Zmodo Reviews 212

I have zmodo cameras at my business, my home and in several of my family members homes. Ive been with them for YEARS. But I will be swapping out these cameras and finding a new system. The ads are long and frustrating. If i need to quickly view a camera (elderly parent) it takes several minutes before I can view camera. Zmodo drop the ads or you will lose alot of customers.

I've had the zmodo camera for years and they worked great.But now the advertisement just to look at your camera, you have to waste at least three minutes trying to get the ads to go off.To view your own camera. I hate this because I have about twenty cameras that i'm gonna have to just get rid of and go with a complete camera system is the system that doesn't make you look at ads. This sucks, because it's gonna be a lot of work and a lot of money for me.

Note to manufacturer. Perhaps don’t ruin the customer experience to the point i have to look up where to vent my utter frustration and anger with you. Shame on product management. Shame on management. I would never have purchased i. The first place if id known you were incompetent.

Zmodo forces you to watch ads before you can access your cameras. They don’t know what they’re doing. Currently you get four ads pushed to you then their app locks up. I can’t access my cameras anymore. I’m replacing all my Zmodo products and hoping to start a class-action lawsuit with similarly affected users.

Poor quality and always ad on it. Slow loading. Becareful if you need to watch the footage in urgent. This cam will not deliver. Choose other company better!!!!

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON ZMODO CAMERAS
I have been a Zmodo user for several years. I have had to contact them a couple of times and never had a problem except I had to request a call from them. Everything eventually was resolved.
Now they have been running ads and commercials on the app and when I try to look at my cameras it BS the things I have to deal with. I try to talk to their stupid AI to complain because ever since they have been running ads and commercials my cameras go offline.
When I try to contact them thru their stupid AI it tells me to Type in Agent for help. That is not worth a damn because The AI keeps telling me Agents are not available . I have tried for days to get help and nothing seems to work with Zmodo or their AI. I told them I do not want the ads or commercials and their stupid AI keeps telling me to contact a agent and unsubscribe. The thing is, I do not use their cloud service so there is nothing to unsubscribe from. The stupid AI tells me they need to do the ads and commercials to earn money to maintain the cloud services. That is fine for the people using the cloud services, but is not fair for us that do not use the cloud service. I am so angry a ZMODO. I told them for the last couple of days I was going to contact my attorney over this bullshit. I think we all need to get to get together and do a class action law suit to get any results. If this does not get cleared up, I am going to have to spend a bunch of money on a different camera system. As of now I say DO NOT BUY ZMODO CAMERAS!

Been a customer for years. When current cameras go out will not replace. Zmodo has started to allow mind numbing ads to run before you can access your cameras. Cameras have worked great and simply affordable to just purchase a replacement. Will never purchase another Zmodo. They chose to allow annoying ads to run before you are allowed to view them. Chose to burden their core customers for profit. I need to view my cameras immediately not after an ad runs . I am done. Cancelled all my cloud accounts.

Complete garbage, I have an iPhone. I have to sit through tons of ads before I can look at my cameras. The system is down most of the time. Complete junk. I’m looking for a new system as we speak. Don’t waste your money or time on the cameras or Zmodo app

Do not buy, iPhone users will have to watch a couple ads before connecting to your camera’s. iPad the same and also has a banner on top that blocks my view. With that said I feel you will be disappointed

STAY AWAY FROM ZMODO , they have loaded thier app with commercial that you have to watch before you can even check your cameras so if you need to look quick you can forget it , average commercials are 30 seconds and longer so this makes the cameras pure garbage, but they were close to that already !!!!

I purchased the 8 camera Zmodo security camera setup years ago that has the DVR recording. I have found that dealing with the company has been a delight. I have had to reach out to customer support more than a few times and each time they have been responsive and extremely helpful. I highly recommend this company due to this matter.

You buy their cameras and once your free trial is over, the cameras are useless! I bought 6 and once my free trial was done, I now have 6 cameras that are crap! These are useless unless you pay this company for their services. Which I might add their services are costly! Don’t buy these!!!

7 cameras,each seems to take turns "waiting for secure connection" cameras have night vision halos! Not happy!

I encourage those with the same experience to file with BBB, FTC, Your State Attorney General's Office, Consumer protection such as the below. What they have done is unethical an potentially illegal with precedents in the software/electronics industry of removing features paid for in product and pushing to subscriptions.

I am filing this complaint regarding the actions of Zmodo and its associated platform Smartz, which have resulted in the loss of essential device features for which I paid in good faith.
I purchased over 30 of the following Zmodo product(s):
Product(s): minis, doorbell, pivots, outside cameras, wireless
Dates Purchased: 2016 through 2025
I can provide Proof of Purchase for most of the 30+ cameras purchased on Amazon.

