Hik-Connect - for End user

I am in shock reading all of these negative reviews but I think I know why. People simply don’t know what they’re doing. Nest cameras are no comparison to Hikvision. If your speed is not fast enough then you can’t stream high resolution. There’s a reason why you setup dual streams. My Hikvision NVR and cameras have never once crashed on me. I thought I had a problem with my Hik-Connect cloud account disappearing randomly from my phone but that was user error. My wife was logging into her phone with my account instead of me sharing. I’ve setup my cameras using the device connection and I get almost an instant connection every time. I’ve spent many hours reading and playing with all my settings, adjusting bandwidth and fine tuning the camera settings and I love my system. If you don’t know how to properly set things up then the commercial Nest system is more for you. No comparison with all the functionality and saving to your own Hikvision NVR to Nest’s cloud storage which you constantly keep paying for and again gives you no functionality.

I have hundreds of Hikvision cameras installed for clients around the country and generally have at least 200 on each of my iPhones. iVMS could easily handle this and was a pro-grade app. I could make my own views and quickly organize and view cameras that I need to see and switch between playback and live view with efficiency, which is impossible now. Hik-Connect is a very consumer non-pro app and the layouts take up way too much space, like they are trying to copy Ring. Totally unacceptable for us professionals and might be the end of Hikvision for my company. We monitor cameras live and respond to security incidents real-time though the iVMS app and this will be impossible with Hik-Connect. Now we have hundreds of thousands of dollars into installs and we cannot do our job. Our customers are beginning to complain and some are demanding refunds because we can no longer offer what we promised. What a disaster. I will never forgive Hikvision for this madness and absolutely cannot trust this company. Whoever decided to delete iVMS should be fired!!! This app simply does not replace iVMS and they deleted iVMS from the App Store and it is impossible to load on any devices now. Absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible. With all of that said, if someone was a very very basic consumer, the new app can handle a couple cameras around the house more smoothly than iVMS, but it totally screwed us!

I keep on making the mistake of updating this app. First, I could keep all of my cameras on HD. Yes, the cameras were choppy, but I prefer quality over quantity. Then an update made all cameras automatically display as Basic, and I then needed to set them to HD every time I switched cameras. So I tried contacting the company through the feedback feature in the app. No reply. Now, this most recent update only displays one camera and I must manually add each camera EVERY time I want to see my cameras. Close out of the app? Add each camera again. Maybe I want to multitask, and according to Hik-connect I lose connection for a bit? Oh, that's means I need to login again to Hik-connect, and I then need to add each camera, again. I can't view the cameras I have installed immediately when I need to. Please, change the app back to what worked before. This current version is not an upgrade. Ultimately, considering I bought my system to use on my mobile devices (like anyone else living in the 21st century), I would not recommend others buying Hikvision products until they fix the very methods you must employ to use those said products. A hi-def CCTV system is only worth buying if it's hi-def and a CCTV system. Not mobile friendly = not a CCTV system worth buying in my book. I'll wait to buy any more cameras (have 6, need 10 more) until this gets fixed.

I have a hikvision 4k nvr and also have installed many systems for customers. They are a solid product and the app is legit if you understand it. Most the negative reviews are from people that don’t understand the technology and just want to open the app on their device and it work perfect. A couple issues with that.... 1. Quality high speed internet that is connected to the camera system(dvr/nvr) is a huge issue on most the complaints. 2. Good cellular or Wi-Fi connected to the device with what you’re trying to view the cameras dvr/nvr on. 3. All dvr/nvr units have certain tech specs regarding max users max bandwidth(not local internet BUT bandwidth between the nvr/dvr and the cameras) that IS STATED AND AVAILABLE on the systems box instructions and online for your particular unit model and all models. 4. Ive never had a issue with quality from the cameras that is outside the specs to the dvr/nvr if you are accessing from the dvr/nvr unit itself via hdmi or whatever video cable you use, everyone that complains seems to be all from remote access devices and probably don’t even know how to physically access their dvr/nvr 4. Stop giving bad reviews because you don’t understand the technology.

