Best Outdoor Security Camera Overall

Arlo Pro 5 (Battery)

We have tested several other outdoor security cameras. These are the ones we like that just missed out on a place above.

Annke C800 for $86: This is a solid PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) camera that supports the Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Open Network Video Interface Forum (ONVIF), making it a good choice for folks with a network video recorder (NVR), though it also has a microSD card (up to 512 GB) slot for local recording. The footage is crisp at up to 4K with a 123-degree field of view, and there’s color night vision, with black and white and a spotlight as backups. Installation may be tricky as you must run an Ethernet cable, but that means no worries about power and no Wi-Fi woes. I tested the turret version, but this camera also comes in a dome or bullet shape. The motion detection is quite good, with minimal false positives, and the camera recognizes humans and vehicles reasonably accurately. Annke’s software is a bit clunky, though.

Safemo Set P1 (2-Pack) for $350: I love the idea of a simple kit like this, where you just plug the hub in, connect it to your router, and install the pre-paired cameras. Each has an optional solar panel to keep the battery charged. The Safemo app is well-designed, video goes up to 4K, and this entirely local system boasts 32 GB of storage (expandable up to 4 TB). It even has locally processed person, vehicle, pet, and package detection. The person detection was mostly accurate (it occasionally flagged my cat), and the vehicle detection flagged my robot lawnmower (close enough) and an inflatable donut that blew across the backyard, but false positives were rare. What prevents me from wholeheartedly recommending this impressive debut is the lack of 2FA (Safemo says it is coming) and connectivity issues where one of the cameras would occasionally disconnect from the hub and be inaccessible in the app. This always righted itself without me moving anything, but worryingly, it happened a few times. If you plan to up the resolution to 4K from the default SD, you will need fast internet, especially to view the live feed, which I found was choppy and pixelated at 4K, though recorded videos were sharp and detailed.