Best Outdoor Security Cameras of 2020

Overview
There are so many reasons to like outdoor security cameras, but the biggest by far is that they’re weatherproof. They can handle the moisture, dust, and temperatures that don’t play nice with electronics.

On top of weatherproofing, outdoor cameras also boast clear night vision and motion detection to help you watch over your home any time of day.

But how do you choose the right one? Read our reviews to find the best outdoor security cameras for your home.

The Arlo Pro 3 tops this list because its wireless design makes it flexible enough to install anywhere you need it. While it doesn’t have advanced facial recognition software like the Google Nest Cam IQ Outdoor, it’s more affordable, costing around $150 less per camera.

We also like that Arlo gives you seven days of video history for free, which is more than any other outdoor security camera brand we looked at.

Arlo Pro 3 cameras offer precisely what you’d expect from a quality outdoor security camera: a motion sensor, infrared night vision, two-way audio, a mobile app, and a weatherproof design. While you can get these same features with the other cameras on this list, we think that the Arlo Pro 3 hits the right notes with its price and high-quality video to top the competition.

With its 2K video resolution, the Arlo Pro 3 has better video quality than every camera we reviewed, except the Arlo Ultra, which has 4K video. While 2K video isn’t a huge increase like 4K, it still fits more detail in your videos.

If you want 30 days of video storage, you can subscribe to Arlo Smart for $2.99 a month per camera. This is one penny less than Ring’s subscription plan and $2 less than Google Nest’s cheapest plan. Overall it’s the most affordable cloud storage we’ve seen for outdoor surveillance cameras.

Other than more video storage, the paid plan gives you better motion detection through custom zones and advanced AI detection, so the camera’s more likely to spot people in its field of view.

The Arlo Pro 3 has a magnetic charge cable (unfortunately, you can only use it indoors). This is especially helpful since you don’t have to take the camera off the wall (provided it’s close enough to an outlet) and fiddle with a USB cable. There’s an added layer of protection since the cable won’t pull the camera off the wall if someone snags the cable accidentally.

Arlo sells a few useful accessories to help you use the camera outdoors without charging the battery too often: a 25-foot outdoor cable, extra batteries, and a solar panel.

We like that the Arlo Pro 3 works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant so that you can view the video on devices like the Amazon Echo Show and Google Nest Hub.

All of Arlo’s wireless security cameras require a base station to operate. This helps keep the cameras relatively small and light. It also has the added benefit of letting you connect a USB drive to store videos locally without an internet connection.

ASecureLife’s recommendation: The Arlo Pro 3 is a capable outdoor security camera that you can place anywhere thanks to a wireless design. Its free cloud storage handily beats the competition, making the Arlo Pro 3 a good option if you don’t want to pay for a monthly subscription.

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>>Learn about other Arlo security cameras in our full review.

The Blink XT2 is budget-friendly in two ways: the camera itself is affordable, and it comes with free cloud storage. For such a low price, you shouldn’t expect the Blink XT2 to outperform any of the other outdoor cameras on this list.

But at about half the price, it’s a great deal on a dependable little security camera. It’s also wireless so that you can set it up almost anywhere. Plus, its black exterior and small size mean the Blink XT2 is an excellent option if you want a discreet security camera.

The Blink XT2 has a good video resolution of 1080p, which matches most other outdoor security cameras, though the field of view is narrower than we’d like. It even has a built-in speaker for two-way audio so you can speak with visitors near your camera (something the original Blink XT lacked).

Battery life on the Blink XT2 is about two years, longer than other outdoor cameras, though this goes down the more you use two-way audio and stream live video.

There are drawbacks with such a low price. The livestreaming interface won’t let you watch for more than 30 seconds without asking if you want to keep watching. Sure, it helps save battery life, but it’s still inconvenient.

Blink’s free cloud storage is likewise limited. The Blink XT2 saves the video in short clips up to 60 seconds long, depending on the settings you use. You can record up to two hours of security footage (likely more than you would ever care to watch). When the cloud storage is full, it automatically deletes the oldest clips to make room for new ones.

This camera is compatible with Alexa devices like the Echo Spot and Echo Show, which you can use to watch video clips and get notifications about motion near the camera. Although these Alexa features are helpful, we think that Ring is a better option for Alexa users since it doesn’t have the same restrictions on livestreaming.

ASecureLife’s recommendation: If you’d like a small, wireless, weatherproof security camera, the Blink XT2 is a solid, low-cost choice.

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>>Learn more about Blink security cameras in our full review.

The Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is one of the best outdoor cameras to use if you have a smart home that revolves around Amazon Alexa. It works with various Amazon Echo products to give you live video and audio notifications.

While most other cameras on this list also work with Amazon Alexa, we like that Ring’s an Amazon company so it’s more likely to work seamlessly with Alexa than non-Amazon cameras. Yes, Blink is also an Amazon company, but Ring edges it out with better hardware and streaming options.

In many ways, the Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is a better security camera than the Blink XT2. It costs about the same, connects directly to your Wi-Fi network without a hub, and doesn’t have any restrictions on streaming live video.

The biggest drawback of the Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is that it doesn’t have free cloud storage like Blink does. Because you pay a subscription fee, the ongoing costs eventually make it too expensive to be our budget pick.

Without a subscription, you can’t view anything but the camera’s live video feed. You’ll get a notification if there’s activity in front of the camera, but you have to check the live video right away.

Despite the extra monthly costs, the Ring Protect video storage subscription is one of the best among security cameras, outdoor or otherwise. You get 60 days of video history for $3 a month for one camera, which is more generous than the 30 days you get from Arlo for the same price.

