Mark wrote up this piece that is relevant to our neighborhood, but didn’t have a good spot to post it, so we’re sticking it here.

Very understandable. I had a random person walk into my backyard a few months ago, uninvited and unwelcome. That made my family want a little more visibility into our home when we were not there or when our kids were home by themselves. So I’m with you. Let’s get cameras. There are so many cameras, and systems, and oh my! What to do?

Considerations

Where does the video get stored?

Many systems will offer cloud storage for your video. This sounds good on the surface (fewer parts in your home that you have to maintain). However, most of the companies who offer this are good at making cameras and bad at making cloud video storage, with the result being not great: ref 1, ref 2.

The only cloud video storage that I would recommend would be Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video system. It’s end-to-end encrypted, and, like many of their other services, is designed with privacy in mind. That being said, it puts some limitations on your video (1080p max resolution) and can have a slower response time for events than local systems. If you use Apple’s gear and want less gear in your house, it can be a good choice. I use it at my mom’s very isolated ranch for her cameras and it’s been reliable for several years.

If you want to use it, you’ll still need to buy cameras separately, and those cameras will need to be compatible with HomeKit Secure Video.

Other systems offer local storage, usually through a small hub that needs to connect to your router. The hub usually has some amount of storage built-in, and often has a way to add significantly more. The amount of storage you need really depends on how long you want to keep video; for most people, you don’t need months and months of recordings of your backyard. Personally, I ended up with about 1TB of storage which was overkill, within my budget, and now I just don’t have to think about it.

Are the cameras wired or wireless?

Wired cameras are harder to install: you have to run cable to each camera. Wireless cameras are a lot more flexible, since you can put them anywhere within radio range. However, because they use radios to send the video data back to a base station for storage those signals can be jammed with relatively inexpensive equipment. Wireless cameras also have batteries that will need to be charged somehow; either by you every few months, or by an attached solar panel. 

Personally, I have ended up with wireless cameras due to installation requirements; I wanted cameras in places where I didn’t have a way to run cables. They have been reliable so far. If I were more concerned about targeted theft, I’d spend the money for wired camera installation.

Recommendations

The Logi Circle cameras are HomeKit enabled and work well. They do not have any local storage options, however.

Eufy’s eufyCam line has local storage options, HomeKit compatibility, and a cloud storage option that you can disable and completely ignore. They have built-in solar panels and optional add on solar, which makes them very flexible in terms of installation positioning. The software is “fine”, you can share access with your family and trusted friends, and once they are setup they are very hands off; the older system up at my mom’s has been running for 2 years with no maintenance needed (they automatically update their firmware reliably).

Reolink makes good wired camera systems with local storage; their web UI isn’t the most modern and gets the job done, and they are probably the most bulletproof local option. The installation is more difficult due to the need to run cabling to each camera.

All of these have various dark & low light modes, from high quality low light similar to a modern cell phone camera to infrared flashlights. They also have various notification filtering, face detection, and other features. These are… fine? Fundamentally, though, you usually want a motion activated recording followed by a notification of some kind; as long as that works, everything else is Nice To Have.

“But I keep seeing ads for Ring”

Yes. Yes you do.

Unfortunately, Ring is decidedly not safe to use. In particular, they have shared video with law enforcement without owner consent and without a warrant in the past.

Now, they claim that *now*, they only provide your video if you say it’s ok, but… in order to do that, they have to *have* your video, and you have to trust them. It’s difficult to take them at face value, given their actions to date, and since you have many other options that maintain your privacy via the laws of physics instead of the promises of corporate executives, it’s easier to just get something else.

Should I get rid of my Ring cameras?

Maybe? I don’t think you’re a bad person for owning some; they’ve done a good job of protecting their brand from most of their shenanigans. I would consider not purchasing any more of them, and there are some settings that, in theory, reduce your exposure (look for settings with names like “end to end encryption”). Ring doesn’t have incentives for you to turn those features on, though, so they’ve made it so the user experience does suffer, at least according to folks that have tried.