Complete Guide To Home Security Cameras
Smart home security systems generally use some fork of IP-based cameras for surveillance. Whether these are connected via Ethernet cables or Wi-Fi, you’ll learn about the different technologies used by these cameras, the differences between platform providers, and the integration tools that can help with your smart home.
In This Guide
What is a Wi-Fi Security Camera?
A Wi-Fi security camera is a home security camera that uses the common Wi-Fi protocol for its data communication. Unlike CCTV systems that require a physical cable between the video recorder and each camera, using Wi-Fi allows for much easier installation for consumers while still providing the response times and data transfer rates required for live video feeds.
Wi-Fi security cameras can be used for both indoor and outdoor surveillance, although outdoor models will be limited by the range of your Wi-Fi signal. Streaming video requires a fast, stable data connection and poor Wi-Fi signal strength can rapidly degrade that to the point where it no longer works well, or at all.
Because they have the same features and installation options, video doorbells can also be grouped under this device type. The only difference with a video doorbell is addition of the doorbell button, and that they can sometimes be powered directly by conventional doorbell wiring as well as the usual camera methods.
Home Security In The Digital Age
Smart home technology has made its way into many facets of daily life, and home security is a big beneficiary. Even products that aren’t marketed for the smart home still make use of many of the same technologies and principles to fundamentally change how we secure our homes.
Gone are the days of proprietary CCTV and alarm systems, expensive custom wiring installations, and hard-wired telephone monitoring solutions. By using common IoT (Internet of Things) technologies, protocols, and the Internet, camera and alarm systems are now simpler to install, cheaper to buy, and can provide real-time alerting of exactly what is happening at home anywhere in the world.
Similarly, many modern alarm systems that offer a subscription monitoring service do so over the internet rather than requiring special landline connections. Such monitoring services are still a requirement for discounts on most home insurance policies but are not really necessary for keeping tabs on your property unless you want an emergency response capability as well.
Smart phone apps and internet connectivity allow you to receive alerts for all manner of home events such as smoke alarms, water leaks, open doors and windows and, of course, live camera feeds from security cameras. We’re now able to rest easy knowing the state of your homes no matter where we are and take action remotely if things go wrong.
Types of Smart Security Cameras
When it comes to smart security cameras we are now spoiled for choice. Whether indoor, outdoor, wired, battery, Wi-Fi or PoE, there is a plethora of models on offer. Here are just a few of the best options in each category to begin your exploration.
Indoor Wi-Fi Cameras
Aqara G2H - A compact, versatile indoor camera with cloud or local storage, good smart home integration, and a built-in ZigBee hub.
Netatmo Smart Indoor Camera - A privacy centric camera with an unusual design and built-in facial recognition.
Eve Cam - A dedicated HomeKit Secure Video camera with a magnetic mounting base.
Eufy Solo IndoorCam - A 2K indoor camera with great night vision, interesting smart features, and broad smart home support.
Canary All-in-one - A table-top security camera, alarm, and room sensor in a single package.
Outdoor Wi-Fi Cameras
Ring Spotlight Cam - A durable outdoor camera with bright light bars, siren and the option of wired, solar, or battery power.
Ring Spotlight Cam Pro - Pre-roll video, 3D motion tracking, and dual band Wi-Fi makes this a compelling wireless security camera.
Eufycam 2C Pro - A compact 2K camera with local storage, no subscription reqwuirement, and HomeKit Secure Video compatiblity.
Logitech Circle View - A dedicated HomeKit camera that works indoors and outdoors, including an ambient light sensor.
Arlo Essential Spotlight - An entry level outdoor camera using Arlo’s cloud service with built in spotlight and siren.
Canary Flex - A versatile indoor/outdoor wireless camera with a privacy centric approach.
Floodlight Wi-Fi Cameras
Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight - A powerful, battery-operated floodlight coupled with a 2K camera.
Eve Outdoor Cam - A premium quality hard-wired outdoor floodlight camera specifically for HomeKit.
Key Features to Consider
Indoor vs Outdoor
There are clear benefits to being able to monitor both the inside and outside of your home. Indoor cameras, however, come with more serious concerns about privacy. Placement, video storage, streaming access, and privacy controls are very important considerations in these cases.
