Outdoor Security Camera Recommendations

[YevKasim]

I'm looking for an outdoor security camera that I can attach to my house and have it look straight down my driveway. I don't need a doorbell camera. does anyone have one that they'd recommend?

[Murphy76]

Ring makes a pretty good one that you can power via solar. No running wires, no AC required

[gsrjc]

NEST camera.

[SilverBullets]

I have Blink cameras. I didn't want anything elaborate or overly expensive. Just something to somewhat help catch things and deter people who see them.

 

Each blink camera is installed with 1 screw, they each run off a 2 year AA battery and connect via WiFi to a centralized hub. Motion activated, free storage to the cloud. Cheap, easy to install and solid video quality.

[Murphy76]

> @gsrjc said:

> NEST camera.

 

All bow before our lord Google. Just sayin.......

[scratchswinger]

Nest are great products, much better quality then Ring IMO.

 

I heard of hackers breaking in and being able to view these cloud based cameras.

[CHuntsman]

Arlo. They are a division of Netgear.

 

https://www.arlo.com/en-us/

[YevKasim]

> @SilverBullets said:

> I have Blink cameras. I didn't want anything elaborate or overly expensive. Just something to somewhat help catch things and deter people who see them.

>

> Each blink camera is installed with 1 screw, they each run off a 2 year AA battery and connect via WiFi to a centralized hub. Motion activated, free storage to the cloud. Cheap, easy to install and solid video quality.

 

I've heard about Blink but read a bad review about pic quality. I gues you can find a bad review or two about anything these days can't we?

[ksher84]

I have had great experience with my Arlo cameras

They have pretty good deals at Costco

[dcmidnight]

> @YevKasim said:

> > @SilverBullets said:

> > I have Blink cameras. I didn't want anything elaborate or overly expensive. Just something to somewhat help catch things and deter people who see them.

> >

> > Each blink camera is installed with 1 screw, they each run off a 2 year AA battery and connect via WiFi to a centralized hub. Motion activated, free storage to the cloud. Cheap, easy to install and solid video quality.

>

> I've heard about Blink but read a bad review about pic quality. I gues you can find a bad review or two about anything these days can't we?

 

I have a three Blink setup right now and the quality can be anywhere from great to very spotty - with no reasoning. I have 5/5 bars in signal strength in my setup so its not that, it just happens.

 

But what do you expect from a tiny outdoor camera, running on wifi, powered by AA batteries - that also has a pretty decent "night vision" mode? It had more pros than cons for me including the price and how easy it was to setup. I had three cameras unboxed, mounted, installed and put into the app in....less than a half hour. And that included hooking up and installing the sync module.

 

I am hoping that in future versions they improve the wifi/camera hardware because the ease of setup - and cost - are two of the biggest things it has going for it.

[SilverBullets]

> @dcmidnight said:

> > @YevKasim said:

> > > @SilverBullets said:

> > > I have Blink cameras. I didn't want anything elaborate or overly expensive. Just something to somewhat help catch things and deter people who see them.

> > >

> > > Each blink camera is installed with 1 screw, they each run off a 2 year AA battery and connect via WiFi to a centralized hub. Motion activated, free storage to the cloud. Cheap, easy to install and solid video quality.

> >

> > I've heard about Blink but read a bad review about pic quality. I gues you can find a bad review or two about anything these days can't we?

>

> I have a three Blink setup right now and the quality can be anywhere from great to very spotty - with no reasoning. I have 5/5 bars in signal strength in my setup so its not that, it just happens.

>

> But what do you expect from a tiny outdoor camera, running on wifi, powered by AA batteries - that also has a pretty decent "night vision" mode? It had more pros than cons for me including the price and how easy it was to setup. I had three cameras unboxed, mounted, installed and put into the app in....less than a half hour. And that included hooking up and installing the sync module.

>

> I am hoping that in future versions they improve the wifi/camera hardware because the ease of setup - and cost - are two of the biggest things it has going for it.

 

Exactly my thoughts as well. We have 5 cameras setup. Picture quality is average I guess. Are you going to be able to perfectly picture someone's face and use it for facial recognition software to identify someone? No, not likely. Unless the camera is super close to the person. But can you clearly see what is going on? Yes.

 

If someone is going to break in, they are going to break in. The cameras are a bit of deterrent if they can see them but they are also good for just knowing whats happening on your property. The Blink certainly has more pros than cons. The picture quality is not 'potato camera' bad but it's also not 4k good. I think the quality ultimately depends on where you place the camera.

 

The night vision quality is pretty grainy and not great. I will say that. You would have to know the person to recognize them on the night vision... its a bit grainy. The daytime view is much, much better.

[dcmidnight]

> @SilverBullets said:

> The night vision quality is pretty grainy and not great. I will say that. You would have to know the person to recognize them on the night vision... its a bit grainy. The daytime view is much, much better.

 

With the night vision its enough to give a general description and also you can clearly see logos/writing on clothes - things like that. So if they were wearing a shirt with a logo on it, team jersey - something like that - you could see that part clearly. I actually have toyed with running the "non night vision" at night given the sidewalk lights - and its not that bad. Like I said, hoping for some hardware upgrades in the future but I just dont need the cameras badly enough that I was going to pay for monthly charges or get a fully wired system.

 

 

[SilverBullets]

> @dcmidnight said:

> > @SilverBullets said:

> > The night vision quality is pretty grainy and not great. I will say that. You would have to know the person to recognize them on the night vision... its a bit grainy. The daytime view is much, much better.

>

> With the night vision its enough to give a general description and also you can clearly see logos/writing on clothes - things like that. So if they were wearing a shirt with a logo on it, team jersey - something like that - you could see that part clearly. I actually have toyed with running the "non night vision" at night given the sidewalk lights - and its not that bad. Like I said, hoping for some hardware upgrades in the future but I just dont need the cameras badly enough that I was going to pay for monthly charges or get a fully wired system.

>

>

We also don't really need them, but, are using them as more of a supplement. We park 2 cars in the driveway, we have expensive front patio furniture, and a sketchy ally behind the house. We have a ADT system protecting the inside of the house, the cameras are a nice to have to monitor things on the exterior.

 

I actually have toyed around with that for my front patio camera. We leave a patio/driveway light on at night. We had someone steal christmas decorations off our front patio railing/fence and the camera wasn't very effective because the patio light was diluting the picture. Had the night vision been off, I think it would have worked better. The cameras were new at the time so I didn't have as great of an understanding of how they work.

 

 

 

[YevKasim]

> @ksher84 said:

> I have had great experience with my Arlo cameras

> They have pretty good deals at Costco

 

I think I'm going the Arlo route and will look at Costco.

 

BTW...is that a Cattle Dog? We had one for about 12 years up until three years ago. My wife still tears up when she sees one that looks anything remotely like ours. Fantastic dog but stub...born!

 

 

[misplacedtexan83]

Ring flood lights are awesome if you are already have existing spotlight.

Have a spotlight (battery operated) and doorbell too. All of them work great if you have good WiFi.

 

Company has been great as well when dealing with anything

[rickdarris2004]

Another shout out for Ring. I have 4 cameras and a doorbell. Customer service has been nothing short of great also.