Best Home Security Cameras Without a Subscription for 2024 [CNET]

Expertise Smart home | Smart security | Home tech | Energy savings | A/V

$85 at Amazon

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$40 at Crutchfield

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$170 at Amazon

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$28 at Amazon

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$250 at Amazon

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Eufy’s pan/tilt/zoom dual-cam model can see anywhere, and with the right vantage point it can cover multiple doors or areas in a home, all at an excellent 4K resolution for the wide-angle lens and 2K resolution for the telephoto lens. It also has 32-foot night vision and the ability to recognize people or pets and quietly follow them — and it’s surprisingly small for these features, so you can easily find room on a shelf. It offers support for both Amazon Alexa and Google Home/Assistant, but no Apple HomeKit at this time (some Eufy cams do offer Apple support, including the budget pan/tilt 2K model).

Eufy also nabs the top spot on our list for its subscription policies: You don’t need one. Nothing significant is locked behind ongoing fees unless you really want cloud storage, and the cam comes with a slot for a microSD card (purchase the size of your choice) to add local storage.

You also have the option of adding a HomeBase S380 hub if you prefer more storage, better AI capabilities and other useful features, still without any necessary subscription. The one downside to Eufy’s cam is that the Eufy app is a little janky and may time patience to learn, but that’s a minor tradeoff.

TP-Link Tapo C210: This is one of our favorite affordable cameras at the moment, but we prefer Eufy’s better specs that also come with local storage.

Blink Mini 2: The Blink Mini 2 has a surprising amount of features for its small size and affordable price (plus outdoor compatibility), but it’s a little too short range and the required Sync Module 2 for local storage greatly increases the price.

Google Nest Indoor/Outdoor cam: Nest doesn’t have any local storage options, and the 3 hours of video storage means you need to act quickly, so it’s a complicated compromise for those who want to avoid subscriptions altogether. We went with simpler, local storage approaches for this list.

TP-Link Tapo C310 (Out of Stock): The C310 makes a fine outdoor camera ready for a microSD card, but we found Tapo’s indoor/outdoor camera a little more useful for the average person.

Google Nest Doorbell: The Nest Doorbell is an excellent device that benefits greatly from Google AI and Nest’s high-quality construction, but it also doesn’t have any local storage, so you’ll have to that three-hour limit.

Lorex 2K Indoor Pan/Tilt Camera (Out of Stock): This Lorex cam is an excellent local storage alternative, but ultimately we chose the floodlight model for its great outdoor usability. 

Resolution and view

We always pay attention to resolution and field of view for home security cameras. Checking detail, up close and at a distance, is very important for live views and the quality of recorded video. It’s important to pay attention not only to resolution numbers and how wide the field of view is but if a brand locks higher resolutions behind a subscription (some do).

Video storage

Video storage refers to how easily video can be recorded and shared, typically either in the cloud or locally through an attached hub/hard drive. Cloud storage is almost always locked behind a subscription except in rare exceptions like Google Nest and some others. Local storage is generally a better way to avoid subscriptions and still get this important quality of life.

Smart home integration

Smart home support for voice assistants (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant) or platforms like Google Home or Apple Home aren’t often locked behind subscriptions: What you see in the specs is what you get. That can be limited to a single platform (Amazon likes to keep its devices focused on Alexa for now) or spread out between several platforms. If you already use a voice assistant or a full smart home security system, look for a cam that’s compatible with it.

Object detection

Object detection, like recognizing packages or human-shaped beings approaching, is another feature often locked behind a subscription. Some cameras offer free object detection. Eufy uses human detection for many of its cams, TP-Link Tapo cams offer some free detection and several Lorex cams provide package and people detection.

App usability

High-quality secure cams come with apps that are intuitive with settings that are easy to manage. It’s also a big bonus if they don’t have constant pop-ups telling you to sign up for a subscription.

Night vision

We always take a close look at night vision and its distance to make sure that it’s working properly and offers plenty of utility for capturing images on the other side of your yard or room.

Two-way audio

Two-way audio features help scare away intruders, talk to strangers or tell the kids to get inside for dinner. They’re always free, but we take a close look at their quality and range, too. 

Our experts follow a complete testing process that examines how all the features on a home security camera function. Today’s cams have motion detection, audio communication, resolution, night vision, object recognition and much more to test.

We walk through these features with a number of visual and audio experiments to see how cams match their claims — and the capability of comparative models. There’s a lot that goes into this process, and you can catch plenty more details over at our guide on how we test.

Placing a home security camera is one of the hardest decisions today’s DIY cameras require. Every home is different, so you’ll need to customize the location to get the best angle to capture a room or yard. Sometimes central locations are best for pan/tilt cameras or a high shelf for an overview. For installation, we like the stability of a screw-in mount or the versatility of a horizontal surface. For more, take a look at our guide on the best spots to install home security cameras.

That can vary from subscription to subscription, but there are expectations in common. Companies like Ring, Arlo and others lock their cloud video storage features in subscriptions, and while there are sometimes local workarounds, they’re rarely convenient or cheap. Advanced object detection is frequently accessed only through subscriptions, as are “rich” notifications and alerts that provide more detail about what’s happening. Certain video features, like extended live views, snapshot timelapses or home/away modes can also be trapped in subscriptions.

More advanced subscriptions typically expand the plan for multiple devices and may add in professional home monitoring and similar services.

They’re getting more affordable all the time. You can find a 256GB (a massive amount of storage for a home security camera) microSD card for under $20 these days. Smaller cards will cost significantly less.

If you like keeping and accessing your video in the cloud, you’ll probably have to pay a subscription. Free cloud storage does exist, but it’s hard to find. Google’s Nest cams offer free video storage for 3 hours, but you’ll need to act within that timeframe to save the video, so you’ll need to check alerts fast.

That depends how often and long it records. A 32GB card like the one Lorex provides in some cams can record for a few hours at 1080p, much less at higher resolutions. Upgrading to a larger card means you don’t have to worry about deleting videos as often.

NAS stands for network-attached storage and is often used in conjunction with NVR or Network Video Recorder. An NVR is similar to a DVR, except it records footage from your cams. NAS storage like this is typically used for large security systems with an array of cams that records a lot of footage and needs a central database to store and view it. An NVR isn’t necessary for the average home security system with local storage.