Establishing First System - Choices

[dc68]

Not sure if I have the forum and my question is more general than camera specific.

Making first purchase and like what I see from the camera options for building a home system.

I am not into paying the monthly fees which is why I am not going to one of the "Security / Monitoring Companies".  What combination of products are required to capture video of an event once a situation has occurred?  I am want to playback video as needed or save if needed.  I am interested in probably four camera zones plus a doorbell camera.  

Would four cams, a doorbell cam, and a hub provide all of the necessary capability without paying a monthly fee for cloud service?

[StephenB]

---

@dc68 wrote:

Would four cams, a doorbell cam, and a hub provide all of the necessary capability without paying a monthly fee for cloud service?

---

To be clear, Arlo integrates their hardware into their cloud service, and you will lose some services and features if you are unwilling to pay the ~$10 USD/month subscription (which covers unlimited cameras).

The kit comes with a trial subscription, and this article outlines what features you will lost when the trial ends:

• https://kb.arlo.com/000062312/What-options-will-I-have-when-the-Arlo-trial-ends

That said, there are people who set up direct access to local storage with a smarthub, and use that as an alternative to a subscription.   Direct Access has several limitations

• recordings only available in the app (not the browser)
• recordings only available in the primary account (not shared accounts)
• no ability to make manual recordings or snapshots
• no thumbnails
• remote access can be tricky to set up (requires router settings changes), and won't work on some networks (including Starlink and T-Mobile broadband).

You also need a subscription for activity zones.  Some cameras do support hardware activity zones (w/o a subscription), but that requires the cameras to be connected to AC power.

Also, you need a subscription to access phone support.