Indoor security cameras will typically be powered by a USB cable and come with a suitable wall adapter, using Wi-Fi to communicate with your home network and any apps it needs. You can use your own USB charger, but you may need a higher wattage model depending on the camera. This is important to note if you intend to use a multi-USB charger or USB wall outlet as these are often limited to a certain load.
You can check the required power rating by looking at the original wall charger. Standard USB ports will handle 1 Amp at 5 Volts. That equates to 5 Watts (5W). Models with a higher current draw will have a higher Amp rating on the charger, possibly shown as a higher Watt rating. It’s easy to convert between Amps and Watts using the simple multiplication Amps x Volts = Watts. USB ports will always be at 5 Volts.
For outdoor security cameras, you can find models that run on USB power as well, but it’s more common to see them either battery powered or hard wired to your home electrical wiring. There are also Power over Ethernet (PoE) models that will use Ethernet cables to provide power, but these will usually use that same cable for data instead of Wi-Fi.
Battery powered models are popular since they make the camera truly wireless. These are the easiest cameras to install and offer the greatest flexibility in terms of location - providing they’re in Wi-Fi range of course. Most brands of battery powered camera also have an option to use solar charging. A small solar panel accessory is mounted alongside, or nearby the camera (some models even have one built-in) to keep the battery charged all the time. Cloudy conditions are not an issue here, the battery will be good for months without any charging. The solar panel simply means you never have to do it.
Wired vs Wireless
Wireless security cameras have the undeniable advantage of being able to be installed anywhere around your property with ease. You’re not restricted to attaching them to the house, either, as you can just as easily mount them on a fence, post, in the garden, or even up a tree. The biggest limitation is the Wi-Fi signal itself.
Not only are you at the mercy of interference from everyday radio noise, but there is the potential for an attacker to jam your Wi-Fi on purpose, effectively disabling your cameras and any other security devices that may be using it. These jammers can be sourced for only a few hundred dollars and will be effective within a limited radius sufficient to cover a house.
That sounds like a deal breaker, but there are a couple of important reality checks to consider.
Firstly, virtually every Wi-Fi based security system will alert you if they lose contact with your devices. It’s certainly the case that if I have an internet outage or power failure my phone will be barraged by alerts from my various cameras, smart home hubs, router, and weather station. You’ll know something is up.
Second is to consider whether a burglar is going to bother doing this at all. CNET took a look at this question a couple of years back and the reality is that the vast majority of crimes are unsophisticated. Most are opportunistic thefts due to an unsecured door or window, followed by simple break and enters. The security wisdom that a thief would prefer to find another target than deal with a security system holds true.
Wired cameras do have the advantage to being more robust and reliable, but have the disadvantages of the extra installation burden, limitations on cable runs, and often limited smart home integration capabilities. The latter is not a technological issue, but more a result of smart home focused brands going for wireless models since they are more appealing to the mass market.
IP Cameras vs CCTV
All CCTV and networked video cameras will need to stream their video data back to a recorder of some kind, whether it’s in the cloud or in your house. While CCTV cameras tend to use dedicated cables for this, network connected cameras may send this data over your home network by Wi-Fi or Ethernet, there are a number of protocols that need to be used to both route the stream to where it needs to go, and to define how that data should be read by the receiver.
The security camera market is, unfortunately, still quite fractured with many proprietary protocols and closed systems. This is not limited to cloud-based services, but many CCTV manufacturers as well. There are software-based solutions that are pushing to open up compatibility like Blue Iris that can integrate with a wide variety of cameras, and there is a loose industry standard known as ONVIF that provides for some cross-compatibility between brands.
RTSP? ONVIF? WTF?
Learn about the standards and protocols used to connect network connected cameras to recorders, app, and our smart homes.
Resolution and Image Quality
A security camera is not much use to you if the image quality is poor. This is especially true when it comes to identifying people on your property. This will often require zooming on an image, so the more pixels you have in the base image, the better…usually.
Higher resolution cameras can fall short at night where low light levels become a factor. For a given image sensor, the more pixels you squeeze in, the smaller they must be individually. Smaller image elements will require more light exposure for a given brightness. If a camera manufacturer has coupled the lens, sensor, and infra-red illumination poorly, you may end up with a worse quality image at night, even though you have technically more pixels.
