hello. so, bit of a specific thing- we have good reason to suspect that somebody might start snooping around (at best) my partner’s house. the police are aware of what’s gone on so far but can’t do anything as no crime has been committed yet, just a couple of veiled threats and the person has form for the behaviour pattern they seem to be following here. we want to ramp up security, primarily as a means of obtaining evidence of any activity that might take place, but we’re also aware that nothing may well happen too so don’t really want to spend a huge amount of money.
i’ve searched and read a couple of recent threads on here, but the systems recommended on those don’t really fit the bill for us that i can tell.
basically, she needs a camera on the front of the house (that could potentially also capture her car parked in the street in front of the garden, so around 5-10m away from the front door), a camera on the side of the house where the back door is (behind a locked and bolted 6″ gate) and maybe one on the back of the house too. wireless would be simpler in terms of installing, and with that in mind the Blink XT2 system looks to be near the top of the pile but it only stores 2 hours of video in cloud and has no local storage, so can’t really cope with an entire overnight of filming. there’s a couple of others i’ve seen that have better storage but either aren’t suitable for outdoor fitting, or need cabling to power which could prove difficult as she doesn’t own the house.
anyone got any thoughts or suggestions?

I just put a Logitech Circle 2 in the back garden after being burgled.

Picture quality is alright, but it stores 24 hours on the cloud for free and notifies me when things are happening. Apple HomeKit support sealed the deal.

just seen blink xt2 has pretty good motion detection so that might change things a little… does anyone have one of their systems yet? she has no alexa enabled devices so would just be running it with an android app (oh, except a fire hd kids tablet!)

also, probs should have said we’re not apple homes at all!

Neos do that if you’re looking for cheap. They’re meant for indoors but you can get outdoor housings – just need to get power to them on a micro-USB plug (they’ll work off a power bank if you can put up with charging them often). They just do 12 seconds of footage to the cloud after motion or sound detection but you can put a 32GB micro SD card in them, it’ll record continuously and that’s good for a couple of days of HD footage.

Motion detection is tricky though on all of these, things like neighbours headlights as they come and go were enough to trip it.

Be realistic too – even a really good CCTV camera is going to struggle to get much detail from 10+ metres away night. Good set of guides here about camera placement to get the most out of them: https://www.cctv42.co.uk/help-advice/video-tutorials/cctv-camera-positioning-and-installation/

i kind of discounted neos on the combined basis of the power along with outdoor fiddlyness, but it would definitely be the cheapest option. not super bothered about massive high def detail on the car, it’s mostly for capturing whether this particular individual tries to snoop around the house itself so that shouldn’t be an issue (and the night vision capability of the XT2 looks good enouggh on video reviews i watched). a few of the reviews reckon XT2’s motion detection is very usable and definable so given a few days of tweaking we can have them just picking up people walking it seems.

Here are some examples of the Neos cameras. OK for £20, but far from perfect.

They false trigger on daylight a lot eg sun coming out:

Moths set them off as well..

This is the video quality of a potential burglar..

Ring.

Not a cheap option but mine have been faultless.

i have a Neos outside. Pretty good for £25.

I’m going to get at least one more – if only to work out what time the bloody deer come and eat all my apples (1st world problem du jour)

Can you log in and look via your phone remotely with those neos cameras?

Yes, can get a live view remotely.

The only one I use motion sensing on in our porch (we leave outer door open so couriers can leave parcels), it’s a controlled enough space to not trigger all the time.

Cool, I fancy one of those if nothing else to see what wildlife we get at night, do they work okay through glass?. Pointing towards the #bikebombshelter, obvs!

Can you log in and look via your phone remotely with those neos cameras?

looks like this:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2gH6iVR]Neos[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

You can then click on a camera and go full screen and watch in real time…

Looking at the reviews on amazon, they want an awful lot of privacy info when setting up app…

Coincidentally have just fitted 2 ring spotlight battery cams yesterday. Not super cheap but very easy to install and set up. Batteries are supposed to last 6-12 months and I can just reach out of the window to recharge.

I’ve got a neos outside the cable is squished in the window frame and the camera is in a cut off bottle masticked to the window ledge.

Just ordered Blink XT2 pack of 2 for £99 at Argos seemed a good deal I think they will be fine for my use one to look overt the front drive/door and one to look over the back garden

Anyone know if there are any issues with blink xt2 connecting to the hub via a homeplug WiFi extended network?

Can’t see why there’d be any issues with wifi extenders.