Lorex Cameras
Installed in
Brooklyn

Before you call, look at these four things

1. Is the recorder itself on? In a cellar the recorder often shares a power strip with the boiler controls or a dehumidifier. Look for lights on its front panel and listen for the fan.
2. Is it one camera or all of them? One black tile usually means one cable or one camera. Every tile black, or the recorder missing from the app, points to power, the drive or the internet connection.
3. Did anything change on the network? A new modem from the internet provider, a new mesh system or a changed Wi-Fi password breaks remote viewing far more often than a failed camera does.
4. Which app are you opening? Lorex now publishes three apps. If yours was renamed or updated recently, write down the name on your phone's screen before you call.

Send those answers with your request and we arrive with the right part instead of a guess.

How the method changes from house to house

Through masonry. On brick and brownstone we take the cable outside through a mortar joint rather than the face of the brick or stone, sleeve the hole, seal it, and fix the camera base into mortar or plain masonry with masonry anchors. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's own guidance says the same for designated buildings: attach at mortar joints or plain masonry and keep away from cast iron and decorative surfaces. On a carved lintel, a cornice bracket or a terracotta panel, nothing gets drilled.

Up the back wall. The rear of most Brooklyn rowhouses is plain common brick, which makes it the honest place for a vertical cable. A single cable in a short, painted raceway from the garden-door level up to a camera under the cornice is usually less disruptive than fishing it inside a party wall, and it is serviceable later. On the street front the cable stays hidden whenever possible, entering the camera from behind.

Inside plaster walls. Lath-and-plaster cracks when it is cut carelessly, and a century of paint hides old gas pipes and knob-and-tube remnants. We prefer existing paths: closet corners, the gap behind a baseboard, an abandoned dumbwaiter or chimney chase where it is safe and clean, the cellar ceiling. Where concealed in-wall cable is the only acceptable route, it is priced per camera in advance so there are no surprises.

Siding and frame houses. On vinyl or aluminum siding, a camera fixed straight onto the ribbed surface never seals and slowly loosens. A mounting block that matches the siding profile gives the camera a flat base and the cable a clean entry, and the screws reach the sheathing behind.

Shared walls and shared views. In attached housing, every camera on the side of a yard is close to a neighbor. New York's Civil Rights Law section 52-a gives a homeowner a right to sue someone who installs a video device on adjoining property to record their backyard without written consent, so we aim yard cameras at your own ground and mask out the neighbors' yards in the Lorex settings. The same visit is a good time to ask whether the side gate needs a smart lock in Brooklyn, since the camera will show who used it.

A camera plan for a two- or three-family house

The Census numbers say roughly a third of Brooklyn's homes are in two- to four-unit buildings, and those houses raise questions a single-family plan never does. Before we place a single camera on a Bensonhurst or Flatbush two-family we settle four things with the owner, in writing, because changing them later means re-cabling.

1. Who owns the recorder. Normally the owner of the building, kept in the owner's unit or a locked part of the cellar, not in a shared hallway. Tenants can be given live access to some cameras without being given the recorder.
2. Which cameras each household sees. A shared side alley, the garbage area and the street door usually serve everyone. A camera on the owner's private garden door or inside the owner's entrance does not. We list each camera against each user before setup.
3. Where nothing points. No camera looks into a tenant's windows or through their door, and none sits inside a tenant's private entrance. Hallway cameras look along the hall, never at a door.
4. What happens at move-out. When a tenant leaves, their app access must be removed the same day. We show the owner how to do it, because a former tenant with live access to the building's cameras is a common and avoidable problem.

The same thinking applies, on a larger scale, to a walk-up. There the recorder belongs in a locked room, the hallway and entrance cameras serve the building, and a commercial tenant on the ground floor keeps its own separate system.

Where the Recorder Lives in an Attached House

Cellar, parlor-floor closet or top floor — where should the Lorex recorder go in a brownstone?

Wherever the shortest set of cable routes meets a room that stays dry and reasonably cool. In most brownstones that is the cellar or the front of the garden level, because cables from there can run along open joists to the front under the stoop and to the back at the garden door, and only the cameras up high need a vertical run. A parlor-floor closet works well when the cellar is damp or used by a tenant. The top floor only makes sense when most cameras are at the cornice or roof line, which is rare on a rowhouse.