Good quality camera vendors will not fall into this trap so badly, and camera sensors continue to improve. This has now reached a point where we are seeing ‘color night vision’ features, which basically means much higher low light sensitivity, delaying the need to switch to infra-red night vision modes. There are also other ways you can boost the infra-red lighting for your outdoor cameras.
A basic minimum for security cameras on the market now is 1080p resolution. Many are still using this as it’s often sufficient for most typical installations. 2K cameras are becoming much more common now, though, and when these use decent sensors can deliver very good night vision performance, as well as better image zoom.
Newer models are now beginning to push into 4K resolutions. These may be useful in some cases, but the bandwidth and storage requirements are exponentially higher than for 2K. You probably only want to look at 4K when covering very wide areas with a single camera.
Field of View
Getting sufficient clarity in the image to be able to identify a face is only one part of the equation. Wide angle lenses will cover a larger area in the field of view, but this effectively reduces the proportion of the image taken up by any given object. This has a severe effect on the ability to zoom effectively as you’ll be working with fewer pixels the wider the angle of the lens.
Very wide-angle lenses can certainly be useful if you need to cover such a large area, but it’s often better to use multiple cameras with narrower fields in order to get a better quality, and therefore more usable, image. This camera resolution tool allows you to calculate the resolution you need for a given area of the image.
Going for a field of view of around 100 degrees is a good starting point, and most cameras sit around that value. This allows you to cover a corner position with some overlap at the edges to avoid blind spots. Similarly multiple cameras can be easily positioned in complementary positions to overlap each other’s field of view.
Motion Detection and Alerts
Some people like the idea of 24/7 recording. This is useful to ensure you don’t miss anything that happens, but it’s only really relevant if you’re going to go back and see what happened after the fact. Smart security cameras add a lot more value through motion alerts, and more specifically, by using object detection technology to identify and alert you about specific types of events.
Motion alerts ensure you know when something is happening right now, but they can be prone to false positives like moving plants, passing cars, and other such inconsequential events. Smart motion alerts will only trigger when the camera determines a specific type of movement. The most common of these is person (or human) detection. This one is the most important as that’s usually what we are concerned about.
A well performing person alert system will cut down the noise and ensure that you can take the notifications seriously. After all, too many nonsense alerts teach us to ignore them, or even turn them off entirely. That’s not a great way to get a return on your investment.
Beyond person alerts, you might also be interested in looking for other smart alerting features that are growing in popularity. These include vehicles, animals, packages, and even facial recognition for known people. Each of these can be useful in different situations.
Storage Options
Although they may use Wi-Fi to communicate with their recording system, that system can be local, or cloud based. Popular cloud-based systems include Ring and Arlo, which require a subscription to use effectively, while local systems include the likes of Eufy and Amcrest.
Cloud-based camera systems will need the internet to function even if they have some form of local recording capability. The only way to access the cameras, or their recordings, is via the company’s app and servers. The apps invariably connect to those servers and not directly to the cameras, so without an internet connection you can’t do much with them.
Local recording systems can provide some local control, but this is a much more varied scenario between different recording systems and brands. In some cases, you will still need to go through the company’s servers to access anything through their app. Local Network Video Recorder (NVR) solutions get around this by bringing the control completely in house - so to speak.
Cloud Camera Showdown
Check out the details on what differentiates these two big names in consumer security cameras. It’s not just about the hardware, but a deep dive on their app and cloud platforms as well.
Connectivity And Integration
Wi-Fi Connectivity
Wi-Fi connected security cameras are great for easy DIY installation and flexible placement because you can stick them just about anywhere and not have to worry about running cables. If you’re going for this method of connection, though, you’ll still need to consider placement with respect to your Wi-Fi network.
This isn’t so much about bandwidth requirements as it is about signal strength. A camera stream will only consume a few megabits per second, depending on resolution, which is well below the capacity of even a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network. Even if you have a lot of cameras, so long as they’re not streaming 24/7 you won’t even notice their impact on your bandwidth.
Signal strength, on the other hand is critical. As the stream has to be in real-time you don’t want the camera having to push through interference or low-quality signal in order to get the video where it needs to go. Whether it’s to a cloud service or a local storage device, the signal needs to be of good quality to avoid artifacting, drop outs, and slow connections.
