Review Insights · Google Play
Swann Security
Swann Communications · 126,812 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
126,812 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 49 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"
12 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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…" - SJD SJD
2
"camera"
12 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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…" - SJD SJD
3
"swann"
10 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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." - stefan mitchell
4
"system"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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." - stefan mitchell
5
"keeps"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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…" - SJD SJD
6
"live"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 p…" - Joseph Long
7
"doesn"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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!" - Mick Lever
8
"works"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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…" - SJD SJD
9
"work"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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." - stefan mitchell
10
"times"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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." - Sean Bisset
11
"load"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 abo…" - Repulsia Storm
12
"been"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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…" - Nina Croker
📋 All 49 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").
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!
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 WHEN I WENT LIVE. HE HAS DID THIS BEFORE WITH JUST REGULAR WIFI RING.
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.
wont let me open recorded videos, this issue needs to be fixed as I have spend a lot of on your camera's
horrible, so annoying how I have to use 3rd party apps to access my cameras because of the BS "security" that Swann has meaning it's impossible to diagnose and fix without contacting Swann who just follow the script they reset it then say run the wizard but it never works once you change your email your stuffed over a year multiple emails back and forth and get told they can't help, $1000 I paid for lies about how easily the app works and makes life simple I will never buy swann systems again
I've had these cameras for years now and I always wake up hoping and praying they will work but I am always met with absolutely failure and the big unfortunate is I paid big bucks to have them hardwired into my home and honestly its time to give up and call them quits and take them all down. Swann you absolutely failed another good customer!!
As of today, I went to go attempt to login after using this for a couple years and paying for it. It now says my account doesn't exist...so going to follow up and try to get my money back and probably drop this thing and find a better camera system
don't waste your time or money buy a decent brand that won't let you down in an actual situation
messes up all the time. loses connection. Samsung says it's because they have a bug that needs fixed. well fix it then Swan!!!
If it isn't one thing it's another with this app now I have to back out and go back in a couple times to see my video's that got saved tells me nothing is there even though I have the notification. Now it is lagging on live view.
Getting old and needs a complete rebuild to make it snappy, better connectivity with Google devices and not half backed options. dont forget wear os and apple watch users. notifications need improving. reviewed in 6 months. See Eufy.
awful, negative 5. checked to see why notifications are not triggering when we knew someone was at the house, turns out NO detections are being identified any more. for 3 days there have been zero detections. Unreliable and just keeps getting worse.
Old review: Ok. So the new update STILL didn't work since ver. 2.90 or something, it's been almost 2 full year I believe. Device Status stuck on connecting while the old app works fine.
Never wants to come up
Absolutely terrible with crashing and not loading. download old version 2.9.54 and turn off auto update, this version works so well and is very fast!!!
Its an ok app.....when it works. problem is half the time it won't load the cameras or recordings. Used to really love Swann but in my next home I'll definitely be looking for a different brand
It keeps crashing! And has become frustrating to use!
constantly crashes or freezes
Very slow opening.
Very delayed . Most of the time, doesn't want to connect on my phone.
I change companies and I can no longer get it on my phone went from cable to fiber what's up
They keep going out.They're slow and when I need them the most , they don't work the zoom sucks , and you can't speak to this cameras , I have cheap cameras and they're a lot better i have also noticed that they gave themselves four and a half stars , but everybody that leaves a review at most gives it one
Camera detection not adjusting... I adjust the mode on all 4 cameras but 1 camera doesn't change and match settings. Very disappointing as the camera is set to no detection... pointless having a camera. Will not purchase Swann again, especially after reading all the current reviews. also... how is this app 4.5 stars when all I can see is 1 star reviews?
my experience with customer support was appalling it left nothing but bitterness between myself and swann when I tried to complain I was brushed off swann have locked my cameras and I have no longer got access to operate them they essentially stole the use of the cameras to me rendering them useless and making it impossible fir me to rectify the problem I say think twice is this really the correct app for what you need I personally want out of this app the one star review is generous considering
light burns out quick
this app is the not user friendly can't even pair my system plus to much restrictions
camera is dropping offline way to often even when close to WiFi, was trying to reboot lots of times and as soon as I took it down to look camera starts working and no help from swann.
App keeps losing connection to the NVR box and telling me it's offline. Only way to fix is to reboot the box which is annoying. Box is still working and recording even when the app says it's offline which is something. Very annoying when I go to check while away from the house and get the offline message with no way to fix remotely.
Been great since I got them in 2021 but last few months the app on the phone keeps playing up. When viewing live feed it buffers or doesn't load at all. I have the new S26 Ultra and super fast WiFi so not sure what has happened.
diff device, diff review on apple it plays live feed uninterrupted. brand new samsung phone... its loading every few mins and doesnt resume live feed. the app or phone? seems android has more app issues across the board.
I have a wireless security camera. I chose them because they are UK based and the cloud storage is UK. But within a few months especially after the free premium membership expiring the app started glitching to the point it's just not usable. It freezes, it doesn't show any recording despite notifications coming through and best case scenario after a long lag you can see some of the recordings. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't touch this product and their app ever again.
2026 update: still No playbacks even though there are numerous available - every channel, every time I get video playback errors. I Set up storage. tried reinstalling. Notifications are stuck on 49 - which I have deleted them many times but the icon just keeps showing 49. At night the flood light and security alarm buttons disappear so I cannot use those functions at night when I need them.
From last few days its not loading at all.
absolutely horrible. 98% of the time get a notification no video, have to download it from the sd card in the camera. I have a 4 camera system 2 of them are always loading even after rebooting them. there has been no software updates in the year ive had them. looking into a different company.
Sentiment summary
92%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
5%
Negative (1-2★)