Outdoor battery powered security camera with smartphone app pro#

The hub is also required for Apple Home/Siri to work.ĬR’s take: The Arlo Pro 3 is a terrific camera that excels in our performance tests for video quality and device response time-plus for how useful its smart functions are, and how secure your data is kept. If you don’t want to pay a monthly fee for video storage, you can use an Arlo Smart Hub, $100 (sold separately), to save footage on a USB drive instead. The company offers subscriptions for 24/7 continuous video recording, too. With an Arlo Secure subscription, you can get 30 days of cloud video storage for motion-triggered video clips, as well as monitoring zones person, package, vehicle, and animal detection and emergency response buttons in the Arlo app, which allow you to request police, fire, or medical services with just a tap.

This model gives you a built-in spotlight that allows for color night vision, a rechargeable battery, a siren, and voice control (via Amazon Alexa, Apple Home/Siri, and Google Home/Assistant), and it connects directly to WiFi (unlike its sibling below, which uses a base station). It performs quite well in our response-time test, but its data privacy could be better.

Outdoor battery powered security camera with smartphone app plus#

Optional subscription costs: Through an Arlo Secure plan, you can get 30 days of cloud video storage for $3 per month for one camera or $10 per month for unlimited cameras, 30-day storage with in-app emergency response buttons costs $15 per month for unlimited cameras, or you can get all those features plus the Arlo Safe personal safety app and professional monitoring for the Arlo security system for $20 per month.ĬR’s take: The Arlo Essential Wireless Security Camera is a fantastic security camera, receiving strong ratings in our tests for video quality and data security. Here are other features you’ll find in some of these models. All feature two-way audio and voice control via Amazon Alexa. They’re made by Arlo, Eufy, Google Nest, Lorex, Ring, and TP-Link.

A hacker could potentially use that information to determine when would be a good time to break into a home, or at least snatch some packages.”īelow you’ll find details on the eight best outdoor security cameras from our tests, listed in alphabetical order. “Depending on where the cameras are positioned, they can reveal a lot about you, such as when you tend to leave and come home, and with whom.

“Even outdoor cameras pose privacy and security concerns,” says Justin Brookman, CR’s director of technology policy.

And though privacy outside your home might not be as big a concern as what goes on inside your home, we still score models on how well they protect your data. In our tests, we assess the smart features in each outdoor security camera, plus the video quality (including how well night vision works) and how quickly you get an alert when the camera detects motion. Other common features include voice control via digital assistants, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home two-way audio, for speaking to visitors via your smartphone or digital assistant and the ability to silence motion alerts at certain times of day-say, during the day while you work from home. The smart features you’ll find on any given camera vary, but many of them send you smartphone alerts when they “see” things of interest, such as people, cars, animals, and packages.