Two rules decide between candidates. The recorder needs a wired network connection to the router for remote viewing — Lorex's own Fusion system page says remote access requires the recorder to be connected to the router by cable and recommends at least 6 Mbps of upload speed — so if the modem is on the third floor and the recorder in the cellar, one cable has to join them. And the drive inside the recorder is the only copy of your footage, so the room should not be the first one a burglar walks through.

We mark the candidate rooms on a floor sketch during the walk-through, measure each camera's run from each of them, and pick the one with the shortest, least destructive routes. The difference between a good and a bad choice is often thirty feet of cable per camera and a day of labor.

The router is upstairs and the only dry room is the cellar — can the recorder and the router sit on different floors?

Yes, and in Brooklyn they often do. The recorder only needs one network cable to the router; the cameras connect to the recorder, not to the router. So the job is a single cable from the modem floor down to the recorder, usually following an existing path such as the internet provider's own line, a closet stack or the space beside a radiator riser.

The alternative is to move the internet. Many owners use the Lorex visit to bring the modem down to the cellar or garden level and run cable back up to a Wi-Fi access point, which can also fix weak Wi-Fi on the upper floors. Whether that is worth it depends on how the provider's line enters the house; we check before suggesting it.

What we avoid is a powerline adapter or a Wi-Fi bridge between recorder and router as the permanent link. They work on the bench and then fail quietly under load, and a Lorex recorder that drops its internet connection still records but stops sending alerts.

Why shouldn't the Lorex recorder sit on the media shelf beside the parlor television?

Because the parlor is the room a visitor, a contractor or an intruder sees first, and a box with blinking lights next to the television announces where every recording is kept. It is also usually the warmest, most enclosed spot in the room, wedged in a cabinet with a cable box and a games console, which is hard on a hard drive that runs every hour of every day.

Owners put it there because the television is where they want to watch the cameras. That does not require the recorder to be in the same room. An HDMI extender or a long video cable lets the picture appear on the parlor TV while the recorder lives in the cellar, a hall closet or a locked cabinet with air around it, and the phone app does the rest.

On some Lorex models individual cameras or the doorbell can also keep clips on a memory card, which gives a second copy if the recorder is ever damaged or lost. Which of your cameras can do that depends on the model, and we tell you before you choose.

Getting Cable From the Back of the House to the Front

How does a network cable travel from the rear yard to the stoop of an attached house without opening the walls?

Through the cellar, almost always. Brooklyn rowhouse cellars have exposed or easily reached joists running the full depth of the house, so a cable can run along the cellar ceiling from the garden door to the front wall, then up inside or under the stoop to the vestibule or the parlor-floor window head. Each camera gets its own cable, but they can share a path, so the work is done once.

Where there is no cellar, or a finished one with a sealed ceiling, the options are the rear wall to the roof and across, an existing chase such as a disused dumbwaiter, or a closet stack. Each has a cost in labor and appearance, and we show you the route on a sketch before drilling.

The cable itself should be outdoor-rated where it is outside, and Lorex recommends Cat6 for better signal on its Fusion systems, though Cat5e is listed as working. On older houses we use Cat6 throughout, because the cable outlives the cameras and the next upgrade may need it.

Where the cable passes through the brick, will water or mice follow it in?

Not if the hole is made and sealed properly. We drill through a mortar joint with a slight downward slope to the outside, run the cable through a sleeve, form a drip loop below the hole so water runs off before it reaches the entry, and seal both ends. On the inside, the sleeve end is filled so there is no open path for insects or rodents.

Mortar joints are also the reversible choice. If you remove the camera years later, a hole in a mortar joint is repointed and disappears; a hole through the face of a brick or a brownstone block is a permanent scar. On landmarked buildings, the Commission's guidance asks for exactly this approach.

Old brownstone cellars can be damp regardless, so we keep cable runs off the floor and away from walls that show efflorescence, and we never put the recorder itself on a cellar floor.

Can a Lorex camera go on the shared wall or fence at the side of our yard?

On your own side of your own wall, yes. On a party wall or a shared fence, only with your neighbor's agreement, and it is wise to have that in writing. The bigger question is where the camera points: Civil Rights Law section 52-a lets a homeowner sue a neighbor who installs a camera to record their backyard without written consent, so a side camera must look along your yard, not across into theirs.

