Security camera recs

I have the Nest Outdoor and Indoor Cameras.
They work perfect for me.
They record to the cloud via wifi and they literally just need need an outlet to work.
Can view realtime and recorded video from phone or computer and talk through them.
You do have to pay for a subscription for them to keep your video recordings. I pay for a 10 day loop. Nest Aware
I am very happy with my setup.

If you want something with more cameras and wires, Nest probably isn't for you.

ETA: the 10 days of recordings records 24/7 all of my cameras. It doesn't just record movement. If something happened 11 days ago, I would not be able to view the event. The oldest day gets deleted from the cloud. They also sell a 5 day and a 30 day subscription.

I have a Lorex system that I like. I'd recommend getting POE cameras so all you have is a Ethernet cable running to them for power and video. My 6 camera system was about $550 and me and a friend put them up in about 4 hours.

Blink on Amazon have worked well for us

I just got my first wyze cam and it is awesome. I set it up on my driveway. They are supposed to be coming out with a doorbell camera soon. They also have door and motion sensors. They look like a pretty good diy home security system

Get a hard wired system with a DVR so you don’t have to pay a monthly fee. Also agree with getting a POE system which uses cat 5 instead of a coax with power wire for the cameras. Enables higher resolution.

Get a bigger hard drive than you think you will need.

Most base systems come with a hard drive that will support 4 cameras. But you can’t upgrade without buying a whole new hard drive.

Get a DVR that will support up to 8 cameras. That way if you ever want to add another camera it’s as simple as pulling another wire. Trust me, you will want to add one at some point. Additionally the bigger DVR will have more memory.

I recommend setting to continuous record with the option for the DVR to flag motion on the recording to make it easier to locate things when reviewing footage.

I have a problem with a lot of the motion only activated settings. The camera will record a long ways out past the range of the motion sensor but it will never save that stuff if it’s only set for motion record.

I had mine professionally installed and it was not very expensive at all. Not as cheap as the Amazon box ones but you get what you pay for.

Had the original system installed in 2017. Included 2 TB hard drive and 5 cameras. The hard drive will handle up to 8 cameras. I just had a 6th camera added a month ago. Additionally I can upgrade up to 8 GB of memory if I want the system to store the footage for longer periods of time. I paid $1500.00 a couple years ago. Not sure what the prices are now.

If you are in the BR area call Gulf State Security I am not affiliated with them but have been a happy customer.

Just an fyi, the wyze system has local recording as well as free 7 day cloud storage. I completely understand that these other systems are much more advanced, but if you are like me and looking for something cheap and simple, you can get the 3 cameras you need from wyze for $60 total. And setup was a breeze.

I'm about to order the sense system from them to cover my doors opening, and when the doorbell cam comes out I will be purchasing it

All of the brands mentioned are good. If you want professional installation, service, warranties, etc I would recommend Custom Security (assuming BR area). They won’t try to sell you more than you need and are very professional about the entire process.

I definitely like Custom Security. That’s who I have monitoring my home security system. Their quote for cameras was a lot higher when I was pricing them and was not a POE system. Things could have changed from when I did my pricing research.

I have a couple Wyze cam pans and they’re solid. Do they have any good outdoor cam options?

Tell me how you really feel...

I’ve had my system for about 8 months now and for the most part it’s been great. The app monitoring went to crap for about 2 weeks but they did some updates and fixed whatever was causing it to run so slow. For what I paid I’ve been very pleased with them. The motion detectors are a little frustrating at night since they constantly hit on bugs and whatnot