This also impacts live viewing of the camera, as a poor signal can make it much slower to establish a connection in the first place. This can easily result in you completely missing the event you were hoping to check out. Low signal to the camera can be address by using a Wi-Fi extender or adjusting the placement of mesh nodes if you’re using a mesh network. Choosing an alternative location for the camera is also a viable fix, but may not be as practical.
Smart Home Integration
Not all home security cameras will be able to integrate with smart homes, and even those that do may offer limited utility by doing so. There are a few main benefits in connecting cameras to your smart home:
You can use the motion sensors as triggers for automation rules, scenes, routines, etc.
You may be able access the camera on a smart display, such as an Amazon Echo Show or Google Nest Hub.
You may be able to access and manage recorded videos in your smart home app.
You may be able to recognize members of the smart home in motion events.
You may be able to get quick access to related smart home devices like locks, lights, and sirens from the camera view.
These features vary considerably between smart home platforms and camera vendors. While it’s always good to be able to manage all your smart devices in one place and these features are valuable in some situations, the benefits may not justify making this a major consideration when choosing a camera system.
Want Better Camera Integration?
The third-party Scrypted software allows integration with almost any camera with Alexa, Google Home, or HomeKit. See how it works.
Mobile Apps and Remote Access
Smart home security cameras are very much driven by their smart phone apps. For this reason, the overall app experience is just as important when choosing a brand as the camera features themselves.
You’ll want to look for an app that offers clear and intuitive navigation so you can locate advanced features and settings easily. Good access to recorded events is also essential, with filters by event types, time and date. A good notification system is also essential, you’ll want one that provides snapshots of the event right in the notification so you can easily see if it’s something of concern without having to open the app.
Performance of the playback, live streaming, and notification delivery are also vital. Any of these being slow to respond significantly reduces the value of the system overall. You need to be informed of any events quickly and be able to respond to them immediately in order to get the most value out of having smart security cameras.
Finally, being able to configure motion detection zones, sensitivity, and which types of events you want to record and be notified about are very important. You need to be able to configure the system so that you aren’t being alerted to inconsequential events, false alarms, and other noise. These will quickly result in you ignoring the alerts, likely resulting in you missing something when it actually is important.
Installation and Setup
Mounting and Placement
Where you mount your security cameras requires careful consideration. There are a number of factors that play into this that relate to operational performance, but the first thing you need to decide is whether you want a visible deterrent or covert surveillance.
It’s fairly well understood that the potential of being caught or identified is a significant deterrent against pre-mediated crimes, but is this a strong enough effect to drive decisions about camera placement on your property? According to a 2012 study out of the University of North Carolina the answer is yes.
This study surveyed 422 actual burglars (those with convictions on the record) and found that the presence of security cameras was the most significant consideration, at over 55%. Furthermore, the survey found that 83% would try to determine if some form of security was present, and 60% would consider another target if there was.
For most homeowners the two primary objectives of having security cameras are prevention and identification of the culprit. Visible camera placement is essential for the first of these and good placement doesn’t detract too much from the second. However, concealed cameras in the right places can aid in better identifying an offender if that’s the primary goal, but this can be difficult unless you are monitoring a very specific location or object.
For effective coverage of a property in general, you’ll want to ensure that your cameras cannot be approached by anyone without being seen. Using wide angle lenses, or ensuring each camera is in view of a least one other prevents any camera from being vulnerable to being disabled without warning. In a typical home situation this is easily accomplished in many cases by positioning cameras on each corner.
For extra resilience you can place two cameras on each corner facing opposite directions. Having them back-to-back and covered by the cameras on each adjacent corner ensures there are no blind spots. For inside corner, placing a camera in the corner itself effectively ensures it can’t be approached unseen.
Image: Backstreet-surveillance
Power Source
Going with wired power for your security cameras is a better choice in terms of performance and reliability. A permanent continuous power supply means the camera doesn’t need to go to sleep to preserve battery life and can respond instantly to motion detection. With the right recording system you can also go for full 24/7 recording if you so wish, which is simply not possible on battery power.
Solar panel accessories are popular with battery powered outdoor models, but even these cameras will need to minimize power draw to ensure the solar panel can charge the battery when it’s able. Continuous operation will drain the battery faster than it can be charger in many cases, so while this is a good option is wireless is necessary, it’s not the same as a hard-wired camera.
