Amazing Devices

Security cameras and doorbells: resolution, battery or wired, field of view, and the subscription

A security camera is a lens, a radio and a way of storing what it sees. The specification sheet is resolution, power and field of view; the line that decides the running cost — whether the footage is free to keep — is on the manufacturer’s plans page, and a review brings it here.

What the category is

Battery cameras (Blink Outdoor, Ring Stick Up, Arlo, eufy) that go anywhere and wake on motion; wired cameras that record continuously; video doorbells, battery or wired, with two-way talk; floodlight and spotlight cameras for driveways; indoor cameras for pets and rooms; alarm systems with sensors and a keypad. Blink and Ring are Amazon’s, work with Alexa, and are half this site’s category.

How to read the spec sheet

Resolution: 1080p is enough to see who; 2K and 4K read a licence plate at the kerb. Night vision is infrared (black and white) or colour with a light; the sheet says which.

Power: battery (with the months claimed and the events-per-day assumption behind them), wired to mains, wired to doorbell transformer (and the voltage it needs), or solar-assisted. A battery doorbell on a busy street lasts weeks, not the year on the box.

Field of view in degrees, horizontal and vertical. A doorbell with a tall or square field sees the parcel on the step; a wide-but-short one does not.

Storage and subscription: cloud storage with a monthly plan (Ring, Blink, Arlo, Nest), local storage on a card, hub or base station (eufy, Reolink, Blink’s Sync Module with a USB drive), or both. The plan’s price and what is free without it come from the manufacturer’s page, and they decide the camera’s cost over three years.

Detection: motion zones, person and package detection (often behind the plan), and pre-roll. The sheet lists them; the plan gates them.

Weather rating (IP65 or 66), operating temperature, and Wi-Fi band (2.4 GHz only on most) are the installation lines.

Hub required: Blink needs a Sync Module; Arlo often a base station; Ring does not. On the sheet, sometimes in the box, sometimes not.

Who it suits

A battery doorbell for a house without doorbell wiring; a wired doorbell where the wiring exists; a Blink or Ring set for an Alexa household that accepts the plan; eufy or Reolink for anyone who wants footage stored at home for nothing a month; a floodlight camera for a driveway.

Who should skip it

Anyone unwilling to pay monthly, before checking what the camera keeps for free. And anyone whose Wi-Fi does not reach the door: a mesh system comes first.

Where to start

Six of the 135 security cameras & doorbells devices reviewed on this site, one per model, across manufacturers. Every review is written from the manufacturer’s published specifications — how, and what that leaves out.

All 135 security cameras & doorbells device reviews

Newest first. Consumables, accessories and parts that were once filed here are excluded.