Canary

I paid for the 鈥榩remium鈥?service, if you can call it that. I couldn鈥檛 get any of my past 30-day videos to upload after waiting for hours on the loading screen. I didn鈥檛 bother trying any of the other features because of what a frustrating 鈥榮ervice鈥?this was. WOULD NOT give any money to Canary in the future!

Canary Flex USED to be a reliable home security product. Now, this product is virtually USELESS without a paid subscription. Potential buyers, please beware. Read the product鈥檚 subscription page BEFORE you buy. The company has lost my respect for its 鈥榖ait-and-switch鈥?move.

Yet again no service! So fed up with this! They keep taking the money but I am getting no service!

Unresponsive Customer Service. Misleading FAQs about the options how to cancel the Premium Membership (simply is not possible in the UI – Manage Membership drives you into a dead end for signing up monthly or annually while I am already a Premium Subscriber). Live Chat does not work and throws a connection error (3 days in a row). Just don't ever use this device and service.

Again, one of these overfunded startups (raised $66M) for a simple service that they end up not delivering and screwing over their customers.

I have had 3 of these cameras for a little less than 1 year. One of these recently quit working and the customer service is HORRIBLE. As stated in other entries; they take 2-3 days to reply to emails and then keep telling you to do the same procedures repetitively that don't work. They refuse to admit that the product is defective. There latest solution is to start moving my three cameras and reprogram them. Even the app on my phone crashes when I try to reprogram cameras. This has to be the WORST security system on the market.

I would like to say I have always had very polite, pleasant and helpful responses from the good people of Canary. They have been wonderful. The camera has its little glitches like all electronic things but when I have contacted Canary they have sorted the issues quickly and politely. I would be happy to recommend them to anyone. Thank you Canary

Service doesn't work half the time and they still charge you. Great idea, terrible execution. They will soon be out of business.

Canary has the worst customer service ever. They rely totally on emails that may take several days to get a response, and asking you to do things you've already done a several times from their alleged troubleshooting documents. In a country where most businesses rely on the quality of their customer service, this one is definitely 3rd world. It's so bad it's laughable. Their product sometimes get stuck during updates and they have no reset button and all they can say is unplug it, power off, hold it for 5 seconds. When that doesn't work they basically stop responding.

I use 3 canary cameras in my house for more than a year and so far I did not had any problems with them.

I was shocked when I saw all these negative reviews.

Top product for me.

I am not surprised to find 100% of the reviews about Canary on Trustpilot are 鈥淏ad鈥? The lowest rating.

I am not the one to complain, but after sending tens of email messages to Canary, I decided to write.

I purchased two cameras back when the company was starting, with the promise I would be able to access the videos anytime I wanted. Soon, came the subscription, and without paying, I could only access a 10second preview, what made it useless, but I continued to use both cameras, as we live in a safe area and that wouldn鈥檛 be an issue, I thought. I just wanted to be able to check if the dog was okay when I was out. Eventually I disconnected one device and placed it back in its box in a cupboard for about 12 months. Now, I would like to reconnect the device and continue to use it, but as time has passed and it didn鈥檛 automatically update the firmware, I am being told the device is no longer usable. Canary is suggesting that I should buy another camera as they refused to update its software.

I will never spend another penny for any of their products. Bad customer service.

T E R R I B L E

Bought one back in early 2017 – service worked well, even though the app was a bit glitchy. Then the subscription service was announced which was enraging but I paid for it. It does not work. Location services are dismal – we cannot have two phones connected anymore as it cannot handle – nightmode does not turn on (even though activated). There is more AND THIS IS FOR THE PAID SERVICE?!

*UPDATED* – The support staff are hilarious. They do not assist they only point out the most obvious thing (Update your phone, turn location services on blah blah).

You are better off taking the camera price 拢150(ish) + annual subscription (a further) 拢80 and buying anything else. Anything else.

I agree with what most others are now saying about this company.

Having purchased this camera, based on all the included features advertised at the time of purchase, I am now very unhappy about the company removing many of those features and moving them to a subscription that we now need to pay extra for. I cannot even download/save any of the now crippled footage without paying them extra money for a yearly subscription.

The fact that the camera isn't the best on the market, mainly due to the technical issues causing the camera not to auto-reconnect if, for whatever reason, the wifi connection drops, I could have lived with that but now the company has removed many of the more useful features that were INCLUDED (And paid for) at the time of purchase, I can no longer recommend this camera AND company.

I also own a Piper all-in-one security camera from a different company which has worked flawlessly since I purchased it and still retains ALL the advertised features that I originally paid for.

The Canary device in our home worked just fine for us… up until a few weeks ago. Canary have completely crippled the device we paid 拢160 for, and are now holding their paying customers to ransom – forcing every single person to also pay an expensive monthly subscription to access basic home security features. The subscription costs an extra 拢79 per year, and I wouldn't be surprised if were to double soon, given how little they've demonstrated they care about the trusting people who have already paid them hundreds of pounds.

