[Closed] What's the go to outdoor security camera these days, wireless?

Just had a Nest outdoor IQ put up on the front of the house. Very happy with it though the App is a bit flakey. Cloud storage has come down in price too for 30 days of historic recording which you do really need for it to be any use.

I have a Blink set-up and it's pretty good, doesn't drop signal, good range on the sync module to the wi-fi network (better than my phone). There was some black friday reductions - might be worth seeing if they are still on.

Just put a Ring doorbel/camera in the porch. It was cheaper than the camera alone for some reason.

This seems to work well - https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/cloud-camera/kc200/ - app seems to work as well and any firmware updates can be done via the app and are very simple to install (click a button and off it goes!).

Also has a smaller companion model - https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/cloud-camera/tapo-c310/ - this seems to have on-board storage capabilities which might be better than cloud services - depending on your take on using someone else's machine to store stuff on!

Only drawback, is that you need to pay for cloud storage of imagery - it is about £30 for the year though so isn't massive, but is a small cost to factor in.

Just going through this now, although will use wired PoE cameras, much cheaper/more reliable. Unless you're going to use a battery/solar camera (can't imagine they're very good!) you'll have to run a power lead at least? Our new (to us!) house is riddled with holes actually for cables that we aren't going to use (TV aerial, Sky dish, phone socket obviously been re-sited) so hopefully will be able to re-purpose those, otherwise the SDS drill will come out! 😃

I've got 3 Blink cam's. They record 5s of footage to the cloud upon detecting movement and send you an alert - not enough to wake you up though.

You can view live footage, talk to the speaker from your phone and the night vision is pretty decent.

I might go for a proper system at some point, but these serve a purpose for now

Thread Resurrection

Can anyone recommend a wireless security camera that uses solar power?

Unfortunately we're currently having a spate of car and van crime in and around our little dead end street.

I'd like to be able to mount a visible camera up on the side of one of the houses at the end of the street, motion activated and solar powered as it can't be wired in where it's needed.

Ideally, it would be able to be viewed through an app that multiple people could access. Should be able to connect it to somebody's Wi-Fi but it's at the mouth of the street where there's no houses with a vested interest.

There's a few on https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B098D27LWB/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_dl_6WHK3PACT5FGCCQFRE0 P">Amazon, starting around £80 but as ever, thought STW might have some insight.

Dahua POE+ cameras can be used upto a distance of 800m via cat cables

https://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/keyTechnologies/837

@kayak23 i've got 2 x reolink solar ones (argus 3 pro) - been up since summer and still doing their thing - battery is a little low on them, but they are constantly recording as our drive seems to be like trafalgar square..

edit, if i had the option i would have gone PoE though as you get more "before incident" recording time..

Ring have wireless cameras that can be powered by a solar panel which they also supply.

Got 6 Ring cameras and a doorbell here. 4 of the cameras are solar powered. 2 of them keep the batteries at 100% all year round, as they face directly into the sun with no obstruction. The other 2 are not quite as good. One allowed the battery to drop to 80% but now that the days are getting longer it seems to be going back up again. The other one I have needed to change the battery once over the winter, but seems to be holding its own again now.

Being wireless and solar they’ve been great for me. Fit and forget for the 2 with the best orientation. This is good as they are a long way up on side of my unit!

Cheers for those. I'll take a look.

And do they take an sd card and you access footage through your phone?

Big caveat for Ring - you have to pay £80 pa for stored footage, but you do get as many devices as you want for that, and it also gives you extended warranty. No sd card, you use your phone app to access. You do need goodish wifi where the camera is though, or it takes a very long time to load. There is a sub app called ‘rapid ring’ which loads quicker if your wifi is a bit dicey.

Also some have expressed concern about the privacy implications of footage being stored on servers. I have no such concerns but YMMV.

Anyone used Eufy stuff? I believe it's an Anker subdivision.

We have a Eufy indoor cam to check on the hound while we’re out, granted it’s a different application but it’s been solid 👍

I truly despise my ring cameras. Buggy, slow to react, constant false alarms and missed events. Software’s about as well implemented as the rest of Amazon’s junk. Very very dubious infosec and privacy. Comms with servers is not encrypted & you have no option to opt out of them scanning your footage / movements for god knows what.

The “PIR” enabled camera/security light uses the PIR to trigger the camera to send some data to California to send data back to turn the light on. By which time I’ve gone out to the garage, got some milk out of the outside fridge and gone back into the house. Bafflingly crap.

