camera without paying hundreds of dollars for a year and why they track your location and need access to camera's that are private watching your young family.
App is still trash and unhelpful, now its not working at all. I do NOT recommend this app or the Swann systems at all. I'll be Using Ring from now on.
USELESS !! terrible app , NEVER works, since the big update last year 1 by 1 all my cameras rarely record anything and when they do record the app keeps stopping and wont play the recording. I will NEVER buy swann cameras again. I've looked at soooo many reviews and problems and swann cameras only seem to work for a couple of years and then they have 1 issue after another and it seems to be software related 😡😡
Decent cameras, but the app is horrible. Years ago, the app was still bad, but it was at least usable since it would eventually connect and give the live view and video playback. But now the app is pointless. It's now a miracle if it even plays back anything or connects at all. I'd give this app zero stars if I could.
Piece of junk. Always crashes and has random recording times. Sometimes it records for 35 seconds sometimes 3 minutes. It won't change the time to day light savings time even in the settings. Don't waste your money, buy another camera.
The battery power on the cameras is no where near what is advertised, I'm recharing them constantly. When there's an alert, the app takes so long to load that the event has passed. The AI descriptions are often inaccurate. There's a lot about this system i dont like and i regret buying it over other brands.
when away at work the app is lagging takes so long to load and at times does not connect to my cameras at all. I have a few wireless eufy cameras set up aswell at my home and they never give me problems. this Swann system is hardwired and I regret spending all that money on it. I would have been better off with eufy.
app keeps crashing, takes forever to load and won't show 2 camera packs at the same time, have to switch between the two continually.
For the past 3-4 months my camera has been lagging and freezing. Then a window pops up and says, "This app has a bug" and to check back after it's fixed. Well, I'm here wondering what to do, because I keep checking and it hasn't been fixed. Any ideas?? Because right now, I'm rating this a 1. I will most definitely change it to a 5 after it's fixed!
edit (2025) all still applicable Ruined the menus trying to hard to be modern. It's a CCTV system. Not a streaming service . Why couldn't you just leave it alone. loads so slow you'll miss everything before it loads
app is very slow at loading live view and rarely works at all on playback. very frustrating
May as well have bought dummy cameras. App slow, doesn't record until person has passed, recordings take forever to load. Wifi connection so unstable. Had the subscription but just a waste of money. Good for landfill!
The camera disconnects constantly and won't reconnect until I remove the camera and then go through the pairing process and sometimes that doesn't work and when it does connect it just disconnects in 5 seconds. I'm definitely going to buy a different camera from any brand but swann this is the worst camera ever made and all I ended up with is a $179 paper weight.
virtually no support app is all over the place system requires login after leaving live view.
you get a notification of movement detected on camera but the app never loads the cameras up always buffers
Continually, logs you out of your device. So if anyone's breaking into your house, you'll never know by the time you log in and they want to sell you a subscription.
can't set anything up with this app can't even make an account because the link they send is invalid
terrible app, takes a while to open the app at times. and a lot of the time it wont play the playback or takes a very long time to play. most of the time it won't. I am constantly closing the app to reopen to see if that helps and lately that doesnt even help.
by the time the cameras record anything or let you know something there, its too late. what ever it is is gone. its very expensive too. not worth the money
Bought a Swann 4k doorbell. Worked for a week, then ran out of battery. Now it categorically refuses to reconnect, tried to re-pair it multiple times and it will not connect. Actually feels like a complete waste of money
Downloading clips is almost impossible. Great camera, great design with wifi and internal data, but getting clips is almost impossible in the app. Slow, stops, says no internet connection or just says error constantly. Network Error 2. 🦥
was great ish now STFU. First off the standard monitoring of cctv cameras is EXCELLENT, great coverage great utility, 5*. The doorbell function SUCKS!!! On 300meg fibre it takes a 30s or so to even announce to my phone!!! And when the routine is set to "home" why do I need notifying there's someone on my doorbell camera? Its me taking the bins out or doing chores or stuff... SHUT UP!!! One day 30+ notifications ALL ME!!! I Want notifications but I want to turn OFF person detection when home
keeps disconnecting the app is useless to reconnect. they are offline for weeks at time . video is clear not getting any notifications. sound quality is not good
I had it rated at 5 star when I first used it. but now with a newer phone, I don't have any recordings on my Samsung Galaxy 25. I need to view these recordings, to see what happened while I am away. the main reason why I subscribe. considering going to another, more reliable brand if this doesn't get fixed soon.
After a few years of using this app I'm pretty disappointed with its functionality, reliability, and overall user interface. Its clunky and unstable. I don't have any benchmarks to compare it to, but I am familiar with A/V applications and use them regularly and this one I'm pretty disappointed with. Hopefully Swann spends more time with it to improve its utility. The on-board app isn't great either. I've used a lot of base coded linux apps that have better functionality.
app let's me view my cameras for 2 minutes or less then everything goes black and says that my system is offline. extremely frustrating. please fix this
this app is the not user friendly can't even pair my system plus to much restrictions
+ 4 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
92%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
5%
Negative (1-2★)