looking at buying security cameras for the house

what brand or other experiences do you have or what would you do different if you did it again, looking for 4 corners to sweep the front and back and night also if possible, thanks in advance for your help and advice.

I went cheap. Im not guarding Ft. Knox, but I do want to keep an eye on things. I have 4 Wyze cameras on the exterior of my house, one in my garage, and one on the exterior of my garage. They arent recommended for outside use, so I bought some weather resistant mounts. $25/camera plus $10 for the mount and $6 for a 32GB SD card for storage. They set up easily through an app on my phone and are connected to my home WiFi. The app is free and I can view playback without taking down the camera and removing the SD card.

The upside is they are comparatively inexpensive and easy to install and use through the app.

The downside is they have to be plugged in to a regular wall outlet using a USB cable. HOWEVER, I was looking at their website the other day and apparently they now have a camera designed for outdoor use which uses a rechargeable battery. No experience with them because they werent available when I bought mine this spring. I bought 16 USB cables (I forget what I paid for them $10?) and plugged them in to my exterior electrical outlets. It isnt foolproof, someone could cut the power cables, but I didnt want to spend the money to run electricity to my overhangs where I mounted them. My BIL uses them also, but he had outlets in his overhangs for Christmas lights, so his were super simple to install. A friend runs them also, but he had outlets in his attic he could easily access. It is good enough for me. I have less than $400 invested and have my home and garage covered.

My younger brother spent closer to $2000 to install a stand alone system with hardwired cameras powered over Ethernet cables. I forget the name, but he has a central storage and it is all integrated with all his SmartHome devices. Im sure it is better, and it does some neat things, but I couldnt justify the cost. Like I said, what I did is good enough for me.

Try Arlo Pro 3. It's good but kinda pricey.

There are a few features you need to decide first. Hard wire vs battery, Color of cams, seems most are white, some are black. Where will they be mounted, seems most cams mount to walls and may not mount to underside of soffit or at least require extra brackets. Motion and/or on-demand lighting features as part of the cam. Wifi/cordless cameras or hardwired to a DVR device. Wifi cameras might be cloud based which could involve a monthly fee (if you want to memory or backup recordings or monitoring type features). Some brands offer a doorbell camera, they work really well. Some cameras including doorbell cams allow live interaction, as in you can see, listen and talk in real time.

Sorry for the long post, but all these specs above caused me to spend a lot of time researching. I wanted a doorbell cam, 2 flood light cams and 2 spot light cams. I didn't like the fact of having a monthly fee but there are benefits if it fits your needs. I also did not want battery cams or white colored cams. I wanted full control of all cams and instant messages and interaction with all of them. They all have lighting which not only helps you at night but it provide great clarity and color pics at night. My needs almost eliminated every option but Ring, not the cheapest by far but still not bad pricing with all things considered.

I'm thinking of doing the same, covering my garage & home. I would like the kind
that you need only a SD card, not paying a monthly subscription for the pictures &
videos.

I have an Arlo system--good clear videos and activates well--only down side is the batterys don't last more than a month---solar or hard wired is the way to go

FYI: My brother had someone shooting out his front windows with a BB gun in Sacramento CA. His cameras showed 2 adults doing it from across the street with very clear facial pictures. The police could do nothing with them without a name. Thankfully it stopped on its own. Unless you get them to hold their ID to the camera or a License Plate, your chances of catching someone you don't know is not very good.

That is a problem....even if you have a good photo, chances are the law will do nothing about it. Seems like we are in a good time for criminal activity,....hence, gun and ammo sales are off the chart.

I have got 2 google nests. I have been happy with them so far. Super easy to install, they only need to be plugged into an outlet- the data runs off your wifi. With that said, make sure you have good wifi where you plan on putting your cameras if you go the wifi rout. I believe Arlo is the same way.

Downfall of the nest is the yearly fee- $60. It's not a tremendous amount of money so it seems worth it to me- no SD cards to manage and no need to delete old footage/manage footage.

Having a system that connects to your phone is nice- you get the motion alters, and can just pop in and check it at any given time.

Wildlife cameras work good around the property. They're inexpensive and can record pictures or video, day or night.

Buy a high def system if you can. They start at around $800. I have been using a 750P system for ten years. I bought mine off Ebay. the second system had eight cameras 4 indoor and 4 indoor/outdoor. I only have four cameras put up. The b&w night vision picks up further than the color night vision. I paid less than $400 for each of these systems, the DVR is internet capable but I have no high speed hard wired internet here in Hooterville. We have split second power interruptions about once a week and have to reset the system, a standby power supply would help this. Every now and then a camera ac adapter will fail and I can get them on Ebay for about $6 each. The instruction manuals are a little frustrating. my first DVR had a CD ROM to save video to a disk, the newer one is USB only and the hard drive has 1T of storage.

We had a set of 6 Lorex in our restaurant. Worked well for about a year and a half. Then there was a "Update" to the app, and I wasn't able to access after including replacing the recorder. We also had Dlink cameras we got from Menards. These worked pretty well. You could aim them from your phone, they would record sound. Actually the Dlink was on my wifes phone so I don't know how well the recording part worked.

Not much help I know but that is my experience. We sold the Lorex system with the rest of the restaurant equipment and kept the Dlink which is yet to be put up around the house.

Both systems are wireless and need a WiFi connection.

jt