I’ve spent a bit of time hunting but not come up with anything which seems to tick all the boxes. I’d like a handful of small cameras, partly for security but partly to see what wildlife visits us. Crucially though I don’t want to pay some monthly fee for it – it’s not so much the amount, as I know it’s only likely to be a few pounds a month, but I just have an aversion to this creeping tendency for everything to have a monthly fee*. Most of the internal-storage cameras I’ve looked at only record very short clips, and some even need a ‘rest’ period between clips. I’m aware of the downsides of internal storage for a security device – but this is mostly going to be used for wildlife watching rather than capturing evidence against crims.

We currently have an old Yale camera with 64Gb internal card which can record for long periods, but the picture quality is rubbish, interface is clunky and the physical object is quite large and ugly.

Cheers!

*is it just me who prefers to buy something, pay for it, and then own it? I guess for some, the idea of actually owning your car or bike must seem terribly old fashioned, so what’s a few more small monthly payments. The choices for photo-editing software without the monthly sub is slim now. Nobody seems to buy music any more, but rent access to it. How long until you not only have to charge your bike up before your ride, but also check you’ve paid the subscription for your electric gears and suspension?! Rant over…

We use Neos cameras without the optional subscription. They work fine, you get alerts and 10 sec clips of whatever triggered the camera.

*is it just me who prefers to buy something, pay for it, and then own it?

The main advantage of the subscription service is that your clip / video is in the cloud, not on an SD card which someone can just pick up and take with them….

I’ve got some imou cameras that work like that, no need to take the cloud subscription to receive movement notifications on the app. With an SD card installed you can select for them to only record movement (they record continuously while they are detecting movement and I think you can set how long they carry on recording once movement stops but the default seems good) or to continuously record where they act like a dashcam and overwrite the SD once full.
Very occasionally the push notifications stop on one camera until I reboot the camera, I think this is more to do with being on a shonky internet over power WiFi extender plug in the garage which occasionally drops connection though.

I’ve recently replaced a neos camera with a reolink lumus camera.
It needs to be plugged in, records onto an SD card and also has a led light which comes on when it detects movement which works really well. Think they are £40 on Amazon.

Reolink Lumus

Also have an Arlo wireless camera with a base station which I’ve replaced with another reolink Lumus camera.

I’m happy with my Tapo ones.

Not for wildlife, but I’ve been happy with the Reolink cameras I’ve got.

Internal microSD if you want to use it (means you can quickly look at recordings in the app), then I also send full quality clips to a FTP server running on my NAS. You can record everything to a proper CCTV server like Blue Iris via RTSP streams if you wanted too. The only (free) cloud thing involved is for bridging between your phone and the camera if you’re away from home. Optional though, and you can send clips to the cloud if you pay I think.

Picked up a RLC-822A recently which has 3x optical zoom and would probably work well pointed at a bird feeder or similar. Quality is staggering for a sub-£100 camera.

Eufy. I have one of their smart doorbells, it records to a hub. You can add cameras to the same system.

@drac – is it any good? I’ve been looking at getting one of those.

I have two Hikvision 1440p PoE cameras that feed into a Hikvision NVR with a 6TB HDD in it (yes I know, if I was doing it again I wouldn’t go for a scummy company like Hikvision…). That’s enough to store about 14 days continuous footage (from both cameras), it auto-overwrites after that. If I want to save anything I just connect to the NVR (via PC app or iOS app) and save it as local file on the device (can use the app to scroll backwards/forwards through footage at various speeds)

The NVR just sits in a cupboard (with a monitor and mouse attached in case I need to do anything directly as some settings can’t be done via the app but I’ve never needed to change these post-installation).

I actually have the feeds permanently displayed on my iPad (when I’m not using it for anything else) – originally I got it installed to gather evidence against an ex (I now have a restraining order…) but although that situation has calmed down it’s still useful just to instantly check who’s at the door.

It cost around £1k to get it installed (2 cameras, NVR, PoE cables run up side of house, through attic and dropping down into the cupboard + Ethernet cable from NVR in cupboard up through attic dropping down to another room where my router is). Although the installer mentioned doing annual maintenance I haven’t had anyone back in the 2 years since it was installed – occasionally spider webs appear over parts of the image (I think they like the IR from the night vision) but they get blown away by the wind soon enough, I did buy an extendable flag pole from Amazon thinking I could put a cloth on the end to clean the lens with but haven’t needed to use it yet).

So it’s a fairly big initial investment and needs cables running (externally and internally) but there’s no on-going subscription, can all be viewed remotely, no camera batteries to worry about etc.). I guess the downside is the footage is all local so if someone burnt my house down or broke in and stole the NVR I wouldn’t have a record of it but my use case didn’t need to cover that.

occasionally spider webs appear over parts of the

Yes, we get those on one of our Neo cams, they move at night and trigger movement! Keep having to clean them off, but the bloody spider keeps coming back….