On my second system and it is not good. The Cameras are supposed to be HD, honestly I do not notice any improvement. The system crashes often. When this company provides an update you can count 100% that it will totally mess your phone, pad and computer viewing. If you call this company’s Tech Support, it prompts you to press #1 to leave a message as they only work bankers hours 9-5. Back to trying to leave a Tech Support Message... pressing the number 1 does nothing but rewind the message. Totally frustrating. If you are counting upon this system for your personal safety at your home... look somewhere else! I just emailed the company that I have a relationship with and who recommended this system to me and asked that they come asap and remove it then find me a better one that works. One whereby the actually company itself answers the phone and if you send them an email for tech support, it is kicked back as a bad email address. Very disappointed, going to dump it asap and never look back. Do your homework before you commit thousands of dollars in custom installation and get let down. Heaven forbid if you experience an act of violence or break in and this system is down. Oh and I angry at this company’s lack of customer service.

I generally don’t write reviews for any app. The update that was released about 2 weeks ago caused me to lose the ability to control the camera from my ipad. I am running a Hikvision PTZ camera through a Hikvision NVR. I never had a problem with either device. In my opinion,the image quality of the Hikvision camera is unsurpassed. I was really disappointed when this problem occurred. Within days, Hikvision released an update which corrected the problem. I am very happy that unlike a lot of developers that release updates and abandon them, these developers seem to be pro-active and worked quickly to resolve problems with the app.

Since the 6.0 version update, stability of the app and functionality itself is different world when it comes to this app. Have been using Hik-Connect and Hi-Look for nearly two full years. Since then, every major update you released the app was worse. I don’t know what’s happening and why, but you clearly has some issues with the development. Hi-Look was better for me because it’s always a bit late for update to be released so l used them in cascade, but now Hi-Look is as bad as Hik-Connect. I don’t know why is this happening, it should be better with every update that comes out but it’s quite the opposite. Main problem is the stability - when I load all of my 12 cameras on one screen they’re at SD, it’s ok, but when I load only one of them and because I want them in HD, they’re all in HD while single preview, the app just freezes for few seconds and sometimes the app crashes. Not to mention minor bugs while replaying the feedback, the app behaves like I’m using iPhone 5… whery buggy and glitchy! One phone I’m using the app is 13 Pro Max and the other one is 14 Pro Max. This problem persists for more than half a year. Please, what’s the situation for this kind of problem? How it can be resolved, is there some kind of paid app for playback of this kind because it’s very annoying and frustrating for such a premium brand.

I am not impressed at all. We had security cameras installed and specifically requested to be able to have remote access. The cameras are wonderful, but the remote access via this app has been very inconsistent and unstable. Initially we were getting a lot of “device offline” notices when we tried to access the cameras from a remote location. After talking to the security company It was explained to us that the cameras were working as expected, but that the instability was coming from the app itself. This problem seem to have been corrected after a short period of time with an update and then the most recent update that occurred a couple of days ago has been nothing but trouble again. It is been “device offline” ever since and there is nothing we can do about it. Not impressed And now we have a need that continues to be unmet. No remote access!

I really don’t understand any of these bad reviews. Unless the app just works perfectly fine for me and the other 5 star reviewers which is very doubtful. I had the iVMS-4200 system installed at my place of business a few years ago for security reasons mainly safety of my employees. I just recently started using this app in the last couple of months and it works fine. I don’t have any problems watching in real time with no lagging & picture quality is great. I installed this and have never did any of the updates since I read on here after people update they have problems. Very happy with this app.

Old black control box of Camera system was troubleshooted remotely and very effectively by Dermot Breslin of Reliable Security Products Ltd. From Dublin to our home in Rosslare Co. Wexford. Without Dermot’s skill and perseverance we would never have found the root cause of this problem. It is vitally important to us as we live abroad and rely on the Camera System. Dermot sent the Hikvision control box and a camera to us overnight and it was picked up in Wexford at 8:00 am next morning. The new system was up and running by 10 am same say with Dermot’s guidance and expertise. This was just a brilliant customer service experience backed up with a great brand.

