Gone are the days of needing specialized networking and tons of tech know-how to configure a home security system. Thanks to the advancement of smart home technology, you can easily invest in a competent smart security system or opt for a standalone camera to simplify things and save money.
And not only are there tons of user-friendly smart devices to choose from these days, they’re often not even very expensive. For well under $100, you can get a full-featured camera suitable for any room in the house, complete with native encryption and support for one of the various popular smart home ecosystems.
The latest in a line of affordable home security cameras, the Wyze Cam Pan v3 boasts an impressive feature set that punches well above its price. As the name implies, it can pan in a complete 360-degree circle, in addition to a 180-degree tilt on top of an already-good 120-degree static field of view. The Starlight sensor it utilizes delivers crisp 1080p video, including great color night vision, unlike what IR night vision usually produces.
But a smart security camera is more than just the image sensor. The Pan v3 sports a host of the most important features needed for convenient and effective home security, including a mic for two-way audio, continuous recording to the cloud or a microSD card, and fast, accurate notifications. It’s even rated IP65, so you can use it indoors or out.
The only minor drawback is that you’ll need a subscription to use the most advanced features, like telling the difference between people, cars, and animals. However, that’s increasingly common in the security camera field.
While it’s technically been superseded by the Pro 5S 2K, the Arlo Pro 4 remains the best choice for most homeowners looking for high-quality HD+ video surveillance at home. Its 2,560 by 1,440 resolution is close to the best and makes the 12X digital zoom more effective than you might expect digital zoom to be. It also delivers quality color footage at night, as long as there’s a little ambient light around.
On the software side, our hands-on review left us satisfied, with only a couple of odd setting locations to figure out. It’s hard to beat from a convenience standpoint since it’s one of the best battery-powered cameras, and you can simply pop it open by hand to recharge the battery every few months via USB.
Naturally, it’s not perfect. We didn’t like that it lacks dual-band Wi-Fi support and, like most high-end options, its most advanced features require a subscription, but overall, it’s among the best in the market. It’s also usually considerably cheaper than the newer Pro 5S 2K, which doesn’t offer a ton of upgrades.
A moderate upgrade to the Tapo C100, the C110 is one of the cheapest but still does what you need an indoor security camera to do. Its 2304 x 1296 resolution is actually better than the resolution on more expensive cameras, and you can record that HD+ video directly onto a microSD card of up to 256 GB.
You can also buy access to cloud storage for just a few dollars per month to unlock some nice-to-have features like rich notifications with snapshots. But, for the most part, all its functionality is enabled right out of the box, which is refreshing these days. Because it’s so small and sturdy — and TP-Link’s done a good job of streamlining the process — the installation and setup are about as easy as can be.
With only three steps to follow, its predecessor was one of the easiest cameras we’ve ever configured, and the new one is just as simple. For the price, it’s hard to beat.
Closely monitor your home while protecting your privacy with the Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), a wired security camera you can mount or place on any flat surface. It delivers quality 1080p HD footage with a 115-degree horizontal viewing angle for maximum coverage. During our review we found we could see the target areas with ease, and used the two-way audio system for real-time talk with people in the other room. The audio quality is decent thanks to the built-in mic’s noise-cancelling capabilities.
This Ring camera has color night vision, but it isn’t the best because images are unevenly colored when recorded in low-light conditions. On the bright side, it allows you to customize motion zones according to your security needs and provides pre-recordings of all motion-triggering events. As such, you’ll always know what preceded the main recording, a feature that can prove helpful in different scenarios. Using the Ring app, you can access the live view and all camera functions from your phone. The app provides rich notifications and has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to tweak camera settings once you get used to it.
Like most security cameras, Ring’s 2nd Gen indoor camera has motion detection, but we noticed it would often send notification alerts even when there was nobody in the room, courtesy of our houseplants. Perhaps Ring should consider making the sensor smarter to enable the camera to accurately distinguish people from plants.
All in all, this is a great home camera that you can pair up with your Alexa devices to unlock even more features. However, it’s important to note the Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen) works best with a paid subscription to the Ring Protect plan.
The budget-friendly Kasa KC420WS punches well above its weight class with high resolution, reliable notifications, and above-average night vision. In fact, it continues to hold the top spot in our review of the top outdoor security cameras because of its impressive feature set and low cost. It’s also one of our favorite cameras with onboard storage, which provides security without a monthly subscription. For that matter, it allows for 24/7 rolling video recording directly to a microSD card, which some onboard recording cameras don’t offer.
You can subscribe to the cloud features for as little as $3 per month, but not everybody needs the extra storage, online sharing, and rich notification information it enables. But it doesn’t end there. TP-Link equipped it with the powerful Starlight Sensor that captures great color video on most nights, and its IP65 rating makes it ideal for anywhere it might encounter dust or debris, like a garage or workshop.
While you will need to screw it into a solid surface to mount it, this also makes it a lot less susceptible to theft. The only notable shortcomings we’ve found are somewhat laggy performance inside the Android app and a merely average 110-degree horizontal field of view.
