I tested four AI-enabled home security cameras — but this is the one I'd actually buy

Tom's Guide

18 hours ago

Security cameras have come such a long, long way from the blurry, black and white CCTV cameras used in businesses just a few decades ago.
From night vision, two-way talk, pan and tilt, privacy shutters and alarms, there's a whole host of features that come with the best home security cameras – and almost all of them can be controlled right from your smart phone.
These days more and more smart home cameras are incorporating AI and touting AI-enhanced features to try and impress potential customers. As with any feature though, it's worth testing and trying out all the bells and whistles to make sure that they actually stand up to real-life situations and aren't just a fancy add-on to help justify a higher price.
To that end, I took four of the most popular smart home cameras from well known manufacturers, and tried out the AI features on each one to see how they stacked up in real-world use and against each other.
Ring's second generation Indoor Cam is a lightweight, cylindrical camera with an adjustable mount, a wired connection and a manual (as well as removable) privacy cover that, when shut, will turn off both the video and audio feeds. We like it as a budget choice because it offers 1080p HD video and color night vision, two-way talk and a siren all for $60.
It has features like customizable motion zones, real-time notifications, quick replies with pre-recorded responses and, my personal favorite, motion alerts with advanced pre-roll that let you see a short snippet of the recorded activity right from the notifications on your phone. You can also view the live feed as a picture-in-picture view within the app while performing other tasks.
The Ring Indoor Cam (2023) can record 1080p video, scare off intruders with a built-in siren, and detect motion in specified zones. It's also more compact than the previous model with the addition of a new privacy shutter and upgraded mount.
Ring's Home plan provides users with 180 days of recorded history and access to it's main AI feature: Smart Video Search. The AI feature is only available on the Premium tier of the plan for $19.99/month. This feature uses AI to help you find what you're looking for in your recorded event history and it was, in a word, essential. It is an absolute winner of a feature. It makes finding any clip, or searching for anything specific, incredibly easy.
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I was able to search by general terms, for example "kids running," or "cats at night," or even "person wearing black" and get many results organized by date and time. I went from thinking this was not going to be an impressive feature, to realizing I would not want to have a smart home security camera without it.
Ring Home also has a feature called Device Modes that lets users easily change modes and customize settings in regard to how the camera records when you're away, but you can also turn it off when you're home. This was helpful too because it meant the camera essentially disabled itself while we were home, so I didn't get dozens of alerts every time a cat moved through the motion zone.
Eufy's Indoor Cam C220 has 2K video with night vision and a full 360 degree pan and tilt (which is a feature I use frequently). It has multiple mounting options, and a privacy mode where it will turn its camera away and turn itself off. It requires no subscription to use but if you want any video playback you'll either need to pay for cloud storage or use an SD card.
The noise recognition on this device is great, it regularly picks up sound in the next room or two over, but that does mean you'll get extra notifications for what it senses. And while it touts real-time notifications, I did notice a small lag in that area.
The app is very intuitive to use, and offers a lot of control over two-way talk, night vision, zoom, motion zones and more. For the price point there is a lot to like about this indoor security camera.
Eufy's C220 provides a full 360 degree field of view, great noise recognition, clear 2K video day or night and an intuitive app. There's no subscription required but you will need to sign up for a cloud service or use a microSD card to get video playback features. It's built-in AI features will also identify and follow any movement that crosses its path.
Eufy's AI features are mainly grouped around how the camera can locate motion and track it. This is a feature that I've grown fond of as I've continuously tested the camera over the past several weeks. It's quite useful to know that the device is tracking whatever motion it senses in the room – particularly when I have been using it as a baby monitor in the kids room.
However, it sometimes will grab motion and then wander into a corner, which leaves it in a position where I have a bad view. So the feature has a few drawbacks, and you have to play around with it a bit at times to get it to function right in particular rooms or at certain angles.
The camera was able to pick up motion even in my kids cluttered bedroom, at night and even when the motion was a black cat, or my tiniest cat who is less than five pounds. And when one of the kids had a nightmare, it did a good job of sending an alert to my phone about detecting noise and motion so that I was able to get there quickly.