There is no way to see when something happened. You have to pretty much scroll through the entire day to hopefully find what you were looking for. Any modern app show you what happened and when. Often you scroll to where you maybe think something happen, press play just to watch the playback stuck. This outdated and highly frustrating that in 2024 they can’t figure out how to design and make a proper security application work. The level of incompetence is baffling. The app update are telling of low level of application development care. Version 6.1.10 “some bug fixes.” What bugs??? Also have you ever considered putting a capital at the beginning of sentence? At least the bothered putting a period at the end of the sentence. This level of “I don’t give a bliiiip” clearly illustrates the level of care they have for what they do.

Version 4.15.0 released on June 9, 2021 causes errors and full system crashes. After updating to 4.15 I could no longer view my cameras. On top of that I noticed that every time I did try to view them via the app the entire system would freeze up and reboot. My iPad with the older 4.12 version still worked perfectly……until it updated to 4.15 and now that one causes the same errors and reboots as my iPhone. Update: Version 4.15.1 released on June 24, 2021 and addresses whatever the problem was with 4.15.0. Everything works perfectly again.

I suspect that all of you who are having problems with this app must not know what your doing. It works just fine for me. I’ve never had an issue adding a camera, or NVR. The stream is selectable. It defaults to the sub stream (for a reason) but you can change it to the HD feed if you want. My only complaint is that I haven’t figured out a way to separate different alarms. I want to be notified by my doorbell camera if someone hits the button, but I don’t like my phone constantly alerting me every time a cat walks by! I wish I could silence the motion alarm, while retaining the intercom alarm

This is my first night after installation/labor of 16 cameras inside and out and I’m pretty happy! I may need to add more outside lighting, however all inside/outside cameras are viewing great through the App in real time and I’m still learning how to view past video. I wish I’d done this many years ago!! A piece of mind, when you hear things bump in the night, is so worth the equipment/labor of cameras by ADT and the App works marvelous! I’m soooo blessed by it all, as a disabled senior, tetraplegic, wheelchair user, and widow trying to live independently for as long as possible!!

The camera i am currently using is HikVision DS-HD1 doorbell camera This app has some great feature But is lacking some of the setting I would like use like video ,image and audio settings as well as event play back settings The audio setting available is simply on and off I would like more control like adjusting sound volume and mic pick up range As for the video settings there is only a simple three toggle switch SD ,HD and Ultra HD I would like the ability to controls the exposure ,iso ,contrast ,ect The night vision settings are simply on and off I would like the ability to adjust the sensitivity Night vision looks good on my camera but it auto turns on about 30min to late So For about 30 min I have a mostly dark screen can’t identify any thing regardless of how close you are to the camera The 4x3 fish eye live view is great but when you play back an event for some reason the video is in 16x9 fisheye view which distorts the image by flattening it and there is no play back settings for adjustment

Please restore the auto connect to all devices to allow customers with multiple devices to scroll through all cameras/all devices without the need to manually select the device to view the cameras. It was removed on the last update. This was a great feature for customers with multiple devices. This feature is important for multi sites/devices. This is an advantage over other competitors and it’s a great feature. Please restore this feature. Other than that, we have no issues. Great app.

I use the Hikvision app on both my IPad and IPhone about 2 or 3 months ago the app was updated. They changed the PTZ function previously the pan and tilt functions were separate from the zoom, the pan and tilt icon was on the bottom left corner of my screen and the zoom was on the bottom right. “Very easy to operate” now for some stupid reason they combined both the pan/tilt and zoom into one icon which now means you have to exit out of pan/tilt in order to use zoom or exit out of zoom in order to perform pan/tilt. You have to continually do this step constantly if you’re following a moving object. I hope Hikvision gets enough negative feedback and changes the PTZ function back the way it was previously “separate icons for pan/tilt and zoom”

Guys, this is the best application you can purchase, there are all the records of your history that you lived with the crisis of your cry with God, even if for some time the cameras record and everything can probably be erased if this application were human , he would be the only one to cry at the prayers of a woman crying out to a powerful God! He was also the only witness to the works and miracles and the faith that was born in the air she breathed. Buy it, install it, it can be the greatest guardian of your home's treasure! Anjo do amor!

