The Best Security Cameras for Inside Your Home
Not quite ready to deck out your house with window, door, and motion sensors and hire an on-call monitoring service? Don’t fret! You can still keep your home secure without messing with your wiring by going with an indoor security camera or two. Knowing you can check in when you are away from home offers peace of mind, but these cameras aren’t perfect. There’s an obvious security benefit, but you expose yourself to privacy risks.
After years of rigorous testing, these are our favorite security cameras, and we’ve also got details on what to look for when shopping for one. Be sure to check out our many other guides, including the Best Outdoor Security Cameras, Best Pet Cameras, and Best Video Doorbell Cameras.
Updated September 2024: We changed our top pick, added cameras from Ring, Imilab, and Ezviz, a new slide on how we test, removed some older entries, and updated prices.
Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting that’s too important to ignore for just $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today.
If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED
-
Photograph: Simon Hill
Best for Most
TP-Link Tapo C120
The C120 can stream and record video at up to 2K resolution, supports two-way audio (with a slight lag), and has a slot for up to 512-GB microSD cards to keep recordings local. This affordable security camera has a starlight sensor that offers impressive color night vision, smart detection (people, pets, and vehicles) without a subscription, and an IP66 rating, which means you can also use it outdoors (provided you can run the power cable). The handy base is easy to wall-mount, can sit on a shelf, and is magnetic. There is no need to spend more than this to keep an eye on an entrance or a specific room in your home.
Motion detection is reliable, and you can tweak the sensitivity and customize the notifications you receive. The video is crisp, but the frame rate maxes out at 20 fps, so fast-moving subjects sometimes appear blurry. You can set activity and privacy zones in the Tapo app, and there’s AI detection to recognize people, pets, vehicles, and the sound of a baby crying. Sadly, rich notifications, including a snapshot, are bundled with the optional Tapo Care subscription, along with 30 days of cloud storage for clips, and it’s expensive at $3.50 per month for a single camera or $12 per month for up to 10 cameras. There is no HomeKit or IFTTT support, but it works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, though it was a little slow to load the stream on my Nest Hub. This camera also supports the open Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP).
If your budget is tight, the Tapo C110 ($19) is even cheaper with only a few compromises (lower frame rate, no pet or vehicle detection, microSD limited to 256 GB).
-
Photograph: Simon Hill
Upgrade Pick
Arlo Essential Indoor Security Camera (2nd Gen)
With a compact design, clear video, and two-way audio, this camera from Arlo matches our top pick on features and performs reliably well. It can sit on a shelf or be wall-mounted, has a privacy shutter that comes down when the camera is not in use, and stores video in the cloud. Footage is detailed, and there’s no blurring on motion (the frame rate is 24 fps). Arlo’s second-generation Essential Indoor cameras come in two varieties: the cheaper 1080p camera and a pricier 2K model. I’m a fan of the app for its ease of use, loading speeds, and two-factor authentication, enabling you to log in to the live feed with your fingerprint or face scan (phone permitting). There’s also a built-in siren and smart home integration for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT, but not Apple HomeKit.
Unfortunately, cloud storage, accurate subject detection, and smart animated alerts require an expensive Arlo Secure subscription at $8 per month for a single camera. It’s a bit more palatable if you have multiple Arlo devices, as it costs $13 per month for unlimited cameras. For folks with video doorbells or other cameras from Arlo, this camera is an obvious pick to keep things in a single app. But the lack of local storage might be a turnoff, and there are occasionally a few seconds of lag on the live feed.
