There are many ways to achieve a Wireless CCTV system and most reasons to fit Wireless CCTV are due to the premises existing issues preventing a wired CCTV system being installed. For some buyers, the benefit of Wireless may be convenience, to others it may be price-driven. For most, it will be a benefit that its wireless, thereby requiring less wiring.
This may be somewhat true but not entirely. Even with all Wireless products discussed here, a mains cable or power supply cable is still required to be fitted to the Wireless camera to keep the cameras powered.
Wireless Smart Home CCTV cameras
Residential homeowners may choose to opt for a Wireless Smart camera as technology has advanced and some retailers having developed smart home CCTV products, which are advertised all over the internet.
The likes of Amazon, Nest, Hive, Netgear Arlo, Curry’s and many more smart home wireless cameras are now so advanced that you can remotely connect to your cameras from anywhere with your mobile device, either over Wifi or Mobile Data. These smart home cameras can act upon motion, turn on lights, allow you to speak to persons via their built-in speakers, and more.
While these retail products are now making a splash for ease of use and ease of installation, one needs to bear in mind that the price level these products are manufactured to, i.e. the residential user, the products are limited in some ways too.
A Basic Amazon Ring Doorbell is only 1080p resolution, with a very limited night vision distance capability, so do not expect to see your car parked 5 metres in perfect image quality at night without any ambient lighting to assist the camera. Additionally, if you want to record video for future playback, an Amazon monthly subscription is required as the video recordings are stored in the cloud and ultimately drive the cost up over a year or several years of use. In order to take full advantage of some of these features additional products may be needed such as a wireless plug-in Chime (extra cost) if you want to hear the doorbell inside without your phone.
The ring doorbell connects directly to your home Wifi, so ensuring a good signal between the Ring doorbell and Home wireless Router are essential. If you have a poor wifi signal, you really need to look at improving the Wifi strength by changing your Wireless broadband Router, Wireless extenders or other Wireless Networking devices on the market.
So with an ease of installation to suit the home end user and easy to use App, a quick Wireless Camera can be installed either as a Ring doorbell or Ring’s various indoor cameras with two-way audio features and more, making it painless to implement some surveillance on your home.
However, it is worth noting that some of Amazon’s Ring products confirmed by the company use third-party services to ‘optimize the customer experience’’’ and ‘‘evaluate the effectiveness’’ of its marketing.‘‘Ring ensures that service providers’ use of the data provided is contractually limited to appropriate purposes such as performing these services on our behalf and not for other purposes’’,On its website, Ring discloses that it utilizes third-party data analytics, but the extent of the data collection was not made clear in the post. The information on Ring’s website also only mentions four companies: Google Analytics, Mixpanel, HotJar, and Optimizely. The page has not been updated since May 2018 and does not include companies found to be receiving data, including AppsFlyer or Facebook.
If you are a privacy-conscious person and want to make sure that your mobile app and personal data are not used for other 3rd party sources, then we suggest you do not purchase these ‘smart devices’.Whether you choose an Amazon Ring system, Arlo, Nest, Hive or Eufy or other Smart home residential cameras to install yourself, we strongly suggest that you verify with the brand what customer information is held by the brand manufacturer and what data is being forwarded to 3rd party analytics companies.
Another disadvantage of these cheaper ‘CCTV’ alternatives is the fact that these cameras are often in easy reach for anyone to easily remove them. Persons with malicious intentions can rip these cameras off the door frame or low level leaving you vulnerable. Some of the external cameras are still made with plastic housings so more susceptible to wear and tear compared to professional cameras housings made of metal.
There are positives for these products, in that they plug in, set up easily and often work with other home devices such as an Amazon Alexa or Google services, but in our view should be used to CCTV monitor your internal home, whether watching the dog, cat or your cleaner as a convenience camera as opposed to your external security needs.
These devices can have a place for convenience, if Wifi offers an easy way to connect the camera to a broadband router, and allowing you to view your cameras over a mobile or compatible tablet. Unfortunately, compared to professional CCTV cameras, these smart home cameras lack the professional ‘surveillance’ technical features that professional CCTV cameras offer.
Furthermore, we advise potential buyers to look at the ‘one-off cost’ of these smart home cameras and possibly additional hardware and service features that require ongoing subscription charges from the brand suppliers. It may not be the cheapest and best option available to you in the long run.