Cameras have great picture, live view works fine, but the whole reason for having security cameras is so you can easily playback recent events....not so with this app. Playback FAILS TO LOAD 95% of the time and even when it does you are stuck watching the video in real time i.e. no fast forward or rewind, to go forward or back wether a couple of minutes or 2hrs you have to move the slider which leaves you back with the fails to load problem. Unless you can sit an watch your cameras all day/night, or you happen to be really lucky checking them at the exact time something you need to see is happening, or if you have time to go sit at the base station(ff/rw feature works there) to review footage every time something happens then Don’t Waste Your Money On This System!!!

The iOS app is clunky at best. The UI is very poor and cumbersome. Calls come through like typical phone calls; however, accepting the call really does nothing. If the Call button is pressed and my phone is locked, it takes multiple steps to be able to fully answer the call and communicate with the caller. I have launch the app, tap a fingerprint icon (not really a Touch ID) in the center of the HV screen, perform a Touch ID, then touch the icon in the app associated with my camera, wait for the video to fully load and then touch the microphone icon. A lot of times, the process simply times out and the camera says “we are not available.” Good gracious, could it get worse?

This app is required to properly configure the DS-HD1. iVMS-4200 can do a lot to configure it, but this app is the only way I found to set the chime type to mechanical, for instance. Make sure that you allow the app to have “precise location” turned on in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Hik-Connect, otherwise the app will not be allowed to read your WIFI SSID to copy it to the DS-HD1 during installation. It will be stuck repeatedly asking you to connect to WLAN otherwise.

I have purchased a HIK camera and recording system for home and linking it to HIK connect application, using it for three months. The application is reliable and easy to use but not in the beginning for there is not intuitive function built in for the user. There is a significant learning on how to use what the application offers. This application is more geared for commercial use where persons are more experienced with security systems. Download the manual from the companies website for there are key learnings to get.

This update that gave the app a new look made the app incredibly frustrating to use, now you have to click 10 times before you go to full screen, and it often sends you to a single camera view where you can’t just swipe to the next, but you have to select each camera individually. Additionally, when you’re able to scroll between different cameras there’s lag that wasn’t there before, and in the previous versions you could keep scrolling from the end of the cameras list back to the beginning, now it just ends.

The only way you can view is in real time or up to 8x but then you miss every 5 seconds. If someone is in your house it takes 5-10 minutes just to find them and by that time they are 5-10 minutes ahead of where you found them so you have to find them again and over and over. Even scrolling takes time to load so you can’t find people because you have to wait for it to load. Alerts don’t work nor do notifications. Basically if you have a home attack the police can review the video to help find who killed you. This is all scary stuff if you have the security cameras to defend your home. This product isn’t for you.

“I really like having my car parked at Rockwell Storage” knowing that it is secured at all time’s”. “Suzanne does an excellent job there and is alway’s very pleasant and she is very helpful whenever I ask her for some assistance”. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity to respond to your request of this survey and I hope it is helpful”. “My Best Regards”, Joe Simonini “Happy Holidays To All Of You”⛄️ “Glad I have my car in a safe place and I like how you keep the area clean all the time”.

Camera images are good, and the cameras open in live view pretty quickly. But playback is horrible. The system automatically records based on motion detection, but very few of the video clips will play back. The display counts up the percentage into the 80’s or 90’s, then freezes and throws an error message that the wifi network is bad. Absurd because other video clips will play back just fine, and it’s the same network. If I want to see what happened at a certain day and time, I have about a 10% chance of being able to. You guys need to fix this.

Both my wife and I have the app on our iPhones and everything worked great before the recent app update/upgrade took place. Now we can’t playback consistently and our high speed fiber network is working up to par. The app keeps stating “Maximum playback channel limit reached.” Once in a while with persistent tries playback functions. I could complain about many other unacceptable changes in functionality, but haphazard playback is our biggest issue. We need playback for our security. We have HikVision systems in both our store as well as home. Someone obviously made app changes without having knowledge or experience in doing so!!! PLEASE FIX THE APP!!!

