Home security cameras
Keep an eye on everything precious to you with home security cameras. MICHAEL ANSALDO looks at your best options
Whether you rent or own, you want the best security camera system for keeping an eye on your home while you’re out. That used to entail signing on with a professional – and pricey – security service, but a boom in consumer-level smart-home tech is putting indoor and outdoor home surveillance into our own hands.
These close cousins of webcams require minimal installation and offer flexible setups and a range of
security features. Indeed, the offerings vary widely by camera, and deciding what to buy gets more daunting as this category grows ever more crowded. But whether you’re looking for an easy way to check on your children and pets, or a full-service sentinel to monitor for intruders, we’ll help find the right product for your needs.
What to look for
Most home security cameras perform the same basic functions – they detect an event, record the event, and send you an alert – but they don’t all perform them the same way. And some cameras have special features that go beyond those basics. Here are some common features you’ll encounter while shopping
and why they’re important (we’ve listed them in alphabetical order). In each of our reviews, we’ll discuss how the camera delivers on these features.
Alerts: Home security cameras push notifications to your smartphone when they detect events. Without watching the live feed all day, this is the only way to keep tabs on your home in relative real time. Depending on the camera, it may send text alerts when it detects motion, sound, a face (known or unrecognized), or all three. Some can send alerts to multiple people, usually anyone else in the household using that product’s app; others will send emails in addition to text messages as a fail-safe in the event you can’t access your mobile device.
Battery backup: Power outages happen, and clever burglars cut electricity before breaking into your home. When that happens, your camera goes dark and, if there’s a crime taking place, you lose all forensic evidence. For this reason, some cameras can also run for a short time on battery power. It’s a feature worth looking out for.
Cloud recording: Many manufacturers offer cloud storage plans with their camera. With one of these, your recorded video is sent to a remote server and stored for a predetermined time – usually anywhere from 24 hours to a week – and then deleted to make space for new videos. Though sometimes free, these cloud plans usually require a monthly subscription, but are worth it both for their convenience and if you want a
surveillance record during a vacation or other extended time away from home.
Environmental monitoring: This is the feature that sets all-in-one home monitors apart from strictly-security cameras. Though the home ‘vitals’ that these units track vary by model – we’ve seen everything from motion to luminosity included in home health profiles – three tend to be ubiquitous:
• Temperature monitors for spikes and dips in indoor temperature and alerts you when it falls outside a range you define.
• Humidity tracks relative humidity inside your home. Humidity outside optimal levels – usually defined as between 30- and 50 percent – can contribute to problems such as static electricity, sinus irritation, and mould growth.
• Air quality tracks pollutants ranging from cooking odours to carbon monoxide. However, most monitors don’t identify the pollutant in their alerts, merely warning that the air quality is ‘abnormal’. Because of that, this feature should not be considered a substitute for potentially life-saving devices such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Facial recognition: A few newer cameras are experimenting with facial recognition. This feature could more accurately be called ‘facial identification’, as in practice it’s much better at distinguishing a face from, say, a lamp, than it is at actually distinguishing between one person’s face from another’s. If you opt for a camera with this feature, know that it typically
learns faces through increasing exposure to them, so be prepared to spend a lot of time in front of the lens.
Local storage: Some cameras include memory card slots in lieu of, or in addition to, cloud storage, so you can store video right on the device. It’s an attractive feature as it can eliminate the cost of monthly storage fees. The downside (if there isn’t a cloud backup) is that if a thief steals your camera, they take your forensic evidence with it.
Mobile app: Most of today’s home security camera’s are accessed primarily through a smartphone/tablet app. In addition to offering you a reliable way to view the camera’s live feed, it should offer plenty of options for customizing the way the camera performs. The ability to customize notifications, adjust motion and sound detection sensitivity, and set detection areas are some of the key features to look for. The app should also be intuitive and easy to master.
Motion detection: Assuming you’re monitoring your home when it’s empty, motion detection is one of the most desirable features in a security camera. Built-in sensors pick up movement within the camera’s field of view
and trigger video recording. Because these sensors are sensitive to any movement – event a shift in lighting or leaves blowing outside a window – it’s important the camera system also offer the ability to narrow the range of detection, adjust the sensor’s sensitivity, or otherwise customize this feature to cut down on false alerts.
