Safety is a top priority for every homeowner, as it’s one of the things a home must provide. You must feel safe and secure in your own home to truly be at home and be comfortable.
Whether you’re a homeowner or you’re renting an apartment, security should be on top of your priorities. With home security cameras, you can have a worthwhile investment that can keep you safe.
By getting a home security camera, you can have criminals thinking twice about doing crimes at your home when they see that you have one. In this way, you have a very valuable visual crime deterrent. Furthermore, with most modern security cameras running on a WiFi network, it will also allow you to monitor what’s happening in various locations in and out of your home, even when you’re at work or anywhere you are.
Using this guide, we can help you make a solid investment in your security by guiding you through the ins and outs of buying home security cameras in 2021.
Table of Contents
Why Do You Need Cameras?
If you’re still uncertain about the security cameras you’re going to get, it’s crucial to understand why you need security cameras in the first place. While you can always get the best home security cameras, it will be too big an expense if you live in an area with low crime rates.
To get the best out of security cameras, look for one with features perfect for your needs. For example, if you live in a safe neighbourhood, you might want to consider getting standard 1080p cameras and spending the rest of your budget on lighting and locks.
Features to Look For
Although there are many features to consider depending on your needs, there are some features that are more important than others, and you need to look for when getting home security cameras:
- Motion activation – Your CCTV not recording when burglars are already at your door is dangerous. To ensure you’re safe, get a home security camera that doesn’t just have motion activation; it needs to have fast motion activation, so you don’t miss any threat, no matter how careful they try to be.
- Intuitive smartphone application – When at work and you want to check out what’s happening at home, you need the smartphone application to be intuitive and easy to use. It’s to make it easier to know what’s happening at home.
- Good resolution – Most home security cameras are advertised with 1080p resolution. But, most of these products can only achieve it in specific conditions, which means you’re not always getting the best picture quality.
Instead of getting a security camera with a high peak resolution, it’s better to get a camera with a flexible resolution with no sudden big drops in quality from time to time, especially when the WiFi connection isn’t ideal.
- Night vision – Many crimes happen at night as burglars try to use the darkness as cover and take advantage of people as they sleep. With night vision, you can see what’s happening around your home clearly even when it’s dark.
- Two-way audio – Two-way audio will allow you to talk to other people in the house, but more than that, it will let you use your voice to let people outside know that you’re aware in case they do anything suspicious.
- Video storage – Most homeowners overlook storage when they get security cameras. However, it’s one of the more important things to consider, especially when you want to store the videos on the cloud. Storage costs can get high, especially when you want high-quality cameras and cameras recording 24/7 instead of when motion is detected.
What to Know About Pricing?
The first thing you need to think about is how you want to pay the expenses. Do you want to pay it all upfront or pay using a monthly subscription? With the monthly subscription route, you’ll need to pay monthly for both the device and the storage.
On the other hand, there’s also the option of paying for it all at once. Usually, it means you’ll have to handle the storage with your own storage device, while some already come with a storage device out of the box.
When it comes to pricing, it’s also very easy to overspend, especially when you get too excited about features that you don’t really need. So, make sure to get a home security camera that provides for your needs. It’s always good to get one slightly better than what you need, but make sure to never go overboard. For example, the $300 Google Nest home security camera is very powerful. However, it’s not practical to spend that much for every area of your home when there are other cheaper yet still solid alternatives like the Amazon Blink.
Best Home Security Camera Brands
To help you get quality cameras, here are some reliable brands you may want to check out:
- Ring
- Reolink
- Wyze
- Google Nest
- Arlo
- Blink
- Amcrest
- Swann
- Abode
- Lorex
- Canary
- Kuna
- Azviz
- D-Link
- Zmodo
Getting The Best Value for Your Money
Using this guide from Smart Security, you can get the best value out of your investment. Home security cameras are very effective, but only when you use the right one for your needs and your budget. By taking care of all considerations and considering all the risks and factors, you can get a home security camera that’s perfect for you.