Where the recorder and camera support privacy masking, we draw masks over parts of the view so those areas are blacked out in the recording. In a narrow Brooklyn yard we usually mask the neighbors' yards and windows completely and set motion detection so it ignores movement there.

Often the best yard camera is not on the side at all. A camera high on your rear wall looking down the length of the yard sees the garden door, the back fence and anyone coming over it, and its view stops naturally at your fence line.

Wired, Fusion Wi-Fi or a Mix

Which spots on a Brooklyn property actually justify a Lorex Wi-Fi camera instead of a cable?

Fewer than you might think. A wired PoE camera gets power and data on one cable and never needs charging or a signal check, which is why most Brooklyn Lorex systems are fully wired. Wi-Fi earns its place where a cable route would cost more than the camera is worth: a detached garage at the end of a Marine Park driveway, a shed across a yard with no safe route, a rented apartment where the lease forbids drilling, or a temporary position during renovation.

Masonry is the deciding factor. Lorex's own guidance for its Wi-Fi cameras is to place the camera as close to the router as possible and reduce obstructive materials between them. In a brownstone the obstructions are brick party walls, plaster on lath, and floors with decades of layers; a Wi-Fi camera at the garden door with the router on the third floor is a camera that will drop out.

When Wi-Fi is the right answer, we measure the signal at the exact mounting spot with a meter before installing, and often add a wired access point near that end of the house so the camera has something strong to connect to.

Can a Lorex doorbell on the stoop run off the house's old doorbell wiring?

Sometimes. Lorex says its wired video doorbells need a constant supply between 16 and 24 volts AC, and adds that most older homes have 10-volt transformers that do not provide enough. In a Brooklyn rowhouse the existing bell wire may run to a transformer like that, or it may be part of an apartment buzzer system with an entirely different voltage, or it may be cloth-covered wire that should not be trusted.

We test the wire and the transformer before mounting anything. If the transformer is too weak we replace it or fit Lorex's plug-in power adapter; if the bell wire is unusable we run new low-voltage cable from the cellar. On a two- or three-family house with a buzzer panel, the Lorex doorbell usually goes beside the panel for the owner's door rather than replacing the panel.

Masonry around the door frame matters too. The doorbell should sit on the frame or a mortar joint, not on carved stone, and at a height where it sees the face of someone on the top step.

Our Fusion recorder takes Wi-Fi cameras — is there a limit to how many we should add?

There is a hard limit and a practical one. The hard limit is printed on the product: for example, Lorex sells a Fusion 16-channel recorder as eight wired plus eight Fusion Wi-Fi channels, so the wired cameras cannot use the Wi-Fi slots and vice versa. Check the label on yours, because different Fusion models split their channels differently.

The practical limit is your Wi-Fi. Every Wi-Fi camera streams continuously to the recorder over the same wireless network your family uses for video calls and television, and older Brooklyn houses are already hard on that network. Two or three Wi-Fi cameras near a strong access point are usually fine. Eight spread around a brick house are not.

If you are filling Wi-Fi channels because cable seemed hard, it is worth a quote for wiring the same positions. The cable is a one-time cost; dropped Wi-Fi recordings keep costing you.

The Lorex App, Accounts and Inherited Systems

Our phone app turned into “Lorex Classic” overnight and will not sign in — is the recorder broken?

Almost certainly not. Lorex reorganized its apps: its apps page now lists Lorex Connect for the newer wired and Wi-Fi line, Lorex Classic — “previously known as the Lorex App” — for the Fusion line, and Lorex Pro for wired commercial systems. Owners on the Lorex community forum have described exactly this: the Android app updated, came back under the Classic name, and stopped accepting the login for a recorder on the home network.

The recorder keeps recording through all of this; what broke is the phone's route to it. The fix is usually to confirm from the recorder's model number which app it belongs to, sign in again with the right account, and re-add the recorder if the update dropped it. A forgotten account password or a recorder that was added by a previous owner adds a reset step.

When we install a Brooklyn system we write the recorder model, the app name and the sign-in steps on a one-page sheet and leave it with you, so the next app update is a five-minute job rather than a service call.

We bought a house that came with Lorex cameras — how do we take the system over?

