Security cameras without a monthly subscription: how local recording actually works

Three ways to record locally

• A microSD card in the camera. Cheapest and simplest. A 512 GB card holds hundreds of hours of footage. The weakness is obvious: if someone takes the camera, they take the recording.
• A network video recorder, or NVR. A small box with hard drives that receives video from every camera over your network and stores weeks of it. This is what we install. Detection of people and vehicles runs on the recorder itself.
• A NAS, a general-purpose network drive running recording software. Flexible, and a good fit if you already own one.

What you give up, and what you do not

You do not give up remote viewing. A local recorder can be reached from your phone when you are away, through an encrypted connection to your own home rather than through a vendor account. You do not give up smart alerts. Person and vehicle detection now runs on the recorder or in the camera. You do not give up video on your phone in Apple Home, provided the cameras and recorder are chosen with that in mind.

You give up one thing: someone else keeping a copy of your footage. For most households that is a feature, not a loss.

Wired beats wireless

A camera on Wi-Fi with a battery has to compromise on everything: it records only when it wakes up, it drops off the network when the signal is weak, and it needs charging in February. A camera on an Ethernet cable with power over Ethernet records continuously, never needs a battery and never fights with the neighbour's router for airtime. Running a cable is a one-time job. We do it during the install.

Keep the cameras off the internet entirely

Cheap cameras have a long record of security problems. Our answer is to put every camera on its own network segment with no route to the internet at all. The recorder can see them. Nothing else can. If a camera has a flaw, the flaw cannot be reached from outside.

A word on privacy law in Quebec

Installing cameras on your own property is legal in Quebec. Their use is governed by privacy law, which protects the people they might record. Point them at your own doors, driveway and yard, not into the street or a neighbour's window, and tell visitors they are there. That is both the courteous and the lawful approach.

Before you buy

• Does the camera speak ONVIF or RTSP? If yes, any recorder can use it. If no, you are locked to one maker.
• Can it be powered over Ethernet?
• Is remote viewing possible without a vendor account?
• Where will the recorder live, and is that spot cool, dry and out of sight?