They watch your packages arrive,
they watch your kids get home from school,
and they even watch your pets get into trouble.
Wireless security cameras have become a staple
in home security and home automation.
And even if you aren't worried about intruders,
they come in handy for watching other things.
Because they're so important,
we decided to test and compare our top five favorites.
All of these cameras use cloud or local storage,
an app for controls and settings,
and are wireless, meaning they connect to Wi-Fi.
So join me as I test each of these cameras
and crown one of them the best wireless camera of 2022.
But before we get into it,
like and subscribe for more reviews, how-tos,
and videos like this from us every week.
All right, let's get into it.
I based this lineup
from our Best Wireless Camera's page on SafeWise
using the groups of cameras
selected by our very own John Carlsen.
But as far as the top dog goes,
I have to politely disagree with his top pick.
You should check out our link
in the description to see that page
and see what his lineup looks like.
First up is the Reolink Argus 3 Pro,
it shoots in 2K video,
and has a killer 16X digital zoom,
color night vision,
and a super bright spotlight built right in.
The Argus 3 Pro works indoors and outdoors,
and runs on batteries so you can place it anywhere.
Next up is the Wyze Cam V3, our budget pick for the lineup,
and it delivers quite a bang for your buck.
It works with cloud or local storage,
you can do time lapses,
and it works with Alexa and Google Home speakers.
But it's not as portable as the other picks
because it needs to stay plugged in to work.
The newcomer to this year's lineup
is the Eufy Solo Indoor Cam C24,
and it's a rare find.
The Solo Indoor Cam shoots in 2K HD,
works with Apple Homekit,
and has advanced AI that can distinguish
between pets, humans, and vehicles.
It even has crying detection for your nursery.
So what's so rare about it?
This Eufy camera is only $40.
The Arlo Pro 4 is the priciest camera in our lineup at $200.
It's another battery-powered,
indoor-outdoor, take-anywhere camera
that works with local and cloud storage.
This Arlo cam does come with some drawbacks though,
it needs an Arlo hub to do local storage,
or you'll need an Arlo cloud subscription
to store video clips online.
And finally, we have the Google Nest Cam Battery,
it's the only other camera
in this lineup that shoots in 1080P.
Thankfully, you get three hours of video history for free
that downloads right to your phone
when you see something you wanna save.
And between you and me,
it's probably the prettiest of the bunch.
I took a close look at video quality,
audio quality, and app control on each camera.
So now that you've met the lineup, let's get to testing.
All but two of our picks in this lineup
shoot in 2K 4MP video, the Google Nest Cam
and the Wyze Cam V3 are our standalone 1080P choices.
Video from the Reolink Argus 3 Pro can adjust
to accommodate battery life and lighting around it.
You can shoot in that high 2K quality at all times,
adjust it to an auto setting,
or stick with a conservative low quality, or 1080P.
One big standout I noticed in this camera
is just how nutso it's zoom is,
the Argus 3 Pro boast a 16X digital zoom.
And boy howdy does it deliver!
The Wyze Cam V3 is pretty sharp for 1080P video,
that little green box you see in the Wyze footage
is an AI motion tracker that watches anything go by,
whether it's a person, cat, vehicle, whatever.
And when you add a memory card into this camera,
you get extra features like time lapses,
here's one I did while testing.
The Eufy Solo Indoor Cam strikes
a really great color balance,
for all the natural light in the room while I was testing,
nothing got washed out or too bright.
It has a narrower field of vision than I expected,
but nothing that can't be fixed
by placing it at the right angle.
But like the Wyze Cam,
this Eufy Camera isn't totally wire-free
and needs to stay plugged in.
The picture from the Arlo Pro 4 was clear,
but there was a noticeable lag
in the feed while I was filming.
This could be due to internet speeds,
but it was consistent throughout my testing,
despite the decent picture quality.
The video from the Google Nest Cam Battery
was surprisingly dark compared to the rest of the cameras.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any picture settings
to change that in my camera either.
Every one of these cameras has the ability
to send notifications when they see motion.
To test this, I turned down the motion sensitivity
on each camera to about 25%
to see which ones still caught me walking
into my living room through the front door.
Then, I tried it again
with all the motion sensitivity turned up to 100.
In both tests, the Eufy was by far the most responsive,
I don't think I could sneeze
without this thing telling me it saw something.
Something I always look at when testing security cameras is,
how easy it is to record video?
From my experience,
the Nest and Arlo cameras were the trickiest.
The rest of the cameras have a very simple record feature
in the live view that lets you save
anything happening in the live feed.
Thankfully, you aren't totally lost with the Nest or Arlo.
The Google Home app lets you check your history
to see past events or or what it catches.
But Arlo requires a cloud subscription
to see any videos you've recorded,
without that, the camera only works live.
