Keep an eye on your garden and property: Outdoor surveillance cameras compared

A surveillance camera for your own garden or property can provide more than just security. In addition to the important aspect that you can use an outdoor surveillance camera to detect and scare away unwanted people on your property, it can also be used, for example, to communicate with people at your front door when you are not at home.

But there is a lot to choose from. We will therefore compare five currently popular models for you and explain what to look out for when buying.

What should I consider when buying an outdoor surveillance camera?

With an outdoor surveillance camera, you can primarily ensure the security of your property. Such cameras are well suited to detecting unwanted people on your property. With many models, you will automatically receive a notification as soon as unusual movement is detected and you can communicate with the person via the intercom.

There are also other application scenarios: For example, if you are expecting a package but are not at home, you can ask the delivery person to leave the package with your neighbor or on your property. When purchasing, you should pay particular attention to three aspects: power supply, internet connection and recording storage.

Most camera models can be operated using a rechargeable battery, but some models also require a power outlet nearby. The Internet connection is usually via WLAN, but there are also models with a LAN connection. The choice of model should therefore also depend on the conditions at the desired location (Internet, power connection).

Tipp: If your Wi-Fi signal does not reach the garden, we will explain to you in the linked guide how you can provide the property with Internet.

When it comes to recording storage, there are models that upload the recordings to a (paid) cloud, as well as those that simply save the recordings centrally and delete them after a certain period of time. If you want to avoid follow-up costs, you should choose a model with local storage options.

Popular outdoor surveillance cameras in comparison

Below we present five popular outdoor surveillance cameras and compare them with their features as well as advantages and disadvantages.

		1.	2.	3. Price-performance tip	4.	5.
		Blink Outdoor	Ring Stick Up Cam Pro	Eufy SoloCam S340	Ring Spotlight Cam Pro	TP-Link Tapo C325WB
		to offer ❯	to offer ❯	to offer ❯	to offer ❯	to offer ❯
Power supply	Power supply	battery pack	Battery, power plug, solar cells	Battery, solar cells	Battery, power plug, hardwired, solar cells	Power plug
resolution	resolution	1080p	1080p	3K (1620p)	1080p	3K (1520p)
Diagonal viewing angle	Diagonal viewing angle	110°	115°	135°	140°	127°
Night vision function?	Night vision function?	Yes, black and white	Yes, in color	Yes, in color	Yes, in color	Yes, in color
Integration in Smart Home?	Integration in Smart Home?	And, Amazon Alexa	And, Amazon Alexa	Yes, Amazon Alexa and Google Home	And, Amazon Alexa	Yes, Amazon Alexa and Google Home
Cloud-Abo?	Cloud-Abo?	Optional (3 dollars per month, 10 dollars for more than one device)	Optional (4 dollars per month, 10 dollars for more than one device)	✘ No	Optional (4 dollars per month, 10 dollars for more than one device)	✘ No
Motion capture with bird’s eye view?	Motion capture with bird’s eye view?	✘ No	✔ And	✘ No	✔ And	✘ No
Alarmsirene?	Alarmsirene?	✘ No	✔ And	✘ No	✔ And	✔ And
Intercom function?	Intercom function?	✔ And	✔ And	✔ And	✔ And	✔ And
Swivelling?	Swivelling?	✘ No	✘ No	And (horizontal 360°, vertical 70°)	✘ No	✘ No
Offer	Offer	to offer ❯ NETZWELT may receive a commission from the retailer for links on this page. More information.	to offer ❯ NETZWELT may receive a commission from the retailer for links on this page. More information.	to offer ❯ NETZWELT may receive a commission from the retailer for links on this page. More information.	to offer ❯ NETZWELT may receive a commission from the retailer for links on this page. More information.	to offer ❯ NETZWELT may receive a commission from the retailer for links on this page. More information.

Blink Outdoor

The only camera in the relatively small range of Amazon’s own budget security camera brand Blink that is suitable for outdoor use is the Blink Outdoor. It is a small, unassuming 1080p camera that has all the basic features such as an intercom, black and white night vision and a sufficiently wide viewing angle of 110 degrees.

Blink Outdoor

• Power supply: battery pack
• Resolution: 1080p
• Diagonal viewing angle: 110°
• Night vision function?:
  Yes, black and white
• Integration in Smart Home?: And, Amazon Alexa

to offer

There is also the option of saving the recordings in the Amazon cloud with the Blink subscription for 3 dollars per month (or 10 dollars per month if you have two or more cameras). Without a subscription, you can save the clips locally on a USB stick using the included sync module. The bundle with Sync Module 2 costs 99 dollars on Amazon, an additional camera costs 89 dollars. The camera is powered by batteries and the connection is via WiFi.

