Outdoor security camera recommendations

[Scrump]

My front garden has become THE place for dog eggs. It is happening at night so I am looking for camera or cameras to monitor my front garden and record what is happening.

I have read a few old threads on outdor cameras and saw the blink xt2 seemed to be recommended by a few people. The xt2 has been replaced by the blink outdoor which appears similar but no longer comes with free cloud storage.

Any views on the blink outdoor? Is it better to get the xt2 for the free cloud storage? The xt2 is still available and slightly cheaper than the outdoor.

If I don’t have cloud storage then where are the videos stored and how do I retrieve them?

Once I find out who or what my night visitor is then the camera will be useful in keeping an eye on my cars.

What other cameras are recommended?

[TopGear7]

Can highly recommend the Ring cameras. I currently have one hardwired floodlight camera (£200 on sale) and one 'stick up' battery powered one (£59 on sale). I bought them as a stepping stone, before making a decision to either go full hardwired CCTV set-up or get fully on board with Ring. After six-months, I'm very happy with Ring and will be picking up another four or so cameras when they next go on sale.

You can select specific motion zones to reduce false positives. I receive notifications on my Apple Watch with a snapshot, which makes it easy to have a quick check and dismiss anything without opening the app. Two way talk so can communicate through the cameras. Cloud storage. Very stable app.

Any questions, let me know.

[Scrump]

Thanks TG7. What is the quality of the night vision (without lights)?
Also where are the video clips stored, do you need a subscription for cloud storage?

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Scrump said:

Thanks TG7. What is the quality of the night vision (without lights)?
Also where are the video clips stored, do you need a subscription for cloud storage?

There's a small subscription for storage

https://en-uk.ring.com/pages/protect-plans

[alorotom]

I have a few Netatmo Presence cameras ... no subscription at all and they work great and are HomeKit and Google Home compliant

The floodlight on them works excellent too.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

alorotom said:

I have a few Netatmo Presence cameras ... no subscription at all and they work great and are HomeKit and Google Home compliant

The floodlight on them works excellent too.

Am I reading on Amazon that the data is stored within the camera on an SD card? (So if camera goes images go with it?)

[colin79666]

I have the blink xt2. Works well enough and the major advantage being it is battery powered so no need to run cables. The WiFi range is fairly short so the router/access point needs to be the other side of the wall and not the house. The new outdoor has the newer sync module that supports local storage I think, so you don’t have to subscribe if you don’t want that.

[TopGear7]

Scrump said:

Thanks TG7. What is the quality of the night vision (without lights)?
Also where are the video clips stored, do you need a subscription for cloud storage?

In terms of quality, I find it to be perfectly acceptable - but given this can be quite subjective, I'd check some YouTube clips of the Ring Camera in night mode to establish if it will be fit for your needs.

The clips are stored in Cloud storage, accessible through the app [and I presume desktop too but I've not checked]. You can download clips to your phone storage to keep indefinitely, £2.50 per month for one camera, then an additional £2.50 per camera. Or pay a flat fee of £8 per month or £80 in one annual payment and you can have as many cameras as you like i.e. doorbell, floodlight, stick up, house alarm system etc. - https://en-uk.ring.com/pages/protect-plans

What I like about Ring is they seem to be constantly adding features i.e. selection specific motion zones did not exist for non hardwired, battery only cameras when I bought it. They've now updated it to include this feature. They have also added another feature where if you have multiple Ring devices and one is activated, it activates all the others to try and fill in the gaps between the motion e.g. if the activity falls outside of the initial triggering camera. All quite clever.

In terms of stability, I've only had the cameras go offline once and that was when I switched routers and the hardwired floodlight camera required setting up again [100mb Virgin Media connection].

[SimonTheSailor]

I want a camera that can look down a stairway about 50ft or so.

So a Ring door bell won't be any good.

Any ideas ? Don't want to link it up to a computer or anything.

[voyds9]

Have a look at Nooie on amazon, dirt cheap just plug in to a normal 13amp socket connect to network away you go

Can add micro SD card for free storage.

Currently running 3 external, 1 internal and a doorcam

Doorcam not as good as the wired cameras

[david mcc]

Ive got 2 x IeGeek 5MP wifi cameras. Cheap but they do the job and notify my phone of any movement.

All data is stored on the SD card inside the camera.

Im more than happy for the price

[anonymous-user]

If it's a particular area you want to monitor, what about a trail camera? Specifically designed to capture animals.

[SimonTheSailor]

Purely because I could get my hands on one quickly I bought a Blink.

Camera is quite good but still fiddling with the settings, sometimes small clips, sometimes long clips, takes a few seconds to start recording when it's sensed something. If you are quick climbing the stairs it's almost missed you !!

I'll have a look at the other ones mentioned. To be honest a big mother f*cker of one would probably be best purely as a deterrent !!

[Spare tyre]

I was a hikvision from China man, until recently when I tried a reolink.

I have a nas system, but also record to the sd card in the reolink

It just works, and cheaply

[The_Jackal]

I can recommend the TAPO ones by TP-Link.
One of the few that let you view the SD card recordings from the app with no subscriptions.

[perdu]

The_Jackal said:

I can recommend the TAPO ones by TP-Link.
One of the few that let you view the SD card recordings from the app with no subscriptions.

Me too, I am very weak,computery wise but this was easy to set up and does for me.

Yes it caught my local dog fox kakxing on my front lawn.

Good to know who dunnit.

[Soir]

Also looking for recommendations for a non subscription CCTV system.

Ideally wanted wireless one (arlo 2 looked decent) but batteries seem to be the let down with the wireless ones. And expensive to replace too.

[s2kjock]

The_Jackal said:

I can recommend the TAPO ones by TP-Link.
One of the few that let you view the SD card recordings from the app with no subscriptions.

The Ezviz cameras work the same way, and are (mostly) fairly reliable - improves with each update.

[option click]

Soir said:

Also looking for recommendations for a non subscription CCTV system.

Ideally wanted wireless one (arlo 2 looked decent) but batteries seem to be the let down with the wireless ones. And expensive to replace too.

I have some Arlo Pro 2 cameras.
The footage is stored on a hard drive attached to the hub, so no subscription needed.

They've dead easy to set up, but having to periodically take them down and recharge the batteries is a massive pain. Battery life depends entirely on how busy the view is - if it's constantly being triggered by traffic etc, it'll drain fast (although you set set active areas of the view to mitigate this).

You can hard wire them, but that defeats the 'put them anywhere' idea. They sell solar panels that supposedly make the cameras self-sufficent but reviews are not good.

Overall, 5/10. I'm considering ditching the whole system and going with something else.

Edited by option click on Thursday 6th May 08:09

[Mikebentley]

I’m thinking Netatmo Presence. I need to cover the front parking area and can just replace current PIR floodlight. Have a Ring doorbell covering the front door.