Carefully, and starting with a reset. Brooklyn houses change hands with camera systems still on the walls, and the previous owner may still have the recorder linked to their account and their phone. A new owner on a camera forum described exactly this: a new house with Lorex cameras around the outside and no idea how to connect them.

We identify the recorder model, check that every camera is still alive, and then reset the recorder to factory settings using Lorex's documented procedure for that model, which removes the old owner's account and passwords. After that the system is set up fresh on your account, with new passwords and your phones only. We also test the drive, because a recorder that has run for years in a cellar may have a tired disk.

If the system turns out to be an older Lorex line that the current apps no longer support well, we tell you plainly and price the cheapest way forward, which is sometimes a new recorder on the existing cables and cameras.

Our landlord put Lorex cameras in the hallway — what are they allowed to record?

Common areas, generally yes; your apartment, no. Brick Underground's guide for New York tenants puts it plainly: there is nothing illegal about hallway cameras, but landlords may not set them up so they see into individual apartments. The same guide warns that hallway footage is increasingly used in rent-regulation primary-residence cases, which is worth knowing whether you are the tenant or the owner.

In rent-stabilized buildings, cameras can also be part of how required services are delivered. In Matter of Bazile v Rubin (2018), the Appellate Division, Second Department, upheld a state housing agency finding that a video surveillance system was an adequate substitute for part-time lobby attendants. That is a decision the owner applies for, not one a camera makes on its own.

When we install a hallway system for a Brooklyn owner, every camera is aimed along the corridor, never at a door's peephole or into a unit, audio is off, and the recorder sits in a locked room. Tenants who ask what a camera can see get a straight answer.

Ownership, Lawsuits and the 2026 Federal Rules

Lorex used to belong to Dahua — who owns it now, and why does that matter for a house?

Lorex is a brand based in Ontario, Canada, that Dahua acquired in 2018. Dahua agreed in late 2022 to sell it to Skywatch, a company based in Taiwan, for about US$72 million; Texas's attorney general says the sale closed on November 24, 2022, one day before the FCC barred new approvals for Dahua products. Lorex's own notice on the 2026 FCC rules says some Lorex-branded products are produced by a company whose products are on the FCC's Covered List.

For a Brooklyn homeowner, the practical meaning is about data and updates rather than legality. A Lorex system recording to a recorder in your own house, with remote access secured by strong passwords and current firmware, keeps the footage under your roof. We set systems up that way by default: unique passwords, firmware updated at install, and no unnecessary port openings on your router.

If supply-chain origin matters to you, say so at the start. We install other brands too, and we would rather recommend a different platform than install one you are uneasy about.

Is it wise to put a Lorex indoor camera in a child's bedroom?

We advise against it, whatever the brand, and Lorex is currently the subject of two lawsuits that turn partly on that point. Nebraska's attorney general sued in September 2025, saying Lorex told consumers its cameras were safe and secure enough to place in private spaces such as a child's bedroom while, the state alleges, not disclosing risks linked to its former owner Dahua; Texas's attorney general followed in February 2026 with a suit centered on Lorex baby monitors. Both are allegations in pending cases, not court findings, and neither release included a response from Lorex.

Our practice in Brooklyn homes is simple. Indoor cameras go in entrances, stairwells and hallways that show who comes and goes, not in rooms where people sleep or dress, and their microphones stay off unless you ask for them. If you want to watch a sleeping baby, a dedicated monitor that works only on your home network is a better tool than a security camera linked to an app.

Every Lorex system we set up gets unique passwords, current firmware and no unnecessary openings on your router, which matters most for any camera that can see inside the house.

If we buy Lorex in 2026, will replacement cameras still be available in a few years?

For a house or an ordinary business, Lorex says yes as things stand. Its notice on the FCC rules effective July 16, 2026 says the rules do not create a blanket ban, that the use, operation, service and support of equipment customers already own continues, and that firmware updates, pricing, product support and warranty service are unaffected. The caveat Lorex gives is narrow: replacement parts may be limited where the equipment is used for a restricted purpose such as public safety or government facilities.

What nobody can promise is that a particular camera model stays in the catalog. Lorex renames and replaces models often, which is one reason we favor recorders and cameras that follow common standards and leave spare channels, so a failed camera years from now can be replaced by a current Lorex model on the same cable.

If your project is federally funded, or your board or insurer has a policy on the brand, raise it before we order. In those cases we recommend a different platform from the start rather than a Lorex system you might have to replace.