The cameras are fantastic however the networking connection to the app is horrible. On top of that the customer service is rude. I asked them why they make the system so difficult to connect and their answer is that basically as an end user you should not be connecting the system to your network and Hik-connect app, as it is the job of a technician. I’m not sure why hik connect over complicates the set up Process. Why can’t they simplify or just spell out the process on the app instead of making you find some obscure menu on their web site to connect the system ? My cheap Arlo camera was a cinch to connect, I don’t see why Hik-Connect can’t make it easy., it’s not rocket science.

You guys did an update that took away a very accessible and user friendly experience, I could easily click on a designated camera and go back serval days all within the same interface.. This was removed for some odd reason on your updates . Now I can only view up to 24 hours of a recording

The app gets 2 starts for working. The cameras connect slowly, but I guess I’m lucky that they do anyway. The app does NOT support the iPhone X despite it receiving multiple updates since the phone’s release, which is particularly annoying. And finally, it shows more cameras than you have on your account and lists them as buffering but they never load. For example we have 4 cams on our account but the app always shows 6. 4 cameras load and we can see the live feed but the other 2 say buffering all the time. This is stupid because we only have 4 cameras. Anyway, not a very good app and not a very good company.

We recently had several cameras and a doorbell installed. Nothing but problems. We get hundreds of notifications daily because the cameras will not save changes we made. We have changed all sorts parameters but they change right back (microphone, sensitivity). What good is it when you get over 500 notifications in a day. We can’t possibly check each one because it continues to send a notification every time afar goes by. We have shut off microphone ( comes right back on) moved sensitivity to the minimum and changed area to steps of the porch. But still hundreds of notifications daily. Horrible app!!! I would give it a “0” if I could.

I recently had to re-add a camera to the app, and so I enabled location data, which it requires to add. I forgot to turn the location data access off in Settings when I was done. When I went to do a privacy checkup, I noticed it had recorded my location about 15 times over the last week. I’m just wondering why it needs to know where I am while I check my doorbell camera. Makes me think twice about buying more HikVision gear. Also, I still really need Internet Explorer in 2022 to access the feed on a computer? What a joke.

I installed this update and thought it would be a new improvement. But boy I was wrong. Does not open every time. When it does open then you have to tap another icon or setting to open what you want. Then it lags you have to wait for video to catch-up. The old version is no longer available so I am stuck with this version that is horrible.

Overall app is pretty functional in meeting my needs. It does have a few flaws that need fixing, the main one is after logging out and logging back in at times you have to start the cameras again. Much easier if once you present your credential it brings up live view with all the cameras. Overall it’s pretty fast and provide quick access to notification, live view and play back

Since last update when i run the app it go out (crash)! so i hope you have solution for that soon as possible. Generally the app is good but should be ( preset ) in PTZ control when i use 4g/5g ,because now preset jut work when i connect to the same wifi that Hik NVR is connected and use local network configuration , but when i am outside my home and use remote configuration thae preset not work with 4g/5g network.

I have been trying for hours to get notifications to work. I have read the instructions and watched a bunch of YT videos. This version of the app does not match any documents I have been able to find. Live view is working and notifications appear to be enabled on the camera and on my phone but they don’t work.

App works great, but I believe if support for shortcuts is implemented, actions could be done a lot faster. If we script shortcuts using Hik-connect, we could open doors at the push of a button or by asking Siri. (Instead of having to access the app and look for the device responsible, access it and activate the unlock function) Thank you

The problem I’m having is when you view a single camera and set the HD to better picture, it goes away after I view the next full screen camera. It will not hold at HD... So when you view it in full screen again you have to set it to HD again. Needs to be fixed. We also need to be able to adjust the brightness and contrast. I hope this can be fixed. Other than that, it loads up fast. New update Nov 12, 2019 a little better but now in hd it goes into streaming and stuck at 60% you have to hit the clear button for it to come in.