Night vision: Most break-ins occur after dark, so this feature is nearly as important as motion detection. Technically, most home security cameras support infrared LED illumination, versus true night vision based on image intensification or thermal vision. Be that as it may, some camera’s will switch to night vision automatically in low-light conditions, while others allow you to customize when and how it should be activated.
Pan/Tilt/Swivel: Most security cameras – including all the ones in this guide – can be manually tilted and swivelled to focus on a certain viewing area, but this is a purely set-it-and-forget it feature. A true pan/tilt camera is equipped with a motor so that you can move its lens – or even follow a moving object if you’re watching a live feed – using its app or browser-based app.
Resolution: No amount of security video will help you if it’s blurry, jittery, or otherwise distorted. Look for a camera that offers the highest possible resolution. Most currently offer 720p (often referred to as ‘high definition’ or HD), but some newer cameras are coming out with 1080p (often referred to as ‘full HD’). Keep in mind higher-res cameras use more Internet and Wi-Fi bandwidth and battery life. Many cameras also offer a software zoom feature (which is not the same thing as having a physical zoom lens).
Scheduling: Scheduling features allow you to tell the camera to turn on and off, detect motion, and/or send alerts at specified times. This is useful when you, say, only want to be notified when your children get back from school or just want to monitor your home when you’re away. It also reduces the amount of false alerts.
Security: There have been plenty of headlines about hackers compromising home cameras, baby monitors, and other Wi-Fi devices to spy on people, so be sure to check what steps has each manufacturer taken to eliminate this problem. Look for a camera that supports up-to-date wireless security protocols, such as WPA2,
and make sure it encrypts Internet transmission of your user name, your password, and the live feeds. Never install a security camera (or a router or any other device on your home network) without changing its default user ID and password.
Smart device integration: If you have a home full of smart devices, consider looking for a security camera or an all-in-one home monitor that includes a Z-Wave, ZigBee, or – eventually a Thread – radio that can connect them. Support for an automation service such as IFTTT or Stringify is also useful. This allows the camera or monitor to react to various scenarios, such as taking a picture when your Nest Protect detects smoke, or telling your Philips Hue smart bulb to turn on when unexpected sounds are detected.
Two-way audio: While the idea of a security camera implies eyes-on monitoring, the ability to also hear what’s going on gives you a more complete picture of what’s happening on the home front when you’re away. It can also alert you to something occurring out of the camera’s field of vision. This feature can also allow you to speak through the camera, a great tool for remotely commanding an unruly pet or startling an intruder in the act, but be aware that you might need to plug in a powered speaker for this feature to work.
Viewing angle: The camera’s field of view determines how much it can see. As you’re probably monitoring a single room, you want a wide viewing angle. Most current cameras fall in the 130-degree range. These
wide angles can sometimes cause image distortion at the edges in the form of a fisheye effect, particularly when used in smaller rooms, but it’s not like you’re going to use a security to capture snapshots for your photo album.
Web client: Many cameras can be accessed through a web portal as well. This is useful for times when you don’t have access to your mobile device or a wireless connection. The web app should closely mirror its mobile counterpart, so you don’t need to learn a whole new set of controls.
Wireless range: One of the benefits wireless cameras offer is the ability to move them around your home.
Ideally, your home security camera should be able to maintain a Wi-Fi connection no matter how far you move it from your router, even in a large home. Some cameras come with an ethernet port as well, so you have the option of hardwiring it to your local network. A camera that supports Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) eliminates the need for an AC adapter and relies on just one cable (but your router or switch will also need to support PoE. Another alternative would be to use a PoE injector.) Best indoor home security camera Netgear Arlo Pro 2 (two-pack) Price: £565 Available from: fave.co/2v3c9uk Just a year after introducing the Arlo Pro, Netgear has refined the popular indoor/outdoor home security camera. The Arlo Pro 2 adds higher resolution, improved motion detection, and more flexible installation options to an already impressive list of features. It features Full HD 1080p resolution, up from 720p, putting it on a par with other Netgear security cameras including the indoor Arlo Q (£169 from fave.co/2K8h02l) and Arlo Baby nursery monitor (£269 from fave.co/2K7yvj3). It also now includes AC power support in addition to its 2,440mAh rechargeable battery.
