I saw this thread and petted my 4 camera Ubiquiti system with 24/7 recording while feeling slightly smug. I do absolutely acknowledge that I have probably spent more money but the gap is closing very quickly now and I have local 24/7 recording which is something you can't get with Ring et al.
I think ChrisD surmises my view perfectly (although I'm pretty sure he stole it from me
).
For non-Chinese, non subscription, easy to set up and high quality cameras which integrate well with their network system, I personally don't find them that expensive.
I didn't actually spend a huge amount in addition to what I already had to add the camera system, I already had the POE switch and Clouldkey Gen 2+ from my wider network kit and I already had a hard wired door bell I had 230V power at the chime already but I did re-run the door bell wire in the wall as part of the install for a cleaner look. In all adding it cost me the door bell, 3 cameras and a 5TB 2.5" hard drive. I didn't put it in all at the same time, I've slowly built it up over time, starting with the door bell running off the stock 1TB HDD.
You could put an equivalent Reolink system together for far less if starting from scratch. That said, people sell used Ubiquiti kit for a fraction of the price of new so its worth looking at used.
Spending the time getting everything hard wired is the way to go, I get why people want an 'easy life' and chuck up battery cloud cameras. For me, having to swap batteries all the time is grief and having spare batteries adds a lot of cost. I also get a lot of pride out of doing a really neat job on a hardwire install, I love to stand back once I'm done and think, 'yup, nailed it'. I'm not in any stretch a trades person but I do love a good day on the tools and do a bloody good job if I say so myself.
