Home CCTV

[Columbo]

So I'll be moving to a new house in a couple of weeks and would like some advice on the above.
Currently I've got 2 Blink Cameras and 1 Blink Doorbell + the sync module but I'm going to leave them here because frankly they have been nothing but disappointing.

- The battery life is awful on them all, I get around 25% of the advertised life max with 2x 2600mah eneloop batteries.
- The wifi coverage of the sync module is terrible, I have so many issues with dropped network I stopped counting
- The Blink app is next to useless and 'camera busy' message is the default state when trying to access live view, make changes or just answer the damn door.
- Doorbell notifications arrive minutes after its been pressed, yesterday's was 21 minutes actually
- The monthly sub is overpriced as hell vs what you get imo

So after a bit of research I'm in caught between either Ring or Eufy I think.
The appeal of Eufy is local storage, solar charging cameras and no sub but Ring seems to be pretty solid and has a lower upfront outlay and cheaper sub than Blink?

I've also looked at Tapo but the range seems pretty limited, any other I've not considered?
Thoughts would be great.

 

[Columbo]

Just thought I'd update that I eventually went with a 3 camera + Homebase Eufy setup.
A Doorbell, S230 Solar Camera on the side and an S120 Solar Wall camera with 300 lumen light.

They've been installed for about a week and all seems good so far and I haven't seen the solar cams drop below about 95% battery.
App is much better and faster than the blink system I had previously and accessing remotely is really quick.

 

[Columbo]

I'd avoid the Eufy stuff if I'm totally honest. The cameras themselves are brilliant - high quality and robust, but it's the software/app which let's down Eufy. They seem obsessed with bringing all sorts of weird and wonderful new features/products to the market but seemingly have no interest in making what they already have work well.

The cameras will frequently fail to load when you want to watch them back meaning you have to refresh a few times before it works, the geofencing is absolutely useless (it worked great until around 2022 when they changed something) and the event detection can be very hit and miss in what it captures for unknown reasons (for instance, today and yesterday people have been out on the driveway at least 10 different occasions and the camera caught none of it, other times it catches everything EDIT: on thinking about it, the camera image seems hazy so the camera may need a clean which could help? I'll try and report back).

Some of the good points about Eufy are - no subscriptions, the small solar charger I got keeps the front camera at 100% even over winter meaning I can make event record length much longer to capture more without running the battery down, the camera I have without solar lasts for 3-4 months without needing a charge, over the last 4 years+ , between me and my dad we have had 6 Eufy cameras and only 1 has needed replacing which Eufy have done without issue, the Eufy Homebase can be remote from your router (just set it up with the ethernet cable, then once this is done, select the option which allows the Homebase to communicate with the router wirelessly and you can put the Homebase wherever you like as long as it has power and is within WiFi range of your router!), the sound capture is amazing (I can hear people's conversations clearly from across the street!) and finally the image quality and build quality is great.

All I wish for is Eufy to stop making new crap products and start focussing on seriously improving the quality and reliability of their app.

Probably worth me updating this.
I've still got the same setup as above and have to say I've extremely happy with the both S230 and S120, I've not had a single issue where the cameras dont load and quality on the 2K footage is great.

You are correct on the motion detection, the S230 is mental sensitive and even though is turned down and I've setup the geofencing its still catches everything from a wasp upwards.
Battery on the solar cameras has been impecable, not seen below 70% charge on either of yet, however the doorbell is not the same. Have to charge it every couple of months and while the responsivness and quality is excellent I will be looking to get a solar module for it.

I dont like the app, mainly the GUI and navigation of it. Its not as simple or user friendly as it should be but it works for me and I dont have any performance problems with it.
All in all perfectky happy so far minus the doorbell battery life.