That said, it’s not always possible to run cables to the camera positions you want. If you need to cover an area away from the house, or on the perimeter of the property, running wires can be cost prohibitive, impractical, or unsightly. In these cases, or if you simply don’t want to deal with the added installation complexity, going for wireless cameras can still be very effective.
Network Configuration
If you’re going to go for wired powered, your best option is to use PoE (Power over Ethernet). This uses a regular Ethernet cable to the camera which connects to either a PoE switch, NVR (Network Video Recorder), or power injector to supply power to the camera as well as its data connection. This ensures reliability not only from a power perspective, but also for network connectivity.
If you’re going wireless, then Wi-Fi is most likely going to be the connection method you’ll be using, although Z-Wave does also support cameras. For Wi-Fi, you’ll have to consider the signal strength at the position you want to install the camera. This is often at the extremities of the house, so if you’re router is not placed to cover that well you could have poor performance in both video quality and motion response time.
This can be addressed by using a mesh router system. With these modular routers you can place additional nodes where you need to boost signal and ensure the whole home is well covered.
Wi-Fi cameras will likely connect to the makers servers for integration with their smart phone app, allowing remote access to your cameras and possibly cloud storage of recordings. PoE cameras will often rely on a local recording device, and so may not be accessible from outside the home without some extra steps.
Depending on the brand of recorder you use and what kind of user interface it has, you may need to set up a dynamic DNS service that allows you to locate your home on the internet, and port forwarding on your router to direct incoming requests to the recorder, or the cameras as required.
Privacy and Security
Privacy Concerns
When it comes to recording the activity of your family and guests there are very good reasons to have concerns. Not only do these concerns relate to your own property, but potentially to your neighbors as well. No one likes the idea of being watched by someone else’s camera, so it’s important to consider placement and features that will mitigate any issues.
Privacy concerns with security cameras come from a few different directions.
The risk of recording intimate or embarrassing activities that could be viewed by others in the household.
The risk of capturing the private moments of neighbors.
The risk of unauthorized access to your recordings by hackers or employees of the device maker.
The risk of hackers accessing the live view and using two-way talk to intimidate your family.
These risks can be addressed with some good practices, prudent product research, and considered camera placement.
Security Best Practices
Even if you’re not using cloud storage, many consumer security cameras will still connect to the maker’s servers in order to provide connectivity with their smart phone app. These types of Wi-Fi cameras don’t talk directly to the app, even if you are inside the house. They will always connect via the internet to ensure a smooth and trouble-free user experience.
This connectivity does mean that the company’s employees could access the camera if they haven’t engineered their security model correctly. Cloud storage companies also have to have robust internal controls to ensure access is limited to only those who need it for their jobs, and only to the extent necessary at the time.
As customer’s we often don’t have any visibility or control of these policies and controls, so choosing well established brands is our best hedge. Even major brands make mistakes, but the value here is that these bigger names will have far more scrutiny from the tech press and security researchers who will find and report any issues. That also puts significant pressure on these companies to do the right thing and to fix issues when they are found.
To benefit from these fixes, choose brands that use automatic firmware updates, and keep an eye on the smart phone app to ensure they are installed in a timely manner. Some apps will indicate if there are updates available, so use that to install them right away.
To minimize the risk of intrusion into your account, and unauthorized access to your cameras, use two-factor authentication if it is available, and make sure your account password is long and unique. Don’t share passwords between services, as this is the primary way database breaches can be used against you. To help with managing strong, unique passwords, it’s highly recommended to use a password manager. These tools make it easy to have good password discipline and can even manage your two-factor authentication tokens and passkeys as well.
Choosing the Right Smart Security Camera
Budget Considerations
As the market has expanded with many brands of home security cameras now available, prices have generally comes down and very cheap options are now readily available. Cheaper is not usually the best way to go though. Low end models will tend to skimp on things like good quality network components, effective smart detection features, camera quality, and overall durability.
You’ll likely be looking to use outdoor cameras, and these need to be robust in order to handle the elements for long periods of time. Good camera brands will go the distance and last many years without issues, where cheaper ones will fail quickly and need to be replaced. Battery-powered models will also be more expensive than hard wired options - because of the battery cost - but you can save on installation if you don’t already have a PoE setup.
