My experience: I did the Lorex camera + DVR thing at my house, 2 wired, 2 wireless...... It was cool, it was smartphone enabled, I had a cheap computer screen for it and could see who was at my door, too - best feature to avoid magazine salespeople or week end mormons !
But over time it got really difficult to keep going satisfactorily - sometimes cameras wouldn't switch back to day mode (unplug, replug), the wireless ones would need resetting (you guessed it, unplug...), it would stop working via the iphone (reboot DVR), other times it stopped passing thru the firewall altogether and I'd have to re-register the damn thing via a freeIP routing site (no support), do some annoying tweaks so it still worked through my router (and remember those for next time), etc...
All in all, not for the technically disinterested (definitely not for my parents or my wife), and at times a pain even for a tech geek to diagnose. I wish someone like NEST did IP cameras, so far every brand I tried was rated by me as "Meh!" either on quality/night vision/durable connectivity/support. Just not as plug and play as one would thick in this day and age, IMO...
Last month I bought a single Dlink unit (for another location) - $150 or so - and it's actually been "alright" ("meh +"), but more expensive. Pan tilt, cloud backup... Might buy those again if they integrate together, also they have sound both ways which can be useful if you wanna shout at the intruders from your vacation spot... There's definitely a market for a good solid idiotproof system !
PS: > Do you set to only record on motion alerts?
Yes, pretty much. system vary but you can define zones that trigger it, exclude some, use motion, whatever... You don't wanna be broadcasting all the time, and in the case of local DVR, the thing would be on fire after a week... Mine was HOT !
Old pic of setup (one camera was not yet connected, but that blue screen was a common thing all in all)
