The Smartest and Best Security Cameras of 2022

Homeowners and business owners want to know their properties and belongings are safe and sound in their absence. There are plenty of less-materialistic reasons for wanting the best protection for your property, too — including safety for your loved ones and friends. The best security cameras of 2022 can help you keep the people and things you care about safe.

What Are Smart Security Cameras?

A smart security camera is a camera — typically wireless but not always — that uses the internet to provide live feeds, mobile alerts, and store recorded footage. Most smart security cameras provide a companion app for smartphones, tablets, and other devices that allow remote control, deeper customization, and more detail about potential security alerts, even when the owner is not present. Many smart cameras include some kind of machine learning for image and event recognition.

Smart security cameras, like any technology that connects to the internet, should be used with caution. Granting new devices access to your home network shouldn’t be done lightly, so choose brands and products reviewed and endorsed by both seasoned technologists and security experts.

The following roundup of the best smart security cameras of 2022 will give you some great places to begin your research.

What Are the Best Smart Security Cameras of 2022?

Without any additional fanfare, let’s get to the best security cameras with smart features on the market right now.

1. Arlo Pro 4 Spotlight Camera (~$200)

The Pro 4 Spotlight Camera from Arlo provides some of the best imagery of the current generation of smart security cameras. It’s designed for outdoor use, with 2K resolution for daylight and color night vision. It’s also capable of providing more detailed and intelligent alerts than many other models. Some of these features require a paid subscription, however.

Arlo’s Pro 4 Spotlight Camera is smart because it can differentiate between vehicles, people, animals, and even delivered parcels. This is how it provides such detailed and granular alerts to property owners. The camera is compatible with Amazon, Apple, Google, IFTTT, and Samsung platforms.

This camera is entirely wireless, meaning you’ll have to charge the battery once per week. There are options to record up to five minutes of continuous footage once movement is detected. There’s also a 24/7 recording option, but this requires the aforementioned Arlo Secure subscription and additional hardware.

2. Ring Stick-Up Cam Plug-In (~$100)

Amazon’s Ring offers another top pick among the current selection of outdoor-ready smart security cameras. This one has a rugged power cable, meaning it’s a wired camera, but it’s no less intelligent than the Arlo Pro 4 or other choices on this list. It’s able to differentiate between different objects and events, and send automatic notifications when visitors approach.

Ring’s Stick-Up Cam features video recording in 1080p resolution with a 130° field of view (FOV). Like Arlo, Ring offers a monthly subscription that unlocks additional features: Ring Protect Basic for $4 per month. This provides longer-term video storage, enhanced mobile notifications, and more. For voice activation, this camera is compatible with Amazon Alexa and interfaces with other Ring products.

Ring answered early criticism about its privacy policies and is now spoken of highly among reviewers when it comes to keeping home and business owners’ data safe. Ring products now feature end-to-end encryption that the user can enable, two-factor authentication, and other security bulwarks.

3. Eufy Solo IndoorCam C24 (~$45)

Perhaps you’re not looking for an outdoor security camera. Maybe the indoors of your home or apartment is on your mind instead. Security cameras can be helpful to see which roommate’s been eating the last of your Ben & Jerry’s. They’re also great for looking in on senior citizens who are aging in place or seeing what your pets are up to in your absence.

Eufy’s Solo IndoorCam C24 can tell the difference between all these things. It can tell when your baby is crying or when a pet has entered the room. The camera has a 125° FOV with crisp daytime and nighttime imagery.

It has 2K video resolution, including the option for continuous video recording onto a microSD card or a network drive. Cloud storage options for video footage require a paid subscription at $3 per month. For voice activation and other smart features, the camera works seamlessly with platforms offered by Google, Apple, and Amazon.

4. Wyze Cam v3 (~$36)

If you want a slightly more affordable smart indoor security camera, the Cam v3 from Wyze is a great choice. One of the only real tradeoffs you’re making here is the slightly inferior image quality. Like the Eufy Solo, this camera is wired.

It’s still just as talented as other smart security cameras, though. Cam v3 can detect motion automatically to trigger its video-recording capabilities, and it can tell the difference between a vehicle, pets, and people.

Like most of the other smart camera products listed here, this one also offers an optional cloud video storage service. Wyze’s cloud subscription will set you back $15 per year, which is more affordable than the others. You can use this camera indoors or outdoors. It’s compatible with Google, Amazon, and IFTTT for voice activation and other smart features using your smartphone. You can install the optional spotlight to give the camera even greater functionality.

5. ADT Blue Indoor/Outdoor Cameras (~$200)

ADT Blue is billed as a DIY smart security platform for your home. Homeowners or business owners can choose the components they need at a given time — like indoor and outdoor cameras, video doorbells, and motion sensors.

The indoor and outdoor cameras are standout products in the ADT Blue lineup, according to Consumer Reports. Alerts are delivered promptly, video footage is excellent, and the company gets good marks for data security.

The cameras’ smart features include user-defined monitoring zones, facial recognition, smoke-detector and carbon-monoxide-detector alarm detection, and 24 hours of free cloud storage for recorded footage. An additional 30 days of video storage will set you back $6 per month — or you can record to a local SD card. Integration with Google and Amazon platforms enables voice activation and some other smart features using your smartphone.

Which Smart Security Camera Is Right for Me?

We thought these five of the best security cameras would provide an educational look into the current smart security camera market and give you some interesting choices with different features, use cases, and various strengths and weaknesses.

If you want a truly wireless outdoor security camera, go with the Arlo Pro 4. The Ring Stick-Up camera is a contender for outdoor use as well, but it requires a wall outlet for power.

Both the Eufy and Wyze cameras are excellent choices for anybody who wants to keep the interior of their home — and their friends and loved ones — safe while they’re away. Both offer excellent image recognition and both are affordably priced because they’re wired cameras.

Finally, ADT offers an enticing DIY platform you can customize yourself. The company offers strong hardware and secure software.

If integration with Apple, Amazon, Google, IFTTT, or Samsung platforms is important to you, take careful note of that variable as well — not every manufacturer supports every smart home platform. Apart from that, you can’t go wrong with any of these products. All of them feature the latest in consumer-grade security and image-recognition capabilities, and all of them will keep your property, belongings, and loved ones secure even when you can’t be there.