WiFi camera? for security where I live?

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id like to get a wifi camera (not sure I'm asking for the right thing or what its called)... id like to put it in the front window facing outside at my apartment door.. I guess it would record when theirs motion? I have no idea what to look for or how they work.. . don't want to spend a lot... under $100 if that is possible? maybe someone can point me in the right direction? how do I see the video it records from my mac?

this one is 20 bucks? is it what I need and it is any good?

Wyze Cam | 1080p HD Smart Home Camera With Free AWS Cloud
 
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I was thinking the same thing, try it for 20 bucks. its not clear to me where the videos go or are stored? looks like it can only be accessed from iphone or android... not my desktop mac? I'll have to keep googling it.... was hoping someone here had one and knew more about it. :)

looks like theirs a service where they charge a fee to store the videos... without buying this service (which is cheap), looks like the film would be stored on an SD card? Im not sure it's not very clear so far how this works.

Wyze adds subscription service for Complete Motion Capture service | ZDNet
 
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That's a very good idea to set up a wifi camera in front of your house. Carry on!


someone knocked on my door the other night at 11pm, when I checked the peephole no one was there. next time I hope to have a camera in place. :)
 
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I'm slowly in the process of adding outdoor home security here, so I'm somewhat up to speed on some options. I've gotten started with the Eufy security line in part because a cloud subscription is not required. Your footage is stored on a Homebase kept in your own home that you can review from an app on your iPhone/iPad. You can also review it from a web browser, but it requires Flash, which is a big negative and truthfully it baffles me that they don't have a better option. The company is part of Anker, and being a fan of their swag, I put a lot of faith in their products.

For indoor cameras like what you are looking at, they have one available for pre-order.
eufy Security Indoor Cam 2K

I'm not familiar with this particular camera since I've been focused on their outdoor cameras, but there's no mention of the need for a Homebase, so all the storage may be on the camera itself. They say it will also integrate with Apple's Homekit, so that's something to consider. It won't be available until the end of May. One plus to Eufy's cameras is that they have a higher resolution compared to most of the competitors. They tout having 2k resolution, which on my doorbell camera is 2560 x 1920.

If you don't mind cloud storage, the Arlo Q would be a good option. Their basic service is free (details on the product page). Arlo started out as a division of NetGear but is now an independent company.
1080p HD & Night Vision Security Camera: Arlo Q | Arlo
 
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chscag

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@macgig:

Here's something that works better than a home security system:

GS.jpeg

Of course you may have to spend a bit more on dog food every month but he'll also be your faithful friend. :)
 
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this one is 20 bucks? is it what I need and it is any good?

They have limitations, but if you can accept them, they are an amazing deal:

$20 WyzeCam Security Camera Is Almost Too Good to Be True
$20 WyzeCam Security Camera Is Almost Too Good to Be True - TidBITS

We purchased five of them for my wife's mother's house so my wife can check up on her aged mother. It's amazing that in an emergency my wife can not only use her iPhone to see her mother, she can communicate with her right through the cameras.

Easy to set up, easy to use. I highly recommend them.
 
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I have three of the Wyze cameras and they work pretty well. I can watch the video on my iOS devices. They have motion detection that works reasonably well. A little oversensitive in that when clouds pass over and the bright sun is removed, the motion detector triggers because of the brightness change. The motion events are stored for two weeks, then purged. You can watch real time. Night vision is pretty good, enough to see that a person or animal has triggered the event. You can also talk through the camera, although after testing it, I've never used it.

Overall, worth the investment.

One other alternative, if you have an old iPhone is an app named Manything. Manything is for monitoring anything, and uses the iPhone camera with motion detection software to trigger recording when motion occurs. It is a subscription service, but it isn't expensive. I have an old iPhone 6s that is serving as a security camera that way. So that is something to consider.
 
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thanks for the feedback everyone. I was thinking of putting my camera inside facing out the window at the front door. not sure if their would be issues doing that.... guess for $20 I could try it and see if it works well enough.
 
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That should work. The camera has a pretty wide field of view so if you put it close to, or touching, the glass of the window, it should show the outside pretty well.
 
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That should work. The camera has a pretty wide field of view so if you put it close to, or touching, the glass of the window, it should show the outside pretty well.

cool thanks. :)
 
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Security ckr security camera

id like to get a wifi camera (not sure I'm asking for the right thing or what its called)... id like to put it in the front window facing outside at my apartment door.. I guess it would record when theirs motion? I have no idea what to look for or how they work.. . don't want to spend a lot... under $100 if that is possible? maybe someone can point me in the right direction? how do I see the video it records from my mac?

this one is 20 bucks? is it what I need and it is any good?

Wyze Cam | 1080p HD Smart Home Camera With Free AWS Cloud

Just be careful that the security cameras do not compromise the security of your bone network. Good approach: Steve Gibson's Three Router Solution to IOT Insecurity - PC Perspective Also check that the cameras do provide security updates and do not have well known security problems. Search on the internet for the name of the camera and the words camera security vulnerability.
 
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Just be careful that the security cameras do not compromise the security of your bone network. Good approach: Steve Gibson's Three Router Solution to IOT Insecurity - PC Perspective Also check that the cameras do provide security updates and do not have well known security problems. Search on the internet for the name of the camera and the words camera security vulnerability.

That was an interesting read and a lot to absorb. I recently put my IOT devices on the Guest SSID of my router since that will effectively isolate them from each other and from my computers and such. My only reservation at the moment is use with Homekit. I haven't delved much into using Homekit yet, but if I'm not mistaken, my approach to dumping my IOT devices on the Guest network effectively means they can't be used with Homekit, correct? And the 3-router solution proposed in that article would solve that?
 
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Just be aware that any glass between the camera and the outside will mean that the night vision won't work properly, unless you have a bright light outside

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Mac-Forums mobile app
 
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Just be aware that any glass between the camera and the outside will mean that the night vision won't work properly, unless you have a bright light outside

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Mac-Forums mobile app

I don't think that is correct. Infrared passes through glass just fine, so a Wyze camera with infrared LEDs for night vision will work though glass.

Also, for security, Wyze is actually reasonably secure, according to Consumer Reports. That article on multiple networks was interesting, but probably a lot of overkill for the average user. I have my three Wyze cameras in my general network, protected with WPA2 and behind the ISP Firewall and that's about all I think I need.
 

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