UniFi is another option. Similar to the Hikvision above, but almost certainly more expensive… You need the NVR and cameras, plus a PoE switch. The cameras are PoE powered, so you need to wire them in. UniFi do good wifi APs, so consider if you want to upgrade your whole network switch and APs while you’re at it.
I use UniFi, and it is very good hardware, let down ever so slightly by slightly bugger firmware. Always check the forums before a software upgrade 😉

Similar to HikVision (some reports are its the same hardware – cameras and NVR), have a look at Annke 4k PoE systems. I wanted wired cameras rather than wifi/wireless cameras and the hassle of changing batteries etc. Got to run a single cable from each camera into the NVR. No subscription. We’ve got a 2TB 8-channel NVR under the TV with a mouse attached if we want to view it. Phone app good too. Currently only using 4 cameras but considering adding a couple more.

Got ours on an Amazon black Friday deal but even at regular prices they’re not too expensive.

Thanks all. The Reolink and Tapo ones are more at my end of the budget scale!
Cheers,

The Neos cameras were stupidly cheap (£25 for two) when I first bought some, they’re now something like £20 each, but still very good value. Add in £5 for an SD card and you’re good to go.

Our get tested properly everytime we go away and our cat feeder pops in to feed the boys. My phone beeps and I get a 10 sec clip every time she arrives. One time I logged in to see a 6′ bloke opening the back door and walking in and thought ‘**** we’re being burgled’, then watched a bit more and realised our teenage cat feeder has brought her Dad over for some reason. That was a relief….

They do work very well.

is it any good? I’ve been looking at getting one of those.

Yeah it’s really good. Connection speed to a device is quick and the hub acts as a ringer anyway.

Eufy.

I have the doorbell, hub and an additional camera. Battery life is great. Video quality is very good. Also didn’t cost a fortune. Stores locally but you can subscribe to cloud storage.

I’ve got 4 of the amazon blinks last time they discounted them, I think you can put an sd card in the hub thingy and not require a sub.

Seem ok, I can see the cats wandering thru the garden in the dark 🙂

I’ve got mine on the perimeter fence posts looking in and tbh range is impressive

Another vote for Eufy here. 3 cameras (2C pro) and a hub currently in use. The solo cams look like they may be better from a battery life point of view. I get 3 months life tops from the front door camera.

I have similar to FuzzyWuzzy, but 4 Hikvision cameras and NVR which I installed myself; I think about £700 total. Ran Cat 5 cable in the loft, down through built in wardrobes and out through 20mm holes in the brickwork. One of the cameras is on the garage, pointed at the house, that one is connected through Powerline connectors, as the mains cable was already there and I didn’t want to lay a Cat 5. The NVR records continuously, the cameras also record onto their own microSD when they detect movement. I bought from use-ip.co.uk and received useful advice from the company and their Forum members.

The Hikvision software works OK on Android but I can only view the main feed from there. On Windows, their plug-in only works on IE, and is unreliable, so I may need to do something about that before MS kill off IE.

You can pay annually for Ring. It’s £80 and gives you an extended warranty for 2 years on all devices.

I use Blink cameras without paying the sub, and same with Hive. The sub just gets your clips stored in the cloud for longer in both cases. They’re …fine.

Nest camera also work without subscription. I think you even get a very short period of cloud storage.

If you already happen to have an Apple iCloud subscription, then I believe you get unlimited storage for cameras connected via Homekit. Eufy cameras are very good for the money and are Homekit compatible.

As it happens all my Arlo cameras have failed over the last 4 weeks, that’s 3 of them just stopped working completely. So about to buy Eufy to replace, anyone want to refer me and you’ll get 40 quid ?

Ooh just too late NZCol we get £80 if the order is 22 of the month! I’ll need an email address to refer you.

Edit @timmys If you use the cameras with Homekit they run all the time and battery life takes a pounding. Far better to store the clips on an RTSP compliant NAS if extra storage is required.

Eufy stuff is really good. Battery life on the cameras are good, setup is super easy with the homehub. App is easy to use and navigate etc.

They have a new solar powered cam, but also offer a solar charger for the battery operated cameras.

Alarms on them though aren’t particularly loud. Tempted with the motion sensors to pop in the garage. They seem reasonably priced.

£40 off- https://share-eu.eufylife.com/v1/shopping/s/g/kR8rtsYri

Just installed x2 Eufy wireless doorbells and is really easy to set up and works well generally but the lag on the app responding to a doorbell ring is really bad when my phone is on 4G in my experience and people have generally gone before it gets its act together. Be interested in others experience. Google Nest Doorbell is much better response time and with a subscription if using it for security. The basic subscription is £50 annually which stores event clips for 30 days.

Also have Yale smart alarms and they are really easy to set up and reliable. They door indoor and outdoor cameras without subscription. I got a free indoor with the alarm which has an SD card for storage.

I have arlo wireless with Base station and they work well – need charged about once a month which is a bit of a pain but otherwise work fine

One of the cameras is on the garage, pointed at the house, that one is connected through Powerline connectors, as the mains cable was already there and I didn’t want to lay a Cat 5.

@Greybeard, using powerline connectors in place of a cat5 cable to link a PoE camera to the PVR – is it as simple as I think? Camera cat5 wired to a powerlink connector, other powerlink cat5 wired to input to PVR? It doesn’t go via wires via the router?

One of our cameras is a long way from the PVR and running the cable was a nightmare. Cable currently failed and I haven’t replaced it properly yet due to the PITAness of the job. I’ve got power directly next to the camera so would be an easier solution, if I’m correct in thinking how it works?

Apologies to Mowgli for the slight highjack.