I used to be able to specify what sound to use for the built-in alerts. That capability went away a couple weeks ago and now the alerts sound is too quiet and my employees can’t hear it. We are missing line crossing alarms. Please allow me to customize the alert sound. Developer responded "You can modify the alarm audio by going to Me->Setting->Personal Device Notification->Alarm Audio Settings." That sounds awesome, except I don’t have “personal device notification“ under my settings tab

I have had these cameras for 6months now. The installer said we purchased the best of the best as far as the cameras go. Only being able to view the cameras from an APP only is and not from a website disappointing. When trying to review past activity on this APP that never works the way it is supposed to i can only load past footage only up to 90% on the app then says network error. The app is updated. I have tried many times on both cellular and wifi. I am ready to have SecurlySound come and remove these cameras and go back to ADT cameras which i had for 5 years with no issues.

It’s annoying that this system doesn’t work properly, when sometime happen and there is no energy for a while, when the systems came back it sets automatically to the date 1970 which is insane, I mean you can’t not make a playback it something bad happen in that time lapse because of the date, if this work with internet, why the hell it doesn’t go to the actual date? You can’t no be all days all time seeing if the date change because of the system and then u do this for security but when u really need to check something on the cameras you can’t see anything for you bad system.

The people giving this app a negative rating are not familiar with how their internet effects the stream of their cameras. If you have a poor upload speed at the camera’s site, you’re going to run into issues trying to view them remotely from this app. That is not the app’s fault, you just need a faster upload speed from your internet provider.

Thank you for promptly fixing the app through latest update. Though the previous loading screen freezes issue could’ve been avoided by thoroughly testing before making it public, I am satisfied to know that HIKVision takes user feedback in consideration quickly and ensures quick fix.

We have 3 systems At home and 2 rental properties. We are unable to view all 3 on the hik app and the tech didn’t know how to fix problem. This is horrible. We wish we had bought Vivint. But Vivint is very expensive and we got tricked into signing a 5 year monitoring contract with Vivint. We don’t know what to do now. And don’t know who to call.

I can’t get enough of my camera’s Now this system is not for the set it and forget minded. You will need good internet for offsite viewing and make adjustments to get what you want from it but, its loaded with options. It will take some walking away and coming back before you get it to taste however you will be happy in the end.

Overall it is good. But everytime I want to see the playback, I’m frustrated with the timeline bar that always starts from midnight :( No one gotta watches things from the midnight. It should just point at the current time then we can easily navigate it back to 10 minutes before, or one hour before, up to our desire. And the 2x, 4x is nowhere. It’s the CCTV, that is a must afterall.

I’m an avid supporter and user of Hikvision and use the Hik-connect iPad app extensively in all my installs. I’m the one issue is the lack of iPad portrait support or rotation. Many of the IPads are mounted in Portrait mode since many other apps and uses benefit front such setup and the lack of image rotation to view the cameras is a major drawback. Please add iPad rotation so we can view in Portrait / vertical iPad mounting. It would be immensely appreciated!!!!! Thank yiu

They did an update about two months ago to try to “improve “their product, Now you have to go through 2 to 3 steps to get to the camera you need to view. So if you have an alarm event you have to spend more time going through the app to find out what the alarm is for. Sometimes you can just be too smart for your own good.

Not worth the money whatsoever. The system is NOT user-friendly, especially when trying to locate any possible incidents via “playback”. It’s a VERY poor design. The night vision is blurry and unusable should you need it for legal purposes. I’ve been thru 3 doorbells and I’m still waiting on my refund as their doorbell was taken out by them nearly 4 months ago. This was a terrible investment. I would’ve been better off paying a handyman installing something for less than 1/5th of this system’s total cost ($$5,000++!!) from some knock-off company.

Within the last two weeks, my iPad app can no longer scroll backwards in time past the midnight hour of the current day inside of the Playback function. For instance at 1am, I can only scroll backwards 1 hour, and at 12 noon, I can only scroll back 12 hours. Previous to these updates I could scroll back for weeks of time. Now I can not even reverse to the previous day.