Storefronts and Mixed-Use Buildings

In a narrow Brooklyn storefront, where should the Lorex recorder and monitor go?

The recorder goes in the back office or the cellar, out of reach of the counter, and the monitor goes where staff can see it and customers can see that it exists. A monitor facing the entrance is a deterrent in its own right; a recorder on the shelf under the register is an invitation.

In long, narrow Brooklyn stores the cable route is usually simple: along the ceiling or the cellar to each camera, with the recorder at the back. The cameras that pay for themselves are one high over the door looking in, one behind the counter looking out at face height, one on the register, one in the stockroom or cellar, and one on the rear service door.

If the store has a cellar entrance from the sidewalk, give it a camera. The July 2026 burglary pattern across six Brooklyn precincts came in through basement-level doors.

Our building has a store downstairs and apartments above — should it be one Lorex system or two?

Usually two. The store tenant needs control of its own cameras, its own recordings and its own app access, and the building owner needs the residential entrance, the hallways and the rear yard. Mixing them on one recorder means one party controls the other's footage, which leads to arguments the moment something goes missing.

Two small recorders cost less than people expect, and they can share the building's internet connection without seeing each other's cameras. Where the store's camera covers the shared sidewalk and the building's camera covers the residential door, the two systems overlap just enough to tell a full story.

If the owner and the store are the same person, one recorder is fine, but we still set up separate app users for the shop staff and the family.

Is a Lorex system covered by New York's tax credit for small retailers?

It can be. The city's business portal describes the New York State Commercial Security Tax Credit as available to businesses with 50 or fewer employees, worth up to $3,000 per retail location, with security cameras among the eligible purchases. The credit is claimed through the state, so your accountant decides whether and how to apply.

What we can do is make the paperwork easy: an itemized invoice that separates cameras, recorder, cabling and labor, with the store address on it and the installation date.

Check the current filing window when you get the quote. Program details and deadlines can change, and the portal is the place to confirm them.

When Footage Suddenly Matters

An NYPD detective asked for our camera footage — how do we get a clip off a Lorex recorder?

There are two ways: export it to a USB drive at the recorder, or download it to a phone from the app. The USB route keeps the original quality and the recorder's time stamp, which is what investigators usually want. Write down the date, the time window and the camera name before you start, because searching hours of footage on a small screen is slow.

Check the recorder's clock first. A recorder whose time drifted or was never set to New York time makes footage much harder to use. We set the time zone and daylight saving at installation and show you where to check it.

If you cannot find the clip or the export fails, call us. A service visit to pull and copy footage is billed at our standard rate, and it is often worth it when the clip matters.

How do we make sure an important clip is not overwritten before we save it?

Recorders like Lorex's are normally set to record over the oldest footage once the drive fills. If something happens, export or lock the clip as soon as you can; the days you have depend on drive size, camera count, resolution and whether you record continuously or only on motion.

Lorex's own storage calculator shows how much those settings matter. It assumes H.265 compression, notes that motion recording produces roughly 120 thirty-second events per recording hour, and says the Nano Codec on select recorders such as the X Series reduces file size by about 40 to 50 percent. We size the drive so a Brooklyn system holds at least two weeks, and longer for stores that only notice losses at month-end stocktaking.

If you know you will need weeks of history — for a dispute with a neighbor, a contractor or a tenant — tell us before installation, and the drive can be sized for it.

Is it legal in New York for our yard camera to pick up the neighbors talking?

Video and audio are treated differently. Recording a conversation you are not part of, without the consent of at least one person in it, can be eavesdropping under New York's Penal Law, and Lorex's own FAQ warns that audio monitoring is not legal everywhere and that buyers must check local privacy laws.

In a Brooklyn yard, where the neighbors' garden table may be eight feet from your camera, that matters. Our default is to leave audio recording off on outdoor cameras that face shared spaces, and to use two-way audio only on the doorbell, where you are a party to the conversation.

If you want audio for a specific reason, we will configure it, but we will ask where the microphones are and who is likely to be within range.

1. “A Lorex camera can be up to 328 feet from the recorder”

That is what Lorex's help page says: the maximum Ethernet cable length between a recorder and a camera is 328 feet, or 100 metres, and a PoE switch can be added for longer runs. Lorex's own Fusion system listing gives a lower figure for the same idea — a maximum PoE run of 300 feet, with a separate power supply beyond that.