Unless you purchase a Canary subscription IN ADDITION TO the device itself, you'll be left with zero home security:
1) You will receive NO notifications and NO video recordings of intruders in your home while you're asleep at night.
2) You will receive only 10 second clips of intruders or other movement happening in your home while you're out of the house – useless for home insurance claims, useless for assisting law enforcement, and useless for giving you peace of mind.

We will be purchasing a competitor's product instead – Canary seems to lack professional integrity, and I don't want to be one of the customers they con the next time they make a cash-grab by doubling their subscription price or further crippling a once-great product.

I鈥檓 afraid Canary became a little greedy. The company lured punters in with a reasonably priced product but then pulled out the rug beneath our feet demanding membership fees for what was once free. I noticed there has been a slight improvement on the length of video capture but it still cuts out half way thru. Please restore it the way is was or I鈥檒l buy another product. I will NOT be blackmailed into paying extortionate membership fees.

How to kill your company.

The detail is covered very well in other reviews here and on the Canary community forum (basic plan and membership updates).

Canary had a strong client base of IT literate and intelligent customers. I bought on the recommendation of an IT security professional and had no hesitation in recommending to others.

The initial decision to change the service purchased under our feet was a bad one – but the spin from the CEO is frankly insulting, promising "new" features which don't go anywhere near restoring the service we evaluated and purchased.

Like many other original backers i spent over $500 in Canary products to realise that this company and its directors had unethical business practise. Recent 'change' in T&C has turned this home security system useless for non-subscribers. Now require a monthly subscription for what used to be free (but limited) service …. 30sec snap shot of the "action" asking you to pay if you want to see more, night vision not available when you are at home but sleeping and options all now removed!!

Bought my canary February this year for 拢150, was pricey but worth it. Would have been a 5 star review but recently changed the terms and conditions and the product is now rendered pretty much useless unless I pay 拢100 per year. I spoke to canary who will not refund me or give me free membership because I didn鈥檛 buy the product from them, I bought it from curry鈥檚. Shocking and despicable, it鈥檚 like selling someone an iPhone and after 6 months telling them they have to pay 拢100 per year to use it?!
I recommend to no one!

I bought the camera because the packaging said there was no membership fee. The company has changed the terms and now this is not entirely true as the free features don鈥檛 actually protect my home anymore. Steer clear as these people don鈥檛 do business in an ethical and fair way.

I bought five canary devices soon after they came out and find that only four can be used in one location, so I got one refunded. Four around the house worked very well.

Then they, without notice, changed the free service offering to something unacceptable and unusable for me, driving me towards the paid subscription service. If I had known this at the time of purchasing the cameras, I would have bought something else. There is no way I would bought these cameras.

Now it is not even possible to download videos of events and its only possible to watch 10 seconds of an event within 24 hours… else it is gone forever.

I find this behavior unethical and underhand.

Removing basic features of a products via a software update long time after people have purchased and paid for them (expensively) is to deceive your customers as well as immoral. Product now basically unusable without an extremely expensive membership.

So I鈥檝e bought 3 of these. They鈥檙e expensive compared to average cameras but they鈥檙e good. I bought them without reading the small print that they only record for less than a day unless you pay a memebership fee! I thought as they鈥檙e much more than say swan or Chubb or nest they鈥檇 do more! I ended up missing footage as it was less than 8 hours?

I still bought another as it comes with night mode so I needed the added cameras around the place during the night. This is part of the hours you can access as it鈥檚 sort of the 24 hour period. But no……they鈥檝e now changed that without any warning just switched it off and now yes you鈥檝e guessed it you HAVE to pay a membership fee to even use that!! I feel duped and totoally miss sold and it鈥檚 certainly not what I paid for without this mode.

I was going to buy 3-4 flex cameras but instead I鈥檓 going to either get my money back or sell them on eBay and get either a system where you don鈥檛 get conned into membership or if I pay a membership a proper security system that鈥檚 linked up and you get something for your member ship.

This is very disappointing as I was a fan and in fact my family did buy them in my recommendation but now alll My friends and family are as disappointed as me. You can have the night mode without being a member – oh abracadabra- you can鈥檛!!!

When I first bought 2 units, for my front door and rear door, the rating would have been 5 stars.
Unfortunately, they seem to have misjudged the amount of video that their initial success would generate.
Now they have changed their Terms and Conditions to restrict the amount of video produced if you are on the basic plan, the free one, that is part of the unit purchase package.
Now, you cannot record a complete incident, only the first 10 seconds. Absolutely useless, if you have an incident you have no video of any use for the police or yourself.
Also any second unit is not allowed to record video at all, you can watch live (on both), so my rear door has no video protection unless I happen to be watching, even then I have no video recording available for Police or Insurance.
Not NOW worth the money. Canary are only interested in the "membership" plan costing 拢8 per month.

Meet Canary. The all-in-one home security system you control from your phone. It鈥檚 built to learn and sends intelligent alerts with HD video and audio directly to your phone.