# DW Spectrum Mobile — user reviews > 68 indexed App Store user reviews of DW Spectrum Mobile by Digital Watchdog, rated 3.10/5 from 129 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/dw-spectrum-mobile/id1090087818/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/dw-spectrum-mobile/id1090087818.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 48 · 4★ 12 · 3★ 15 · 2★ 12 · 1★ 42 ## Newest reviews (14 of 68) ### 3/5 — Great when it works *2026-09-01, version 26.1.1* Hey there is some kind of bug. The app crashes and has to be reinstalled. It seems to be when switching servers ### 2/5 — Rarely connects *2026-03-19, version 25.2.2* Constantly have trouble connecting to the server so I can see my cameras. Doesn’t work more than it works. ### 2/5 — Time broken with latest update, all recordings show +8hrs ahead *2025-03-05, version 25.1.0* Requires you to go into settings and toggle the ‘use server time’ off and ON to get the correct time to display on recording:playback. Otherwise everything is displaying about 8hours ahead of correct time. Not a server issue, this has something to do with the app. Had several users all have the same thing on iOS devices and this was the trick that got them displaying correctly again ### 2/5 — Not working *2024-08-14, version 24.1.3* Login says internal error. Try again later! WTH! So much for checking on our baby. ### 4/5 — Finally Bluetooth Support *2023-05-31, version 23.1* Finally added Bluetooth support didn’t notice at first but when I did I am very happy ### 2/5 — Nice, but with one MASSIVE problem. *2023-05-25, version 23.1* It’s shocking, but true, you CAN’T set PTZ camera preset positions with the app either using your iPhone, or the iPad!! I have never seen this limitation on any other system. With these cameras and NVR, you can only set your PTZ presets on your Mac. Stranger still, it will move your PTZ cameras randomly against your wishes. After many hours spent on the iPhone app as well as on the Mac I was able to prevent it from moving the PTZ cameras to random locations. Using your Mac, right click on an image, > PTZ > Manage. Uncheck all “Homes”. I would seriously consider holding off on this system until they add the ability to create PTZ presets on the iOS app. If you could set presets on the app, I would rate this 4 or 5 stars. Also, the company has no user forums like Apple does so Support can be sluggish. ### 4/5 — Ok *2022-07-21, version 22.3* Can you get rid of the connect anyway screen on login? Dismissing it once should be enough. Can you add an option to show cameras like a slideshow? ### 3/5 — New update won’t stay logged in *2022-07-05, version 22.3* I just updated to the newest version and now I have to login to the cloud account almost every time I have to open the app. Where before once I logged in it stay logged in. ### 3/5 — Sites drop off for no reason *2022-07-04* Is there a limit as to how many servers can be saved? Seems like if I connect to a new site, one of my existing servers disappears. App only likes to save four or five servers at once. ### 1/5 — Latest Update *2022-06-22, version 22.1* Push notifications are showing up as “No access to this information”. After reaching out to DW Tech Support. I was informed that the fix would be in the next update. There is no ETA or anything. Some customers have been relying on this feature. Please resolve this issue fast or revert to the last update. I don’t understand why things need to change when they were already working perfectly okay ### 1/5 — Cant connect with 5G *2021-09-29, version 20.4* Doesn’t work on my cellular only when I’m on WiFi but before when I was on 4g/lte it worked fine with our WiFi ### 3/5 — Great system, not so great app *2021-02-13, version 20.4* DW Spectrum is a great system. The App is easy to use, but it lacks features. The only events you can watch in the app are motion events. There’s no way to watch bookmarks. No way to bookmark a spot in the timeline. And the stream lag is so long that using a PTZ camera is almost impossible. Even when accessing the system from the local network I experience an unacceptable delay in the stream. For comparison, when using the Hik-Connect app, there’s no lag in the stream and controlling a PTZ camera in Hil-Connect is fast and responsive. The DW Spectrum app and desktop app does send commands to the camera very fast, and I can see the camera responding quickly to the command. The issue is the stream delay. ### 1/5 — Lots of promises new delivery *2021-01-15, version 20.4* Over a year been waiting for mobile pushes. Promised and promised and promised. They even released in the app for mobile pushes. Still they don’t work. Contacted support multiple times they never respond. The cheapest camera on the market has pushes for the mobile app. $8000 camera system useless. ### 4/5 — Best Camera App Available *2020-11-27, version 20.3* I’ve tried almost every app. This one is the best due to its high performance and clean interface. Please continue with this app for the DW Spectrum system. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Terrible *2024-04-23, version 23.2* Playback of footage is always lagging and so slow that I can’t even watch footage on this app. It takes about 10 seconds for one second of footage to go by. Most of the time when I open the app, it says that my cameras are unreachable. I have to close the app and reopen. Absolutely worthless unless you are just looking to view live still footage and you’re not in any hurry to see what’s going on at your property. ### 1/5 — NO PLAYBACK!!! *2024-02-26, version 23.2* Why did took off the playback??????? ### 1/5 — Bad video studded totally unusable *2023-12-15, version 23.2* At work on the local network everything runs fine on a computer. On the phone though it’s all lag and skips. We have fiber gigabit up and down, the iOS app is unacceptable. Had the cameras installed and activated today, will be sending back this system tomorrow. 