Neither number is the problem in Brooklyn. A typical rowhouse lot is around a hundred feet deep, so even the longest camera is well inside the limit. The real limit is the route: a cable that has to go down to the cellar, along the house, up inside the stoop and across a cornice can be three times the straight-line distance, and every turn through masonry costs labor.

So the useful question is not how far Lorex reaches. It is whether there is a sensible path from the recorder to each camera, and that is answered on a floor sketch, not a spec sheet.

2. “Lorex has no monthly fees”

True for recording. Lorex markets its systems with “No Monthly Fees” and, on its Lorex Connect line, “Own it. No subscriptions required.” A wired Lorex recorder keeps your footage on its own drive and shows it in the app without a plan.

But Lorex also sells cloud products and subscriptions, including its Connect Cloud+ cameras, and some Wi-Fi cameras store clips on a memory card or in the cloud rather than on a recorder. A kit bought for its no-fee promise can end up with a subscription if the cameras chosen are cloud-first.

On Brooklyn installs we specify recorder-based cameras unless you choose otherwise, and we tell you in writing which items, if any, involve an ongoing charge.

3. “Wi-Fi cameras are the easy option for older homes”

Easy to mount, hard to keep online. Lorex's own guidance for its Wi-Fi cameras says to place them as close to the router as possible and reduce obstructive materials in between. A brownstone is mostly obstructive materials: brick party walls, plaster on lath, deep floors.

Brownstone owners report the same. One described a router in the middle of the third floor of a four-storey brick house that still did not reach well through floors and walls. Put a Wi-Fi camera at the garden door of that house and it will drop recordings exactly when the house is busiest on the network.

Wired Lorex cameras avoid the issue entirely, and in Brooklyn the cost of the cable is usually less than people fear because the cellar does most of the work.

4. “Every Lorex system uses the Lorex app”

There are now three. Lorex lists Lorex Connect, Lorex Classic — which it describes as previously known as the Lorex App — and Lorex Pro for wired commercial systems. Which one you need depends on the recorder you own.

Forum posts show the confusion this causes: owners whose app updated to the Classic name and then could not sign in to their local recorder, and installers who stopped carrying Lorex after customers could not connect through an earlier app. None of that is a hardware fault, but all of it is a support call.

We confirm the app from the model number before installation, set it up on each phone, and write the app name on the handover sheet so nobody has to guess later.

5. “Any old doorbell wire will power a Lorex doorbell”

Lorex disagrees. It says its wired doorbells need a constant 16 to 24 volts AC and that most older homes have 10-volt transformers that do not provide enough voltage. Brooklyn houses are older homes by definition; the median year built in Kings County is 1943.

On top of that, many Brooklyn front doors are wired to an apartment buzzer or intercom, not a simple chime. Connecting a doorbell camera to the wrong circuit can damage both.

We meter the wire first, replace an underpowered transformer or use Lorex's plug-in adapter, and leave building intercoms on their own circuits.

6. “Lorex is banned now”

Not for homes and ordinary businesses. Lorex's notice on the FCC's Public Notice DA 26-635, effective July 16, 2026, says some Lorex-branded products are produced by a company on the FCC's Covered List and cannot be marketed or sold for public safety, government facilities, critical-infrastructure surveillance or other national-security purposes — and that the rule does not create a blanket ban.

Lorex also says customers who already own its equipment can keep using it, with firmware updates, product support and warranty service continuing, subject to limits on replacement parts for restricted uses.

The real exclusions are narrower and come from Lorex's own FAQ: its products are not for federal governments, federally funded projects or NDAA contractors. If your Brooklyn project is one of those, we recommend a different brand.

7. “Mount the cameras high so nobody can reach them”

High is safe from tampering, but on a rowhouse it often means a camera under the cornice that records the tops of heads and the far side of the street. On a stoop, the face that matters is a step or two below the door.

The better pattern on Brooklyn fronts is one camera high for the overview and one at the door frame or vestibule, around head height, for faces. A doorbell camera often does the second job.

On landmarked fronts the Commission's guidance points the same way: discreet spots such as beneath a band course or under the stoop are preferred to the open facade, which tends to give a better face angle as well.