Audio quality can be an important factor
for any kind of security camera because it lets you hear
what's happening on the other side of the lens.
So I tested the two-way audio
on each of these cameras to see how they sounded.
This is what the Reolink Argus 3 Pro sounds like.
This is what the Eufy Solo IndoorCam sounds like.
This is what the Wyze Cam V3 sounds like.
This is what the Arlo Pro 4 sounds like.
This is what the Google Nest Cam Battery sounds like.
Out of the bunch, I have to say
Google Nest and Arlo cams did the best.
The Reolink sounded kind of grainy, like a walkie talkie.
And the Wyze was...
(Katie whispering) very quiet.
And then, the Eufy kept cutting in and out.
Only the Arlo and Google Nest cam had consistently
clear audio that came through in my tests.
Mobile apps are essential for wireless cameras.
Without the app,
adjusting the settings, getting notifications,
and viewing footage really isn't possible.
So, I paid special attention
to how easy it was to navigate the app
and use the camera from my phone.
I also gave a few bonus points to any apps
or cameras with extra features like sirens or spotlights,
here's what I found.
From the main screen of the Reolink app,
watching your feed live is really easy to do.
The window in your footage has an obvious spot
for recording events, taking stills,
and talking to anyone on the other side.
It's also got this really neat clip feature
for honing in on specific areas like a door or a driveway.
And if you have a micro SD installed,
you can access past footage from there.
Within the settings you can see
the battery life left in your Reolink camera,
your network name, display options,
motion, and notification options too.
There's also more advanced settings
to improve picture quality for the camera.
The Wyze app has a lot to explore,
especially if you have other Wyze stuff.
But Wyze keeps it simple when it comes
to camera controls and features.
Under More, you can find your album
of past footage and stills,
check past time lapses, and set off the siren.
And within the Settings tab, you can fine-tune
how your camera interacts with the micro SD card inside,
you can adjust the Night Vision settings and Notifications.
I really liked how easy the album feature
makes it to see past events and recordings.
And live viewing is simple
without cutting out the essentials
like two-way talk, video recording, and taking stills.
When it came to notifications,
the Eufy app was by far the most responsive of the bunch.
The app has options for how you want to be notified,
and what you want notifications about.
If you don't want notifications while you're still at home,
you can easily snooze them.
The Eufy app is divided into tabs at the bottom
where you can see the live view, past clips,
and change the camera status,
kind of like in a security system.
Within the settings, I found some cool features
for pet owners like myself.
The Pet Command feature will watch for your furry friends
in designated areas like the couch or a trash can,
and play an audio command
if they go where they aren't allowed.
The Eufy Indoor also allows you to make prerecorded messages
like the ones in many doorbell cameras.
[Prerecorded Message] Like and subscribe
to us here on SafeWise.
For a $40 camera, I was really pleased
to see how granular the settings can get.
It was really easy to navigate,
and I didn't run into any surprises
or essential features buried in menus.
If you own a Google Home speaker,
you might already be familiar
with the Google Home app that the Nest Cam uses.
We could really get into the weeds about the app itself,
but as far as camera controls go, things are pretty minimal.
I didn't find any settings to adjust the camera's picture,
which was disappointing
since the footage seemed so dark from the Nest Cam.
And the names of common features aren't always as obvious
since they've been kind of googlified,
things like motion sensitivity become wake up sensitivity.
I will say I really like the way
the three-hour history is laid out.
It's easy to see what events or moments woke up the camera,
and if you wanna save them,
they download directly to your phone.
The Arlo app was the only one
out of the bunch that gave me any trouble,
without cloud storage or an Arlo hub,
you can't really record anything.
The footage I've grabbed for this video
was a screen recording on my phone,
but that isn't the app's fault.
What could be helped on the app is the live viewing option.
You'll get a small window when you first hit play
to watch anything live.
Then, maximizing and minimizing
this window can be a little finicky.
There were some cool options in the video settings though,
especially if picture quality
and battery life are at the top of your priorities.
Again, check out our written lineup
on SafeWise to see John's deep dive
into each of these cameras.
But in my book, I have to say the best one
of the group for me was the Eufy Solo IndoorCam.
The $40 price tag goes a long way in this camera,
and it's even better with a micro SD card inside.
From the very start, this Eufy camera was easy
to set up, and use, and record footage.
And the picture quality is just, muah!
It also has lots of fine-tuning settings
to make the picture better,
and interact with pets, and kids,
or whoever you wanna keep an eye on.
All of that said, while it is my favorite of the bunch,
it wasn't perfect.
It is an indoor-only camera that needs to stay plugged in.
Plus, it's two-way audio cut in and out
while talking through the app,
and it's motion notifications just blew up my phone.
But as far as wireless cameras go,
it was by far the best and easiest to use
in my humble opinion.
Thanks for watching.
(chill-out music)