Home Security Cameras 2025

When I'm not at home, I still want to know if anything is happening. Especially when a person is in an unexpected place, but also e.g. when somebody is at the door.

In this article, I will compare different home security cameras systems.

General Notes

I am in Germany so the prices and availability are for Germany.

What I want:

• At least one option for an indoor camera (cable-powered) and one for an outdoor camera (battery-powered, with solar panel and IP65-rating or better, the power should be USB-C that can also be used for charging the battery directly)
• I hate subscription models. I just want to buy the stuff and own it.
• It should have a decent Home Assistant integration as well as a reasonable app
• The camera should have a local storage option (microSD card or similar)
• A smart hub that works without internet and syncs with the cameras is a plus

I excluded those vendors:

• Blink (Amazon, basic option) needs a subscription for motion detection, so that's a no-go for me.
• For Ring (Amazon, premium otipn), it was rather hard to find what you can/cannot do without a subscription. There seems to be "Ring Edge" to allow you to store the recordings locally.
• Google Nest offers just a few cameras. They seem to be overpriced (74€ for one indoor camera) and it's unclear how much you can do without a subscription.

Offline Access

In the following table, "local" means your phone is connected to the same WiFi network as the camera. "Remote" means your phone is connected to the Internet but not to the same WiFi network as the camera.

Accessing the camera means to see its setting.

IP-Ratings

IP ratings are a measure of how well a device is protected against dust and water. The first digit indicates the level of protection against solid objects, while the second digit indicates the level of protection against liquids.

The letter "X" can be used in place of a digit to indicate that the device has not been tested for that specific type of protection.

Tapo Link

• Android App: TP-Link Tapo (4.6 stars, 362K reviews)
• iOS App: TP-Link Tapo (4.8 stars, 9.4K reviews)
• Home Assistant Integration (YouTube)
• Local storage: ✅ (microSD card)
• Cloud storage: ✅ (free for 30 days, then $2.99/month)
• Local access: ✅
• Remote access: ✅

Models:

• All of them have a MicroSD slot for up to 512 GB
• All of them have two-way audio with noise suppression
• All of them have Google Assistant / Amazon Alexa integrations
• Model Names:
  • The 2XX-series are indoor cameras
  • The 3XX-series are outdoor cameras
  • The 4XX-series are battery-powered outdoor cameras
  • Tapo D235: A doorbell for 100€

Reolink

• Android App has only 3.4 stars with 35.2K reviews
• Home Assistant Integration
• Google Assistant
• Aparently its possible to load the videos via FTP on a NAS.

Of course, all of the security camera models have 2-way audio:

Eufy (by Anker)

Eufy is a brand of Anker Innovations, which is a Chinese company.

All Eufy cams seem to have:

• two-way audio
• Integrations into: Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant und Amazon Alexa
• SD-card up to 128GB

Eufy has the HomeBase S380 (180€, up to 16 devices with up to 34 sensors) for battery-powered cameras.

Here are the Eufy models I found:

I couldn't find any specs for the different Eufy cameras. Additionally, the model names are a mess. No thanks.

Wyze

I found exactly two cameras on Amazon: The Wyze Cam v4 and the Wyze Cam Pan v3. No camera that can rotate. No battery-powered camera (and none with a solar panel).

Arlo (by Netgear)

There are several Arlo SmartHubs and Arlo Base Stations. They have a microSD slot for local storage, some have an integrated siren, some have USB Type-A for extendable storage. No integrated battery in case of power failure. No specification on how many devices can be connected.

The Arlo security cams also have 2-way Audio.

Models:

Others

• SimpliSafe and Vivint seem not to be on Amazon