After something decent and around $400-500 is towards my ceiling on spend at the moment on 1 or 2 cameras.
Its a toss up between Nest, Ring or one of the other cheaper cloud providers but also leaning towards the Eufy 2C.
I'm just a bit over my head at the moment so would appreciate everyones experiances here and what they have currently.
Mainly outdoor for a driveway and yard, battery would be nice to have however i'm fine with having to give them power at least, I just dont have a NVR or PoE capabilities, recorcding capacity doesnt have to be huge I can always chuck in an SD card but would prefer something that can back up to cloud or the Eufy series having local storage
Any of the cheaper units will do what you're after.
AliExpress Xiaomi Mi or Yi units are reliable. (I've got a set that's been running 2years plus.
There's also IMOU that's Dahuas consumer brand.
I've got a few on the way, they look like nice units for the price.
Otherwise plenty of options available locally at pbtech or Noel leeminf (use the CSC discount)
I have some Reolink cameras at home and I'm very satisfied with their performance and cloud subscriptions is quite cheap. I bought most of my cameras from Amazon.
If you are just looking for generic protection I believe just about any camera from AliExpress will work pretty well. I'm sure the obvious camera pointed down our driveway, and the other one at the doorway, discourage most undesirables from even bothering with us.
I was in a similar boat 12 months ago and tossing up between different models. In the end went with the Eufy 2C series (often on special at super cheap 20% off), and have been really impressed.
Setup was easy, no cloud storage fees, and I like the configurability of the alert notifications, zones, and schedules etc.
Obviously they are wireless which has its pros and cons, depending on your configuration, you’ll get between 2-4 months of one charge.
It’s not perfect by any means, but for my use case, and the pricepoint, I’m happy.
I have all ubiquiti system so have their Unifi Protect system (G4 Doorbell, G4 Pro and 3 G4 Bullets). Good thing is that they unify everything. I have the Unifi Network, Unifi Protect and Unifi Access (smart lock)
For what it's worth I've got an Arlo setup and it's not flash. The camera itself does a great job but the app to view any footage is very patchy which defeats the purpose of getting some a motion detected notification.
Have heard good things about Swann.
I use Xiaomi cameras as we have Xiaomi air purifiers, lights etc. They're cheap and work well for us.
I have a couple of these, they aren't for outdoors but I've kept them under the eaves/verandah and not had any issues.
There's a new outdoor version out I haven't tried https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004971733899.html
PB Tech sell their stuff too, there's a wireless battery powered one if your into that, just note if buying from Aliexpress you want the global versions as the china & global versions don't mix in the app.
Just installed one of these too, workign well so far (also works in the Xiaomi app) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004126093980.html
JB got a deal on for the Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus for $188 with a coupon code.
Down from their normal price of $309
I read your other comment saying its for a driveway/yard - if you have existing floodlight, I'd highly recommending replacing it with a floodlight camera. We have the EUFY ones at our house (got the builder to install for us) and they're amazing. Recently, my parents went overseas and mum wanted me to check on her house so I floated the idea of getting her a camera similar to my house and replaced the old garage motion light (only took about 30min to install and this was my first time doing anything electrical, they're really easy to do, just a bit daunting if you're not handy like me).
Ended up showing my Aunties and Uncles the camera at the family xmas party when everyone was asking me if I was taking care of my parents house and checking on it and it turns out everyone really liked the cameras and got their own ones installed within a week.
https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/p/eufy-security-floodlight-2k-… is what I got my parents for about $260 on sale.
I had Arlo for a few months in 2020/2021 and had a terrible experience - so moved away.
I did a bunch of research about 18 months ago and landed on Reolink. I purchased a NVR system off Aliexpress and have 3 wired POE cameras + 2x Wifi cameras all set up to one system.
They're great value and I've been really happy with them :-)
Wayyy better than Arlo - and cheaper (though they're not wireless).
I've also head good things about EUFY :-)
Have had uniden wired for about 5 years.
App is very average, i wouldnt purchase it again.
The DVR is better than app but doesnt save it.
Anyone had experience with IR sensors to only report heat sources? Is it reliable?
Eufy has been reliable for me. IR is fine. Got few eufy cams and can say it's one of the best in wireless cams.
I have 2k Floodlight above garage and 2k solar facing front of the house. Almost every alternate night neighbours cat cross drive way and front lawn. Floodlight will pick it up as it doesn't have human detection. But solar cam has never picked it up as it has human detection enabled. Never got a false positive since almost a year now.
I have some Swann branded ones on the outside of my holiday house and inside some Mi (Xiaomi) ones - both do the trick and both have apps so you can remote access them and have storage so you can get history etc and they email you videos etc but also no ongoing fees etc which was important to me.
Neither were very expensive - the Swann ones have been working for years without issue some of them are totally outdoors, as uncovered in the rain when it rains, sun when its sunny etc, they have a wireless connection for the signal and a power cable for the power so I dont need to worry about batteries which was exactly what I wanted. Biggest issue I have is the bloody spiders making webs over them :) The MI ones were really cheap like 50 bucks each on sale (+ you had to buy a power adaptor) and work very well also for the usage. The MI app is better than the Swann app but both do the trick.
Can you give some more details on what you're aiming to achieve?
Ie, indoor / outdoor, battery / wired, recording capacity