Buying
A camera that records nothing without a paid plan is common, and the plan usually outgrows the price difference between two cameras within a year. These four record to a card, an NVR or an FTP server you control, and none of them stops working when you stop paying.
Subscriptions are the largest hidden cost in this catalogue, and the way to avoid one is to check the card slot before the sensor.
A microSD slot with a stated maximum capacity. An NVR or FTP option, which puts the recording somewhere the camera is not. And AI detection included rather than rented — because on several cameras the classification that makes notifications bearable is itself a paid feature.
Some cameras have a card slot and put person detection behind a plan. The card records everything and you are notified about every passing car, so the plan becomes necessary anyway. Check both.
On a card. A high-endurance microSD costs less than three months of most plans and lasts years.
Footage that survives the camera being stolen. The answer to that is not a subscription but a second local destination, which the wired kit here provides.
2K 4MP · F1.6 Starlight · 360° pan · IP66 · Wi-Fi or Ethernet
The model TP-Link points its own budget buyers towards. A 2560 × 1440 sensor behind an F1.6 lens gives colour at night without a spotlight, and unlike most cameras in this price band it can be wired to Ethernet instead of trusting Wi-Fi.
Best for: An outdoor position where Wi-Fi is unreliable and a network cable can be run, or where colour at night matters more than an unlit image.
≈ £46 / 43 €
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 €
Multiply the monthly figure by thirty-six and compare it with the price gap between a cloud-only camera and one with a card slot. On most pairs in this catalogue the plan wins by a wide margin, and it keeps running after the camera has been replaced.
It is differently exposed. A card in a camera goes with the camera if it is taken; a cloud copy does not. The arrangement that covers both is a camera that writes to an FTP server or a recorder indoors, which two of these four support.
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.