When I purchased these devices, they were advertised and sold with specific features—such as local recording, playback, app compatibility, LAN access, and continuous operational support. Recently, Zmodo pushed out mandatory firmware and platform changes that removed or disabled key features, including:
****Loss of the most important feature- short video clips when motion activated.***
*** claim migration to a new Smartz app that does not support previous functions as the cause. Reality is Smartz is their new hosting partner and they forced a Zmodo firmware upgrade and changed platform that stripped away the video clip function without expensive subscriptions. They claim that this is caused by using the Smartz app after May 2025 which is not true. My loss of the feature coincided with me selected their 7 day free trial in the Zmodo app for 24/7 video.
***They claim Inability to roll back firmware despite reduced functionality
*** They also deleted my account on user.zmodo.com which ALSO forces one to sign up for their partner's Smartz expensive hosting plane when creating new account.

Smartz is their partner firm that now does their hosting.

These changes have materially degraded the product, rendering it unable to perform the functions that were advertised and present at the time of purchase and for years up to recently. In my view, this constitutes:
-Deceptive or unfair business practices
-Failure to deliver the product as advertised
-Removal of paid-for features without consent
-Potentially, an intentional push toward paid cloud services by disabling previously free options

I attempted to resolve this by contacting Zmodo, but their weak claim is that I had opened an app since May that forced a firmware update. This is not true and even if it was, just not change the situation.

I am requesting the following resolution:
Restoring the functions of my 30+ cameras to their original function that I paid for or a full refund on all devices so that I can be made whole and repurchase cameras from an ethical company whose cameras actually work as described.

These changes were made unilaterally by Zmodo and were not part of the original agreement when I purchased the equipment. As a customer, I should not lose core product features due to an update that I did not request and could not refuse.

HORRIBLE COMPANY AND THERE NEEDS TO BE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.

For years I had purchased a total of 30 cameras. Recently they FORCED
a firmware update where I no longer received the short video clips free like I had relied on. Only got bad resolution photos that did not even show the cause of motion. Cameras now USELESS.

The FTC prohibits deceptive advertising. If a company advertises a product with a feature and then later removes it forcing customers to pay extra, this is bait-and-switch advertising.
Breach of Contract- when buying a product, the product description, and marketing materials can be considered part of the contract of sale. Removing this said feature and then especially forcing them to pay fees to get it back may constitute a breach of contract. By advertising a feature and then removing it without consent, the company fails to deliver the product as promised.

Implied warranty of merchantability- stripping away this key feature only to monetize it most likely violates this warranty

Consumer protection laws- this will likely fall under consumer protection laws that prohibit unfair or deceptive practices.

Can users retain the original functionality without additional payment? Removing a core feature without offering a refund or grandfathering option is both unfair and misleading. It may attract regulatory scrutiny and class-action lawsuits.

Ethically, it is widely considered wrong, because it exploits consumers’ reliance on the original promises.

Video game industry: When companies remove content or shift features to paid DLC, they’ve faced lawsuits over false advertising, e.g., “Star Wars Battlefront II” loot box controversies.
Consumer electronics: Companies that disable hardware features via software updates have been sued or investigated by regulators (e.g., printer “ink chip” cases, smartphone throttling).
The actions of their company are not only questionable legally but they are unethical and deceptive. They have betrayed customer trust by removing THE key feature for this product without consent and monetizing it. They exploited sunk costs by forcing existing customers to pay AGAIN for something already invested in the product.

Auto renewed my cloud subscription which i was unaware of. Customer service flatly refused to refund despite me cancelling a few hours after discovering charge.

Everything regarding cameras and connectivity was satisfactory until the Zmodo app was trashed in favor of the new Smartz Eaze app. This new app is terrible. The UI makes no sense. The old app gave you 10 seconds of motion videos for 24 hours with no subscription. Now you get only 3 hours. With paid subscription, the UI is tedious at best, and senseless. The old app was much friendlier to use. I once gave this product good reviews. Now I suggest buy something else, not this.

Motion alert notifications are continuously at least 15 minutes delayed, and you're hardly able to play back events activities, always loosing connection and worse of all NO LIVE CUSTOMER SUPPORT, only through email!! I have the Ring door bell, along with a Ring to camera and I never experience any of these issues, but whenever I do encounter any technical issues, Ring customer support is always available.

I would never recommend these cameras to anyone. They constantly go into "video loss." The setup process is a major pita because the app is so poorly designed. If you decide to buy these just know that you're going to be spending a lot of time going up and down a ladder to reset them (again, you should be able to do this via the app, but nope). You will constantly have cameras in "video loss." Support? ROTFL!!