The third generation of the no-nonsense Blink Indoor is far from top-of-the-line, but it excels at basic surveillance and does its job effectively. Motion detection and the resulting notifications are as consistent as we could ask for, and you can store recorded videos on a USB thumb drive if you don’t want to shell out for cloud storage.
It’s also completely wireless, and the battery lasts for longer than most others. Part of that’s due to its use of RF wireless to connect to a Sync Module, which does come included in the purchase (add-on cameras, without the hub, are cheaper). And when you’re actively streaming the video feed, its surprisingly clear microphone and speakers make two-way audio a breeze.
The Reolink E1 Zoom stands out due to its 3X optical zoom lens, which few other cameras in this price range offer. This makes it perfect for large spaces, and a lot of users place it near a front or back door to get a better angle on what’s happening outside. Coupled with a 355-degree pan and a 50-degree tilt, it can cover a lot of ground.
Its infrared night vision is effective, albeit limited to black and white, and the 2560 x 1920 resolution ensures you’ll get plenty of details, even at long range. And, like the Tapo, you don’t need a subscription to activate any of its features. In fact, other than the optional cloud storage, there isn’t even a subscription to buy. The biggest drawback is that it’s not capable of continuous recording, but it differentiates between people, vehicles, and animals well and sends notifications reliably with few false positives.
If you’re building your smart home around Amazon Alexa, there are few better choices than the Ecobee SmartCamera. Its relative, the Ecobee SmartThermostat, continues to hold the Premium Pick spot in our round of the best smart thermostats, and the SmartCamera is just as smartly designed. It doesn’t have the highest resolution, but it still does a good job of taking advantage of its well-above-average 180-degree field of view.
You can even use it in place of an Amazon Echo or other Alexa smart speaker since its microphone communicates directly with Amazon’s voice assistant. When coupled with room sensors and one of Ecobee’s great smart thermostats, the SmartCamera is a great first step toward a simple but powerful smart home configuration.
The Google Nest Cam’s design language falls right in line with the rest of Google’s attractive smart devices and wouldn’t look out of place in the fanciest homes. But the real key to this one is its seamless integration within the Google Home ecosystem. If you’re a fan of Google’s various “AI” features, know that it uses some of those algorithms to ensure the smart notifications are precise and consistent.
If your smart home is set up to use Google Assistant or the Google Home app, you’ll appreciate its reliably instantaneous and lag-free operation in pretty much every respect. The big downside to this one is that without local storage, and with a mere 3-hour window of free cloud storage, you need to sign up for Google’s Nest Aware service to get anywhere near the most out of it.
For well under $100, the Blink Pan and Tilt gives you corner-to-corner coverage thanks to 360-degree rotation and 125 degrees of tilt. It also boasts the same nearly plug-and-play setup that does require the Blink app but only has a couple of easy steps. Its picture quality is just about average and perfectly fine for small to medium-sized rooms, although its night vision is only in black and white.
Some of the best features are, unfortunately, locked behind a subscription. But for just $3/month, you get 60 days of cloud recording, instant video playback and sharing, and a host of other extremely useful features.
On paper, Anker’s Eufy smart camera lineup claims some of the best performance in the market. Until recently, we recommended a number of them regularly. Around the end of 2022, however, Anker was caught in a scandal as independent researchers from The Verge discovered its videos weren’t actually end-to-end encrypted and could be accessed without credentials just by using third-party software as simple as the VLC Media Player. Anker has since pledged to update all its cameras to the WebRTC protocol, which defaults to 128-bit AES encryption, the as-yet-uncrackable encryption standard.
While we would love to continue recommending Eufy security cameras, privacy is paramount to a safe smart home. And we haven’t heard anything from Anker in recent months about this updated encryption. In fact, we haven’t heard any major follow-up to the issue at all since early February. Since there are plenty of alternatives today that are end-to-end encrypted, for the time being, it’s best to avoid Eufy cameras until they regain our trust.
There are more great security cameras than ever, with increasingly impressive specs and great value. Specifications don’t tell the whole story, though, as cameras like the Wyze Cam Pan v3 capture better video than much more expensive competitors in the eye test, and real-world effectiveness is what it’s all about. That, plus its streamlined operation, is why the latest pan-and-tilt Wyze camera nabbed the top spot. The Kasa KC420WS comes in a close second, but its narrow field of view and somewhat laggy app experience knocked it down a couple of pegs.
Wyze cams are by no means expensive, but you can save even more money if you just need something simple like the Tapo C110. Despite its bargain-basement price, its resolution, image quality, notification quickness, and two-way audio work just fine. The Blink Mini Pan and Tilt is another good value, especially when you can find it at a discount.
If you want peak image quality and are willing to invest a little more, there are some very worthwhile examples at $100 and up. Fans of Google Assistant will appreciate the indoor Nest Cam, while Alexa users should check out the Ecobee SmartCamera due to its integrated Alexa speaker. In terms of pure image quality, the Arlo Pro 4 remains near the top of all home security cameras — and is a better value than the Arlo Pro 5S.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