The added power gained from plugging the camera in allows you to take advantage of video analyticsdriven motion detection that offers greater range and is more accurate than the passive infrared (PIR)
motion detection the camera uses on battery power. It also enables the camera’s new motion zone feature, which allows you to be alerted to movement only in specific areas, and a pre-buffer dubbed ‘look back’ that saves three seconds of video footage prior to the activity that triggered motion detection.
If you opt to use the camera wire-free outdoors, Netgear offers a new solar panel (£99 from fave.
co/2K8mI3W) that it says can full charge the battery of either Arlo Pro model with a couple of days of sunlight.
The camera supports smart home integration through IFTTT, Samsung SmartThings, and Amazon Alexa including viewing the camera’s streaming feed on the Fire TV, Echo Show, and Echo Spot.
The Arlo Pro 2 is offered in a starter kit with two cameras and a base station for £565. A four-camera bundle is available for £879, and additional individual cameras can be purchased for £119 each.
Like other Arlo cameras, the Pro 2 comes with Arlo’s Basic subscription, which stores video clips for seven days for up to five cameras, and includes three months of limited support all for free. You can upgrade to the Premier plan for £6.49 per month or £64 a year and get 30 days of cloud storage for up to 10 cameras, or the Elite plan for £9.99 per month or £99 a year and get 60 days of storage for up to 15 cameras. Both paid plans include unlimited support. Setup and usage The setup process for the Pro 2 is exactly the same as its predecessor’s – you plug the base station into your router with the supplied ethernet cable, then press sync buttons on the base station and the camera in succession to pair them. You’ll know they’ve paired successfully when you see the live camera feed in the Arlo companion app.
As the Pro 2 retains the modular design of the original Pro, you can place it virtually anywhere – on any tabletop surface, or on a wall or ceiling using either the magnetic or screw mount.
The Pro 2’s upgraded resolution delivers sharp images, even when using the 8x digital zoom. The night vision still suffers the same issue it did on the original Pro, though; it promises a range of 25 feet, but in practice, it only illuminates to about half that distance before falling off into shadow.
The new camera still offers four modes of operation, accessible from the live streaming screen. Armed is the default mode and will trigger the Pro 2 to record 10 seconds of video when motion is detected and
alert you via push notification. These rules are modifiable, allowing you to make a range of customizations, such as adding audio detection or triggering the base station’s on-board siren when the camera detects movement. Detection sensitivities and video recording length are also adjustable.
The other three modes – Schedule, Geofencing, and Disarm – automatically arm the camera based on time or your location or turn off detection altogether. You can create your own modes too, using in-app prompts and assign them to specific cameras.
The new motion zone feature is a welcome addition to the Arlo app, as it helps fine-tune the accuracy of detection alerts. You can create up to three zones by placing a bounding box over the parts of the room you want to monitor, such as doors and windows. The camera will alert you only to activity in those areas and ignore it in others – so, for example, the front door opening would trigger a notification, but your cat jumping on the kitchen worktop would not. The only downside is that the camera must be plugged into a power outlet to enable this feature.
I used the Arlo Pro 2 with Echo Show. The voice command options are limited, though. You can ask Alexa to show or hide the camera’s stream or to stop whatever you’re doing and return to the Echo Show home screen. There are far more actions you can take with IFTTT, like having the camera turn on your Phillips Hue lights or call your phone when it detects motion.
Verdict
Where the Arlo Pro marked a dramatic improvement of the original Arlo HD, The Arlo Pro 2 simply polishes what was already an exceptional camera. With Its unique indoor/outdoor flexibility and easyto-use companion app now complemented by even better detection capabilities, the Arlo Pro 2 is heartily recommended for anyone looking for a doit-yourself security solution. Best outdoor security camera Nest Cam IQ Outdoor Price: £329 Available from: fave.co/2K3R1cd With the introduction of the Nest Cam IQ last year (£299 from fave.co/2v0ycBU), Nest began to evolve the Dropcam platform it had acquired several years earlier. That camera’s hardware and software upgrades appear to be the blueprint for Nest cameras going forward judging by the fact they’ve been ported wholesale to the new IQ Outdoor.