I use a raspberry pi gateway to do apple HomeKit integration which works very well. Amazon keep promising to make it work properly natively but it never materialises.

No option to offload footage to your own cloud provider or local storage - so if your broadband is down the whole thing is kaput.

When we move house I’m leaving them to the next owners.

We have a Eufy indoor cam

Eufy seem to do outdoor wireless cameras too. One that claims you only need to charge it 3 times a year.
I suppose that would work ok as you could coincide it with cleaning the lens etc.

Doesn't seem to mention how it connects to the app though. Presumably it's all reliant on a Wi-Fi connection?

I have a eufy indoor cam. If you have an iCloud+ subscription then you can use the home app to control it, and Apple will store footage for you for 10 days (I think - maybe 14), and supposedly make it all secure etc. A bit of a no brainer for me as I have iCloud+ for extra cloud storage anyhow

There’s a eufy HomeKit/iCloud support matrix as not all their products work with it (I think it’s the current gen of outdoor cams). Otherwise their stuff looks very good.

Got the wireless Eufy indoor/outdoor cams with the home hub thingy. Only charged them once in 5 months. Great product, much better quality than I even expected. Only issue is they have a limited playback (to preserve battery life more than anything). I believe, though could be wrong that the spotlight/outdoor cams are not compatible with the homehub, which is daft IMO. I’ve looked at the solar versions but if you want a decent security light then the only option is to go wired connection.

the Reolinks take SD cards in the units yes, and you can access from the android, iphone or windows desktop softwares. They apparantly will take a much bigger card than what's advertised, but frankly you wont need it!

Bought some Eufy 2 Pro battery wifi cams at Xmas. They appeared to be the best in terms of reviews etc. Seemed to be great when first installed, but the firmware would not update and then the night vision would not work. Contacted Eufy support and they said they would sort in 7 to 14 days. It has now been that time and no update so the camera's were no use at night. So I had to return them to get a refund. Worth looking at the Eufy community before buying as there seems no end of issues. Does not seem to be a perfect solution presently.

ive got nest.

it works but is expensive. Plus you need to run a power cable.

Save your money and invest in insurance. Cameras do not prevent crime.

@grum I have been using a pair of Eufycam 2 units for over a year now on outside of house along with one of their 2k doorbells. They all hook into the central Homebase unit. They have been fairly reliable for me and decent battery life (probably 3-10 triggers per day per camera) 4-5 months on the 2 units and 3 months on the doorcam before needing a charge.

I also have a couple Eufy wireless door sensors that also hook into the system and triggers alarm or record on event as required.

The app is OK but a recent update has buggered mobile battery drain on the geofencing function that is useful for working the home/away configs.

Becareful of using anything that uses wifi, my mother inlaw's neighbours Ring camera were recently jammed using a wifi blocker (can be found cheap online) and had their shed broken into

The camera picked up someone near the gate for a second then the camera went blank, 10 mins later the camera started working again and just caught the back of someone walking away pushing the neighbours bike!

I bought a BIOFUN one on Amazon - came with predominantly good reviews and did work initially as we have lots of wildlife in the garden and fun to watch the hedgehogs - we have virtually zero crime here. After a few weeks the night vision sensor stopped working - it wouldn’t even activate for the 10 red deer that visit the garden. It went back and we’ve now got another Ring camera - already got a doorbell and light/camera on the garage. One issue with Ring is that they only work on 2.4GHz wifi.

I have eufy cams. They work fine. Mine need charging more often than the publicity says though.

I also have Eufy cams. If you have a NAS they can store footage on the NAS rather than the 16GB base station.
There is also a solar panel option to charge the cameras and those of us with them can offer you a referral.
(I'm using EufyCam 2C pro's and updating has been seamless so far for the cameras and the HomeBase).

Save your money and invest in insurance. Cameras do not prevent crime.

No of course not, but they can be a layer in making it look less attractive.

I'm basically worried about my van getting broken into. Not because I leave power tools in it, as I never do. More just because the scummy scamps will no doubt crowbar a door open and cause horrible damage to an older van that the insurance are unlikely to want to pay out on, plus obviously all the total pita and indirect costs that this stuff creates.

The electrician near me who had his Vivaro (I think) got into and some power tools stolen, said that they didn't do any damage so they must have some way of easy access.

Pisses me off trades that DO leave tools in their vans as really they create a situation where it's worth the perps looking, despite all these pointless 'no tools left etc' stickers on most vans.

My current 'solution' is to leave my van unlocked. Hopefully they try the door with hands before crowbars. Tuesdays 😡😡😡