How Synology Device Pack versions work

A Device Pack is a driver package, not a NAS model spec -- and it's the reason camera compatibility on Synology isn't tied to which DiskStation you own.

Synology's Surveillance Station doesn't ship with built-in support for every IP camera on the market. Instead, camera drivers are distributed separately as "Device Packs" -- periodic updates you install from Package Center that add or update support for specific camera models. Every camera in this site's Synology database lists the minimum Device Pack version its driver requires.

Why this means compatibility isn't NAS-model-specific

A common assumption is that certain DiskStation models "support" certain cameras and others don't. That's not how it works. Any Synology NAS capable of running Surveillance Station -- which is nearly all of them -- can install the same Device Pack updates as any other. If your NAS has the required Device Pack version installed, it supports that camera, full stop. What actually varies by NAS model is unrelated to camera compatibility: it's how many camera licenses come bundled for free, the hard ceiling on total camera channels that model can run, and whether the CPU has enough headroom to decode several high-resolution streams at once without lag. See how many camera licenses you need for that side of it.

Checking your own NAS's Device Pack version

In Surveillance Station, open Camera → Add → Add cameras (or check Package Center's Surveillance Station entry for available updates) to see what's currently installed and whether a newer Device Pack is available. Installing the latest Device Pack is generally low-risk and is how you pick up support for newer camera releases -- it does not require a DSM upgrade or new hardware.

Why this site labels cameras "current" vs. "legacy"

Synology doesn't publish an explicit "still actively supported" flag anywhere in its camera compatibility list -- that field simply doesn't exist in the source data. As a proxy, this site labels a camera "current" if it requires Device Pack 6.0 or newer, and "legacy" if it requires an older version. This is a reasonable approximation of "more recently added to the compatibility list," since Device Pack numbering is roughly chronological, but it is not a verified statement that a "legacy" camera is discontinued, unsupported, or unreliable -- plenty of widely-owned, perfectly good cameras fall in that bucket. See Methodology for the full reasoning, and buying a legacy or used camera if you're specifically considering one.

QNAP doesn't use this concept

QNAP's QVR Pro has a different model: individual camera entries carry their own minimum QVR Pro firmware version rather than a shared driver-pack number, and QNAP's compatibility list doesn't split cleanly into an equivalent "generation" boundary the way Synology's Device Pack numbering does. If you're on QNAP, check the specific camera's page on the QNAP database for its minimum QVR Pro version instead.