Choosing
A card in a camera is convenient and goes with the camera if it is taken. A recorder or an FTP server indoors does not. These four cover the range, and one of them writes to a machine you control — which is the only arrangement on this site where theft of the device does not remove the recording.
Where footage lives is a more consequential decision than which sensor produced it.
A card in the camera: simple, free, and it leaves with the camera. A recorder or NAS indoors: safe from theft of the camera, and it is a box that has to live somewhere. A cloud plan: safe from both and billed forever.
A camera writing over FTP to a machine indoors. Two cameras in this catalogue support it, and it is the only configuration where the recording survives the camera being taken.
A NAS or an always-on computer, and half an hour of configuration. Against three years of a cloud plan it is frequently cheaper.
High endurance, sized for the retention you want, replaced on a schedule rather than on symptoms.
5MP · dual-band 2.4/5 GHz · 30 m IR · microSD to 512 GB, NVR or FTP · IP66
A fixed 5 MP bullet camera rather than a pan-and-tilt, and the only camera in this hub that will record to an FTP server or a Reolink NVR as well as to a card. Reolink states dual-band Wi-Fi, person, vehicle and animal detection, and 30 m night vision.
Best for: Someone who wants a fixed camera pointed at one thing permanently, recorded somewhere other than the camera itself.
≈ 70 €
1080p · 360° pan, 130° tilt · 30 m IR · microSD to 512 GB · IP65
The cheapest way into a pan-and-tilt outdoor camera that records to its own card. TP-Link states 1080p, a 360° horizontal sweep and night vision to 30 m, and the listing is unusually frank about what the model is not.
Best for: A first outdoor camera on a wall that already has a socket nearby, where 1080p is enough and the card matters more than the picture.
≈ £33 / 31 €
It writes recordings to a server you control — a NAS, or a computer that is always on — rather than to the card in the camera or to a cloud plan. It is the only way in this catalogue to keep footage somewhere a thief cannot carry off with the camera.
A high-endurance one if the camera records continuously. Cameras overwrite the same card every few days, which is the workload ordinary cards handle worst — and they fail by quietly recording nothing rather than by reporting an error.
Cameras, alarm kits and safes swing by thirty euros or more across the year, and the biggest "discounts" often land at prices the same model sold for six weeks earlier. UniverTrack tracks the real price history across retailers, spots fake reductions, and alerts you when it is genuinely the moment to buy.