50k gone. ### 1/5 — Remote *2023-09-02, version 23.1* Local connection works but remote does not. ### 1/5 — Update app *2023-06-18, version 23.1* Lags. If you try to review history of movement it takes forever to load and movement is in slow motion why? I’m starting to look for another security camera provider as DW is not up to par. Had DW for about 5 months and already looking to switch services for my company. Disappointing. ### 1/5 — Help stopped getting push notifications *2022-11-10, version 22.4* Can not see notification previews after app update signed back into cloud still not working???? ### 1/5 — Good app, but shuts my iPhone 14 Pro down *2022-10-08, version 22.4* We just installed a $52k camera system in our facility, and have been using the DW desktop program for a few weeks without issue. The phone app, on the other hand, will literally shut my iPhone 14 Pro Max down if I try to use smart motion search. Completely crashes my phone within 1 second of attempting to use the smart motion search feature. ### 1/5 — The App is broken … again *2022-07-05, version 22.3* If you’re a technician or end user the issue was caused by the version 22.3 IOS update. This is getting genuinely ridiculous. Companies like mine are installing hundreds of thousands of dollars of Digital Watchdog equipment because we believe they are they best product the industry offers. Digital Watchdog on the other hand has an IOS software engineering department that forgot to go through a beta phase of development and bug test the app before pushing the update. Occasionally hiccups are understandable but this is 3 updates in a row. PLEASE, development team test the app before pushing updates because, it appears to be blissful indifference or straight up incompetence to not even check to make sure the software update didn’t kick you out every time you open the app. I cannot imagine the storm that the software devs will cause when Spectrum gets its large upgrade later this year. ### 1/5 — Now app logs out for you. Worthless in an emergency. *2022-07-04, version 22.3* Now app logs out for you. Worthless in an emergency. Had such great promise. Now app is worthless. ### 1/5 — Bring the previous version back!!! *2022-07-02, version 22.1* With the recent update, I now cannot see the previews for my push notifications, this is very imp to have. Also, the app keeps requiring me to sign back in every time I open it. PLEASE FIX IMMEDIATELY!!! Just give us the previous version back for now! I’m tired of waiting for the fix. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Best software on the market. *2026-03-06, version 25.2.0* The negative reviews are most likely from people not having the correct server running. The app is virtually flawless. The ability to scroll through footage and keep that time from camera to camera is amazing. Again if someone gave a lower than 4.75-5 stars they are not doing something correctly. ### 5/5 — Solid app *2026-02-10, version 25.2.0* Stable, works well and the interface is intuitive. I’ve used many security camera apps and this is one of my favorites. ### 5/5 — Great app - very easy to use *2022-10-24, version 22.4* This app works really well. It’s awesome to be able to switch between multiple systems with a single login. Searching through videos is easy and responsive as long as the system you are connecting to has a fast internet upload speed. So much better than some of the other systems I have used in the past like Exacq, Milestone, and Hikvision. There is definitely some room for improvement, but overall Spectrum is fantastic. ### 5/5 — Great application *2022-06-04, version 21.2* Great system! Have deployed several systems, very user friendly, cost effective compared to other vms solutions, lots of integration’s. Their technical support is typically quick and very knowledgeable. Easily scalable and easy deployment. ### 5/5 — Question to the developers *2021-11-24, version 20.4* Great app. Thank you. I was wondering if it would be possible to add a functionality to snooze an analytics event per camera? Say the customer wanted to use the camera to sense a person in the building and send a notification. In this scenario the schedule would not work because the building is mostly unoccupied and there is no set time of the day when someone could come over. In case there was someone in the building performing work in the FOV of the camera, the customer would get multiple events depending on the parameter set for the notification interval. In case the person was in the building for 10h and the notification interval was 1/hour the customer would get 10 notifications. This can easily become an issue because the customer would start disregarding them as being significant. It would be very beneficial feature to snooze these notifications per camera. Also manual unsnoozing would be great. Please let me know if a feature like this is on the roadmap. Thank you. ### 5/5 — Ever Improving slowly but reliably *2020-11-02, version 20.3* This app only provides a A fraction of what DW spectrum and desktop provides that being said the app itself is very reliable, and slowly but surely improving. Some thing that’s important to know about the security industry is that apps may not update as often but they must be reliable when they do update and that is something that the DW Spectrum mobile app does flawlessly. It is simple, easy to use, and by far one of the nicest interfaces I have used on mobile to review enterprise level camera systems. ### 5/5 — Very intuitive *2019-12-02, version 19.4* Great Surviellance software 👍🏼 ### 5/5 — Excellent camera app *2019-09-12, version 19.2* Easy to use, stable, responsive, reliable, what else could you want? ### 5/5 — Smart Motion Search !!! 😁 *2019-08-15, version 19.2* The latest version with smart motion search is a total game changer! 😊 Now I can quickly scan hours of footage on the iPhone/iPad from anywhere instead of having to sit down with a PC/laptop. Just for the record, we have a v2.5 blackjack cube and I'm running iOS 10.3.3 and the v19.2 June build still works great. Resolution transcoding as well as smart search. 😁 The v19.1 May build would not even connect to our server. ### 5/5 — Love it, but...... *2019-06-04, version 19.1* The app recently updated and now when I double click the image I want to see close up it shows it offline. Please fix....... --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-05.*