Nest already offers an estimable outdoor camera in the Nest Cam Outdoor (£179 from fave.co/2M2IurP),
and the all-new IQ Outdoor shares many traits with it, including a 130-degree field of view, up to 1080p video, and a similar sturdily built cup-style design. But in every other way, the IQ Outdoor is a leap forward thanks to features cribbed from the indoor IQ camera.
The most impressive of these is ‘Supersight’, which leverages a 4K image sensor, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and person detection. If the IQ Outdoor sees a human, it will zoom in up to 12x (digitally) and follow the person’s movements. It will also balance lighting conditions, so that details aren’t blown out in highlights or lost in deep shadows. It’s important to note, however, that you’ll never actually see 4K video from the camera. The image sensor brings extra clarity to the 12x digital zoom, but the camera only ever streams 1080p video to the cloud.
IQ Outdoor also improves audio – it’s 15x more powerful than the original Outdoor, according to Nest – courtesy of a more robust speaker and a three-microphone array with echo cancellation and noise suppression.
Weatherproofing has been upgraded as well. The IQ Outdoor boasts an IP66 rating (a bump from Nest Cam Outdoor’s IP65), meaning its dust tight and protected from blasts of water, and it has a greater operating temperature range (-40º to 45ºC compared to the Nest Cam Outdoor’s -20º to 40ºC).
Another welcome change: person alerts come free with the purchase of the IQ Outdoor; they required a paid Nest Aware subscription with Nest’s original outdoor camera. A paid subscription, however, will transform person alerts into facial recognition and enable Familiar Face Alerts, a feature Nest introduced with the indoor IQ that lets you to train the camera to distinguish between people you know and strangers. It also unlocks Intelligent Audio Alerts, which differentiate between speaking, barking, and other triggering sounds. And a subscription is required to use Supersight.
Nest offers a pair of Nest Aware plans: Basic stores 10 days of video for £8 per month or £80 per year, and Extended saves video for 30 days for £240 a month or £240 per year.
Setup and usage
One of the most attractive features of the original Nest Outdoor is its plug-and-play installation. With its magnetic mount and weatherproof power cable, you
could stick the camera on an eave or rain gutter, plug it into an outside electrical outlet, and be up and running.
Installing the Outdoor IQ requires considerably more effort. Its 7.5m power cord is not weatherproof, so it needs access to an indoor outlet. As the cord is threaded through the camera mount, you’ll need to drill a hole through an exterior wall if you don’t have a ready opening, and then screw the mount to the wall with the supplied hardware. The upside is that the Outdoor IQ is less likely to be pilfered than the Outdoor.
With the same hardware improvements as the indoor IQ, the Outdoor IQ’s audio and video quality were predictably stellar. Video was sharp with vibrant colours. With night vision activated, the image had strong tonal contrast with plenty of detail. The audio was full and loud without booming or distortion.
As soon as the IQ Outdoor sees a face, the Supersight feature kicks in, tracking that person’s movements. This is where you really see the benefit of that 4K sensor as the camera zooms in on the person’s face without any detectable loss of image quality.
When the IQ Outdoor sees a face it doesn’t recognize, the Nest app shows you a screenshot and asks you if you know the person with the option to tap a checkmark for ‘yes’ or an X for ‘no’. For each
person you know, you can add a name in the app’s Familiar Faces library. This isn’t a oneand-done exercise, though. You’ll continue to get generic person alerts for people you’ve already identified, but as you continue to ‘teach’ the camera who your family and friends are through this process, you’ll start to get more accurate facial recognition alerts over a couple of weeks. A perk of using the Nest system is that any faces already recognized by the IQ indoor can be matched against those detected by the IQ Outdoor, effectively shortening its learning curve.
Intelligent audio alerts, on the other hand, were accurate right out of the box. The camera easily distinguished between my dog barking and my neighbours having a conversation, and identified each activity in the notification with a zoomed-in screenshot.
The day’s event-triggered videos are logged in a vertically scrolling timeline under the Nest app’s streaming window. You can toggle through the past 10 days of video history by tapping a calendar icon at the bottom of the camera’s home screen. You can add any video to your Nest Aware account with the tap of a button, but as with the other Nest cameras, video clips can only be edited and shared from the
Nest web portal. This is also true of the activity zones feature. Using the web client, you can create motionand/or sound-detection zones by dragging bounding boxes over the camera image. Each zone you create is denoted by a different colour and number, and you can shape a zone around objects by pushing and pulling a boxes handles. Activity zones greatly reduce false alerts as you’re only notified about activity within the defined areas.