Ring Stick Up Cam Pro

Under the Ring brand, Amazon markets high-quality surveillance cameras that are primarily designed for users with higher demands. This includes the Stick Up Cam Pro – a fully equipped 1080p camera that, for example, offers color night vision and can be powered by a power plug or solar power in addition to the battery.

Worth highlighting and unique to Ring is the bird’s eye view feature in 3D motion detection, which allows you to see from a bird’s eye view in the Ring app exactly when and where a movement was recorded on your property.

Ring Stick Up Cam Pro

• Power supply: Battery, power plug, solar cells
• Resolution: 1080p
• Diagonal viewing angle: 115°
• Night vision function?: Yes, in color
• Integration in Smart Home?: And, Amazon Alexa

to offer

The particularly high viewing angle of 155 degrees is also nice. Additional features such as recording the live feed, person recognition and a photo preview in the notifications are available for 4 dollars per month with Ring Protect (or 10 dollars for more than one device). With the battery and mains plug power supply variants, the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro costs 180 dollars, the bundle with a solar panel is available for 200 dollars.

Eufy SoloCam S340

Eufy is a big name in the smart home and IoT sector. One of the manufacturer’s most popular outdoor surveillance cameras is the SoloCam S340. There are three major unique selling points: The camera can be rotated 360 degrees horizontally and 70 degrees vertically, it has two lenses for higher image quality and all versions are solar powered. Two hours of sunlight per day are enough to ensure continuous operation.

Eufy SoloCam S340

• Power supply: Battery, solar cells
• Resolution: 3K (1620p)
• Diagonal viewing angle: 135°
• Night vision function?: Yes, in color
• Integration in Smart Home?: Yes, Amazon Alexa and Google Home

to offer

The built-in rechargeable battery lasts for up to three months of continuous operation, running independently and without solar energy. Other points that speak for the model are the high image resolution of 3K (1620p), an 8x zoom, support for Google Home (in addition to Amazon Alexa) and the ability to save recordings free of charge and without a subscription obligation on the up to 8 GB internal memory. With a price of 200 dollars, the camera is a real price-performance recommendation!

Ring Spotlight Cam Pro

According to Ring, the Spotlight Cam Pro is Ring’s most advanced spotlight camera. If you look at the huge range of functions, that’s probably true. It has all the features of the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro, plus two very bright LED lights that provide even better light quality in the dark. Thanks to the Audio+ technology, the audio quality of the intercom is also significantly better.

Ring Spotlight Cam Pro

• Power supply: Battery, power plug, hardwired, solar cells
• Resolution: 1080p
• Diagonal viewing angle: 140°
• Night vision function?: Yes, in color
• Integration in Smart Home?: And, Amazon Alexa

to offer

What is particularly useful for some people is the option of powering the camera via hardwiring to the intercom power supply that many houses have. The camera costs around 230 dollars, and the solar version costs 250 dollars.

TP-Link Tapo C325WB

The manufacturer TP-Link also knows everything to do with home technology and networks. It only makes sense that it is bringing out its own surveillance camera like the Tapo C325WB. This particular model is also particularly successful: for only around 90 dollars you get many features that even much more expensive models do not have. These include, for example, a microSD card slot with which you can expand the storage space by up to 512 GB.

TP-Link Tapo C325WB

• Power supply: Power plug
• Resolution: 3K (1520p)
• Diagonal viewing angle: 127°
• Night vision function?: Yes, in color
• Integration in Smart Home?: Yes, Amazon Alexa and Google Home

to offer

The camera also offers a very solid overall package for the price. It has practically all the features that the Blink Outdoor has, plus color night vision, an extra-sensitive camera sensor that captures a lot of light, a higher 2K resolution (1520p), customizable motion detection with boundary zones and much more.

What alternatives are there to an outdoor surveillance camera?

There are only a few alternatives to outdoor surveillance cameras that allow you to monitor your property to the same or similar extent. For example, robotic lawnmowers such as the Mammotion Luba 2 AWD 3000 or the Ecovacs Goat G1-2000, which have an integrated camera, are suitable for monitoring your own garden.

The live recording can then be viewed in the app. However, the quality here is not as good as that of the surveillance cameras we tested. Alternatively, you can also use a wildlife camera. However, these usually do not have a mobile phone connection and cannot be used to communicate with intruders.

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