The Wyze Cam V4 is a petite, boxy little thing that looks like it could be the star of a Pixar film. It features a 2.5K QHD video resolution, 116-degree field of vision, color night vision and local storage thanks to an SD card slot. It's rated IP65 weatherproof so it's one of the options on here that can also be used outdoors like one of the best outdoor security cameras, and it has a motion activated spotlight and siren along with two way communication.
The Wyze Cam V4 has multiple mounting options, but there's no privacy shutter. Likewise, a lot of the features that come included with other smart security cameras are only available on a higher tier subscription called Cam Unlimited ($9.99/month) which includes custom automations, facial recognition and smart modes.
It's also worth noting is that all my Wyze notifications were automatically sent to my iOS summary so I wasn't initially seeing them because I wasn't looking for them in a "smart" place.
The Wyze Cam v4 is small, lightweight, and inexpensive but still offers a lot of punch when it comes to quality and features: 2.5K QHD video with color night vision, two-way audio, local recording courtesy of an microSD card slot, a 116 degree field of view, a motion activated spotlight and it's IP65 weatherproof as well.
Wyze's AI capabilities center around Smart Focus: an AI motion tracking feature which can identify, zoom in and follow a subject as it moves around the camera's field of view. It will capture subjects within a virtual box, identify them as a person or pet and then follow them while they appear on camera.
Wyze's person/pet identifier had no issue identifying my family members, even when my kitchen table was cluttered with backpacks and buckets of Lego, or tracking my kids when they were jumping all over the place.
Two of the features I like most — finding relevant videos using AI and Descriptive Alerts which provides detailed descriptions of the motion events in the notifications (i.e. "Front Door camera saw a suspicious person pick up a package on your porch.") — are only available with Cam Unlimited Pro, one of the priciest plans at $19.99 a month.
Arlo's Essential Indoor 2nd Gen camera has a lot of the same features as the other cameras on this list: It records 2K (or HD) video, has night vision, two way audio, real time notifications and an automatic privacy shield. The hardware and software here are fairly straightforward and uncomplicated.
Its image based motion detection will catch people, animals, package deliveries, vehicles and uniquely (though I didn't test this) fires. There's no local storage, but it does offer modes and automations from within the app for the camera to schedule. The Essential Indoor 2nd Gen camera also has a siren and can work to contact first responders (police, fire or medical aid) by sharing your location and additional information.
Arlo's second generation, wired indoor security camera offers two-way audio and 2K video quality. Real time notifications are sent when the camera senses motion, and live video streaming can be viewed within the Arlo app. Remote siren activation, night vision and a 130 degree field of view are also controlled within the app, and the camera can be paired with smart home assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant as well as IFTTT automations.
Arlo's AI features all fall into the Arlo Secure Plan (starting at $7.99/month) which really centers around an improved sense of home security: there are four features in the AI-enhanced plan, which Arlo says delivers personalized, actionable alerts around the clock for better emergency responses.
First, you can view, share and save 60 days of video and event recordings, however, there's no way to search through them easily aside from date or time. Next is the real-time alerts about people, vehicles, packages, animals and even fires. I only was able to test for people and pets, but can say this works as advertised.
The last two features are the customizable activity zones that highlight specific areas to focus on; you'll only get alerts for the events that matter most or that happen in the highlighted area when you use this feature. Lastly, there's 24/7 emergency response, a feature unique to Arlo, which allows you to send first responders to your cameras location in a single tap – a feature I wasn't able to specifically test for, but I can see several scenarios where this could be extremely useful.
In the end, not a single one of these cameras performed poorly or let me down. Each one of them has its own pros and cons when it comes to features, set up, hardware designs and app functionality.
I will say that running multiple security cameras all over your home isn't something you should do unless you're very willing to play around with settings and notifications, because it can become overwhelming quickly.
Overall though, I'd say that the AI identification for people, packages, pets and vehicles should be a bare minimum feature that you should find on any home security camera you're interested in. This seems to be a feature that is being offered more and more, and it shouldn't be something you should have to pay extra for (in addition to a regular subscription at least).
That being said, Ring's ability to use AI to enhance the search abilities of the event history is a truly useful feature that worked really well in practice.
So if you find yourself frequently going back through camera events, then its home security cameras should certainly be on your shortlist. And if you don't just want your AI to identify people, but also to literally follow them as they move around your home or property, then Eufy might be a better choice, especially if you don't want have to pay another monthly subscription.