This being a Nest camera, you can extend the IQ Outdoor’s security capabilities by pairing it with a range of third-party smart devices available through the Works With Nest program or through IFTTT applets. IQ Outdoor also works with Amazon’s Echo Show – using Alexa commands, you can have it display the camera’s live feed so you can check on things when you’re home without having to grab your phone or login on your computer.
Verdict
There’s no question the IQ Outdoor is a more featurerich camera than the Nest Cam Outdoor. Whether that makes it a ‘better’ camera for you probably comes down to price and convenience. The IQ Outdoor costs £150 more than the Nest Cam Outdoor, and that’s not taking into account the added cost of a Nest Aware subscription to unlock each camera’s advanced features. And the ease of Nest Cam Outdoor’s plugand-play installation shouldn’t be underestimated.
Given all that, it makes sense to lean toward the Nest Cam Outdoor if you’re buying your first outdoor camera. But if you’re already all-in on the Nest system,
and particularly if you already own one or more Nest Cam IQs, the IQ Outdoor is the way to go. Best security camera/ outdoor lighting combo Ring Spotlight Cam Wired Price: £199 Available from: fave.co/2OvsS1p The Ring Video Doorbell 2 (£179 from fave. co/2M34JxN) and Ring Stick Up Cam (£279 from
fave.co/2K7Ecxr) provide easy and effective ways to set up a pretty strong security perimeter around the outside of your home, but it could be made considerably stronger with the addition of the nowAmazon-owned company’s Spotlight Cam. This outdoor camera/porch-light hybrid, illuminates the area and records video when its motion sensor is tripped.
Ideally suited for the darker nooks on your property that are susceptible to breach after sundown, it comes in three models: Spotlight Cam Wired, Spotlight Cam Battery (£199 from fave.co/2Ou1lxy), and Spotlight Floodlight Cam (£249 from fave.co/2v3rHyc). The cameras in all three models are the same.
I tested the Spotlight Cam Wired and the Spotlight Cam Solar separately. The Wired is a great option if you have easily accessible outdoor power outlets. The 126x69.1x75.9mm camera has a 6m power cable attached at the back as well as a built-in wall mount, and unlike with the battery powered models, you won’t have to worry about dead batteries or too many overcast days interrupting your surveillance.
I’m guessing, however, most people will need one of the battery-powered cameras.
The spotlight is provided by LED light strips on either side of a 140-degree wide-angle lens, which activate when motion is detected. The motion sensor, encased in a dome on the bottom of the camera, has a 270-degree detection range. The camera streams and records video in up to 1080p resolution and supports two-way talk with noise cancellation and night vision up to 9m.
The Spotlight Cam comes with 30-day free trial of Ring’s cloud storage for recorded video. At the end of the period, you have the option of upgrading to one of a pair of Ring Protect plans: Protect Basic allows you to store, review, and share video for up to 60 days
for £2.50 per month or £25 a year per camera. Protect Plus provides the same for unlimited Ring cameras – including the Ring Video Doorbell – and adds a lifetime warranty and discounts on Ring products for £8 per month or £80 a year.
If you purchase a Ring Protect Base Station smart home hub when it becomes available, the Plus package will also provide Ring Response 24/7 professional monitoring. The hub comes with a backup battery of its own, along with cellular connectivity so you can see your camera feed even if your Internet connection goes down.
Connecting the cameras
Regardless of which model you choose, it’s recommended you connect your Spotlight Cam to your Wi-Fi network before mounting it outside. (In the case of the non-wired Spotlight Cams, you’ll first need to charge the battery using the supplied MicroUSB cable.) Once you add the camera to the Ring companion app, the camera’s voice prompts guide you through the connection process.
I installed the Spotlight Cam Wired at the front of my home, where there’s an outdoor outlet within the power cord’s 20-foot range. I put the Spotlight Cam Solar in the backyard, where there’s more unobstructed sunlight. Each camera comes with its own mounting tools, including a screwdriver, drill bit, mounting bracket and screw set with wall anchors.