Going for a PoE local sotrage system will run you extra costs associated with cabling, network hardware, and the NVR to record your videos. This can make it considerably more expensive overall than Wi-Fi options, but nets you more reliable, hands-off operation.
Look Beyond the Camera
If you’re embarking on a camera setup for the first time, you’ll want to review each brand’s offerings as a whole, including their app and features, camera types, and additional value-added services. This is because you’ll be investing in a system for the long term, so you want to ensure it’s going to expand to meet your potential future needs as well as what you’re looking for today.
Will you want to integrate an alarm system? Indoor cameras as well as outdoor? Floodlights? Insurance discounts? These are some of the things to consider when taking a more holistic view.
Demo and Testing
Bigger name brands can often be tested at electronics and hardware stores first-hand. You won’t find everything here, but if you are just starting out it can be useful to try these out first to get an idea of the market. Beware that the brands on offer will only be those that have ponied up the marketing dollars to the stores, though, and there will be other good options available.
It’s not always possible to get hands on demos of all the camera products you are considering. This isn’t critical as you’ll be able to get a good enough understanding of camera view and quality considerations from online reviews, so long as they present hands-on examples. Video reviews from customers can also be valuable in getting a better handle on what the camera will actually deliver, and these should be enough to cover off those factors.
Maintenance and Troubleshooting
Cleaning
Keeping your camera lenes clean is the primary maintenance consideration you’ll come across regardless of the type of cameras you’ve chosen. Outdoor cameras, in particular, will accumulate dust, water marks, and cobwebs over time.
You can clean these off easily with a damp soft cloth. Avoid using anything even remotely abrasive, and you shouldn’t need any chemical cleaning agents. A gentle circular motion will remove and build-up and avoid streaks on the lens.
Battery charging and replacement may be a consideration if you’ve gone fully wireless, and cleaning solar panels could also be a requirement. Good battery powered cameras will make it easy to swap out the battery for charging, although this may involve some kind of security screw to release the cover.
Cleaning solar panels can be done in the same way as with the lens itself. Just use a gentle motion with a damp soft cloth to remove any excessive dust. This will only be necessary in extreme cases, however, as an angled panel and the occasional rain shower will usually be enough.
Comon Issues
The majority of complaints we see regarding security cameras fall into two main categories: Poor connectivity and false alarms.
Connectivity issues are only a factor with wireless cameras as wired models have a guaranteed direct link to the network. Wireless models can suffer from poor signal strength, or poor hardware, resulting in dropouts, missed recordings, and slow notifications. The only fix for these issues is to improve your Wi-Fi coverage by using a better router, an extender, or positioning it (or a mesh node) closer to the camera.
False alarms are very common, even on the best cameras, and come down to how you configure and position the camera. Placement is important and can make a big difference by determining how likely it is to capture movement that is of no concern. Pointing and camera right at the street, for example, is going to be triggered by every passing car, person, and animal all day long.
Angling your camera downwards or to the side to minimize exposure to public areas can greatly help. When that is not enough, you’ll want to use motion zone features in the app to control which areas of the cameras view will trigger motion events.
Finally, make use of smart detection features to only capture and notify you of the kinds of events you are interested in. This is usually limited to people movement but may include vehicles if your camera app supports that type.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Many smart home security cameras are designed for DIY installation and come with step-by-step instructions. Wireless models are typically easier to set up since they don't require complex wiring.
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While it's rare, security cameras can be vulnerable to hacking. To prevent this, regularly update camera firmware, use strong passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and secure your Wi-Fi network.
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Some cameras offer both options. You can configure them to record continuously, on a schedule, or only when motion is detected, which can help conserve storage space.
Continuous recording is only available on hard wired models, however, as battery power doesn’t provide the longevity required for 24/7 recording.
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Yes, most smart home security cameras allow remote access via a smartphone app or web portal. You can check live feeds, review recorded footage, and receive alerts while you're away.
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The lifespan varies, but most smart home security cameras are designed to last several years. Proper maintenance and regular firmware updates can extend their life.
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It's not required, but some people opt for professional monitoring for added security. It typically involves a monthly fee and can include features like 24/7 monitoring and emergency response.
