The best home security cameras have come a long way, with resolutions up to 4K, extra-long battery life, and smart object identification and tracking now all commonplace.
However, things aren’t always as simple as plugging in your camera and downloading the app. To unlock all of its features, you’ll likely need to sign up for a subscription plan as well, with monthly or annual payments that can quickly exceed the price of the hardware. Suddenly that budget camera doesn’t look like quite such good value.
It doesn’t have to be that way though. We’ve tested over 60 home security cameras here at TechRadar, and as the resident smart home expert, I’ve picked out three of the very best options that work perfectly with no extra fees. Forget paying to save your videos in the cloud, too – all these cams offer local storage so your footage is always in your control, plus smart features like person-detection and even AI-powered identification.
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Swann MaxRanger4K Solar
We tested this serious outdoor security camera just a few weeks ago, and it left us thoroughly impressed. It’s designed to be used outdoors, with a tough weather-resistant chassis, and it captures super-crisp 4K footage with a wide 105-degree viewing angle to help cover your whole yard.
That’s not all – each camera also has a sensor that uses heat and motion to identify people, vehicles, and other disturbances, and label them accordingly. It’s the kind of feature you’d usually only get with a paid security plan, but it’s bundled in here, and in our tests it worked very well, accurately identifying triggers for us.
The app lets you tweak camera settings too, including its sensitivity, which is a handy way to extend its battery life. Each cam has a solar panel that allows it to last months between charges, but you’ll need to spend some time optimizing settings for maximum effect. The more frequently recording is triggered, the faster the battery will drain.
The cameras are sold in packs of two or three, bundled with a base station that provides 64GB local storage for your videos, and is expandable with an SD card if you need even more room. If you have a particularly large home, you can pick up extra cameras to extend coverage over a wider area.
Swann does offer a home security plan with features like priority customer support, but it’s definitely not essential and we didn’t feel we missed anything by not having it. The initial price isn’t cheap, but skipping the subscription makes it a lot more palatable.
Read our full Swann MaxRanger4K Solar review
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Reolink Altas PT Ultra
The Reolink Altas PT Ultra earned four stars in our review thanks to its crisp video recordings, pan-and-tilt functionality to cover an extra-wide area, and local storage for your video. Although it’s somewhat bulky, it looks smart and didn’t worry our neighbors unnecessarily (always a plus).
The camera can automatically track subjects such as people and animals, or you can pan and tilt it manually using the app if there’s something you particularly want to keep an eye on. There’s also a pre-record option, similar to the one you’d get with a dash cam, which captures footage continuously in the background and saves the 10 seconds that were recorded before a trigger event.
Footage is super clear during the day, but we found that the Altas PT Ultra really excels at night. Most home security cameras produce pretty shoddy monochrome video after dark, but Reolink’s ColorX technology produces impressive color footage without a spotlight.
Storing your videos in the cloud costs extra, but there’s no need when you can save them to an SD card, or to an encrypted Reolink Home Hub. The Home Hub comes with 64GB storage that’s expandable with up to two 512GB SD cards, which should be more than enough.
Read our full Reolink Altas PT Ultra review
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eufyCam 3 S330
Eufy makes some of my favorite smart home devices, and the eufyCam 3 S330 is among the best. Some home security cameras can bombard you with alerts, but this one is different, using AI-powered facial recognition to identify familiar people and either notify you when they arrive, or ignore them and only alert you when a stranger appears on your property. It’s the kind of feature that would normally come with a hefty subscription fee, but here it’s included in the base price of the camera.
Eufy has only been in the home security business for a few years (it’s better known for its robot vacuums), but it’s really nailing it. This camera has a slightly wider field of view than the Swann model above (135 degrees), and picture quality was excellent. The camera’s software even managed to identify the faces of people reflected in windows, which took us by surprise.
Unlike Eufy’s smaller cameras (such as the eufyCam 2 Pro), the eurfyCam 3 S330 has a solar panel that means you can pretty much fit and forget it. During our testing period we didn’t need to recharge it at all, though your results will depend on the settings you choose. As with any camera, the more often it’s triggered, the more juice it will use.
The camera connects to Eufy’s HomeBase hub, which comes with 16GB storage, but can be expanded to a huge 16TB with no monthly fees. It’s not the cheapest security system, but you’re getting a lot for the initial cost.
Read our full eufyCam 3 S330 review