For the backyard camera I also installed the solar panel, which is packaged separately with its own mounting kit. Once it’s mounted, you plug the
connector wire into the back of the Spotlight Cam and secure it with two screws. It fits flush to keep water out of the port. Ring recommends one- to two hours of direct sunlight per day to keep your battery charged, and you can angle the solar panel’s mounting arm to ensure it soaks up as much sun as possible. The days I tested the Spotlight Cam Solar were mostly overcast, but I still saw a 3- to 4 percent charge increase each day, and I’d expect much more on sunny days.
I had a sufficiently strong signal from my router to each camera, but results will vary depending on the layout of your home. If you do see streaming issues, such as resolution deterioration or loss of signal, you might need to install the camera closer to your router or use a Wi-Fi range extender, such as the Ring Chime Pro Wi-Fi range extender (£49 from fave.co/2OtUfsJ).
Like its cameras, Ring’s range extender is an 802.11n device that operates on the 2.4GHz frequency band only.
You set up the Chime Pro, which also adds a chime sound to your motion detection alerts, in a process that’s similar to the camera installation: you plug it in to an AC outlet somewhere between your router and the camera to repeat the wireless signal. I used a spare outlet in my kitchen as that was roughly the halfway point between my living room router and the camera on the front of my house. Once the Chime Pro is plugged in, a voice prompt will tell you it’s ready to set up. You then add the device in the Ring app then follow the voice and app prompts to connect it to your wireless network.
The next step is to connect the Chime Pro to the Spotlight Cam. The Ring app displays all the Ring devices connected to your network, with a button beneath each that says ‘connect to Chime Pro’. Just press it and the Chime Pro’s voice prompt lets you know it’s looking for the camera and when the connection has been completed. You can access the Chime Pro, and any other active Ring cameras, from the Ring app’s My Devices screen. Here you’ll also see a running feed of all detected activity, which you can
filter to view only those triggered by motion, by button presses (in the case of the video doorbell), and those you’ve starred as noteworthy.
An intuitive app
Tapping the Spotlight Cam icon in the Ring app opens a dedicated screen with all the camera’s controls laid out. The Ring app is one of the best in this regard, as it doesn’t require you to go hunting through nested settings menus to find what you need. At the top are on/off toggles for the camera’s lights and motion alerts. Using a selection of buttons below these, you can open the camera’s streaming feed, event history light settings, and more.
The image quality was sharp, with even lighting and none of the colour tinting I encountered with the Ring Stick Up Cam. When you’re viewing the live stream, you can communicate with a visitor – or interloper – using a pair of phone icons overlaid on the image. You can also manually turn on the spotlight from this screen.
Motion detection was responsive and accurate with the default settings, which placed the sensitivity midway on a scale between ‘people only’ and ‘all motion’. You can adjust this to your liking with the slider, or use it in combination with customizable motion zones. With each alert, Chime Pro simultaneously emitted a digital Ring. This ensured I was kept aware of detected activity even when I was home, as I don’t usually carry my phone around the house. You can change the chime’s sound and volume and ‘snooze’ it for periods of time in the Ring app.
The Spotlight Cam employs the common method of using bounding boxes over the camera image to define detection zones, but you can use the box handles to twist it into any kind of geometric shape, not just squares. That allows you to work around outdoor areas where you don’t have as much control over the environment as you do inside your home. There’s also a scheduling option to disable motion alerts during certain times of day.
You can set motion zones for the lights, too. In this case, the app shows a graphic representation off the motion sensor’s 270-degree range, and you can define where you want movement to turn on the lights by tapping up to three preset zones and then expanding or reducing coverage in those zones using a slider. Depending on your settings, the light will stay on for one- to 15 minutes.
At max power, the camera’s lights were more than enough to light up my modest-sized side yard. Depending on the size of yours, you might want to dial down the intensity in the app.
Verdict
Whether you opt for one of the wired or batterypowered Ring Spotlight Cams, you’ll get an impressive
camera that effectively fills a necessary niche: providing security for gardens, drives, and other spots around the perimeter of homes that become particularly vulnerable after dark. While it will work great as a standalone camera, it will shine as part of more comprehensive security set up with other Ring devices – I used it in conjunction with the Ring Doorbell and a Stick Up Cam – for seamless 360-degree surveillance of your property.