Questions to ask before buying a camera:
Before dropping thousands of dollars on a camera system, it pays to ask yourself a few questions about what you need and whether the cameras you’re looking at will meet those needs, such as:
- Are cameras even allowed where you live? Are you required to post signage that says you’re recording?
- Is it legal for your camera to cover the street in front of your house, part of your neighbor’s house/yard, etc.?
- What are the primary reasons you want a camera for? Make sure you are choosing cameras that are catered to your use case.
- If you want notifications, does the camera offer them?
- Does the camera have reliable person recognition so you won’t be bothered by squirrels, bugs, headlight reflections, trees blowing in the wind, etc.?
- Will you be notified quickly enough if a dangerous person enters the premises?
- If you want to check the camera feed during an emergency, can you actually pull up the feed on your phone quickly and reliably? Some cheaper cameras can take several seconds or even minutes to load up the feed.
- Are you only able to view the live feed, or can you view recordings from the past? Are you able to save/download clips permanently if needed?
- Where do you plan to place the camera? Will you actually be able to install it in that location, or do you need to get a different type of camera, such as a wifi camera or battery-powered one? We also have tips on camera placement in the next article.
- Does the camera work in the dark? Will you need to make sure to keep a light on, or install an infrared floodlight?
- What happens if thieves steal the camera itself, or destroy it? Will a copy of the recordings be stored in the cloud?
- Will you be notified if the camera breaks? What happens if it freezes up while you’re on vacation; can you remotely reboot it? Will you have other cameras cover the same area for redundancy?
- Does your camera give footage to law enforcement agencies automatically, like Ring cameras do? Are you ok with that?
- Is the video stored securely? What happens if it gets hacked? Should you consider using a more reliable brand, or using a local-only solution? Or consider only having outside cameras, for the sake of privacy?
- Is the camera itself secure? Is it likely to allow your home network to be compromised? For more info on this, see this article LINK
As you can see, the number of considerations is so high that it’s basically impossible to find a “perfect” camera that meets all of your requirements. And this list is trimmed down for the 100-level series! The 200- and 300-level camera articles will go into even more depth. So again, remember that it’s all about tradeoffs, and creating a system that’s just “good enough” without obsessing so much that managing your cameras becomes a full-time job.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at a couple of camera systems that you might consider getting.
Security camera reviews
This section will be far from comprehensive. Rather, it’s intended to be a jumping off point where you can see a few beginner options that are available to you and try them out without wasting too much money. Remember that I am not paid to promote any of the below products, they just happen to be products that I know a bit about and that I think might be a good place to start for those at the beginning of their security camera journey.
Other cameras
Work in progress! I’ll post reviews of other cameras when they’re ready. Stay tuned. 🙂
The Readyist 