If you upgrade to the pricier Ring Protect Plus plan for $10 a month, you get a lot of benefits. These benefits include unlimited cameras in your home, an extended warranty, discounts in the Ring store, and professional security monitoring for the Ring Alarm security system. Ring’s professional monitoring alone is one of the best deals in home security.

ASecureLife’s recommendation: The Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is a great alternative to the Blink XT2 and a fine addition to any Alexa-powered smart home. While the paid video storage makes it more expensive in the long run, we think it’s one of the best values for cloud storage.

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>>Learn more about what works with Ring.

The Google Nest Cam IQ Outdoor has some of the most advanced features available in a security camera. It’s the only camera on this list made by Google, which makes it an ideal choice for a Google Assistant-centric smart home.

The Nest Cam IQ’s facial recognition technology goes beyond the typical “person detection” of some other security cameras. It can track familiar faces like your family and friends, which lets you customize mobile app alerts to highlight or ignore specific individuals.

The Google Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is impressive. We almost chose it for our upgrade pick but ruled it out because its free video history options are minimal compared to Arlo. It’s also the most expensive camera on our list.

The Nest IQ has the Arlo Ultra beat on one front: with an operating temperature of -40°F to 113°F, it can withstand the extreme cold better than most. (Almost every other outdoor camera bottoms out at -4°F.)

As we noted in our review of the best security cameras, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor has 1080p video resolution with the ability to capture still images in 4K resolution. While this is a disadvantage against true 4K security cameras like the Arlo Ultra when it comes to overall quality, it won’t strain your internet connection with data-hungry 4K video.

Unlike the other cameras on this list, there’s not a battery-powered Nest Cam IQ Outdoor, so you can’t install it too far from a power outlet. Luckily, the camera includes a very long power cable—25-feet long—so you’re not limited to mounting the camera next to your front door. There is an advantage to requiring a power cable: you don’t have to charge the camera.

ASecureLife’s recommendation: The Google Nest Cam IQ is arguably the most advanced outdoor security camera on the market. It’s a great fit for any home, especially if you use Google Assistant.

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>>Learn more about Google Nest’s outdoor cameras in our full review.

If you’ve got a bit of extra cash to spend, we think you’ll get what you pay for. The Arlo Ultra costs around $600 for a set of two cameras ($300 each), which is about $100 cheaper than two of the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor.

With a superwide lens, 4K video, and HDR, the Ultra is more or less unrivaled in the consumer security camera space. This camera can simply show you more.

The visuals aren’t the only impressive thing about the Ultra: it’s also got two-way communication with noise-canceling to keep the sound clear, a motion-activated spotlight, and a siren to help scare off unwanted intruders.

Plus, it’s compatible with more third-party platforms than many other cameras. The Arlo Ultra works with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Watch.

Arlo currently offers customers a free year of Arlo Smart with the purchase of an Ultra. It adds the following perks:

• Distinct object detection: receive separate notifications for people, animals, vehicles, and packages.
• Custom activity zones: get alerts when motion occurs in specific, hand-selected areas.
• Emergency call service: gives you the option to send emergency responders straight to your home when you get a mobile notification.

ASecureLife’s recommendation: We’re excited about all the high-end tech and handy features offered by the Arlo Ultra. If your budget has some extra wiggle room, you’ll have one of the latest, greatest outdoor security cameras on the market.

>>View on Amazon

>>Learn about other Arlo security cameras in our full review.

To choose the cameras on this list, we looked at the top sellers at online retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Home Depot. Rather than include every outdoor camera under the sun, we identified five categories that mattered and found the top representatives of each category, as well as three honorable mentions. We also checked to see if there were new versions of cameras from our previous update of this article.

We also considered specific factors in each camera’s design that, in our experience, are essential to every outdoor camera:

Weatherproofing

Weatherproofing makes a camera more durable by adding rubber seals in places otherwise vulnerable to water and dust. All of the cameras we selected meet this requirement so you can use them under a variety of weather conditions.

Price

We purposefully selected cameras with different prices to accommodate a variety of budgets and to show you what to expect at different pricing tiers.

None of the cameras on this list costs more than $400 per camera. Arlo’s cameras come in only sets of two but still hold to the cost-per-camera limit.

Video resolution

All of the latest outdoor security cameras come with an HD video resolution of 1080p or higher, so we set this as our minimum standard and excluded models with 720p resolution or lower.

Power source: wireless vs. wired

The best wireless security cameras give you the freedom to place a camera for the best view, so most of our top picks don’t use a power cord (especially since some power cords are laughably short).

We made one exception to the battery-powered rule with the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor and its 25-foot cable. It’s a good alternative for people who don’t want to swap or recharge batteries every few months.

Mobile app and Wi-Fi connection

We made sure all of the cameras we chose have Wi-Fi connectivity so the camera can upload its video to the cloud. You can view video footage anywhere in the world using a camera’s mobile app on your smartphone.

Video doorbells

We didn’t include any doorbell cameras since they’re a separate category of outdoor camera. They’re great for watching over your home from the front or back door, but don’t work in other locations like standard security cameras.

>>Read our full review to learn more about the best video doorbells.

CCTV camera systems

CCTV camera systems are one of the most cost-effective ways to add a lot of security cameras to your home. These systems usually come with multiple cameras that connect to a video recorder inside your home.

Unfortunately, they can be a bit difficult to set up since they require individual power cables for each camera. If you’re up to the challenge of installing a CCTV camera system, they’re worth considering.

>>Read our full review to learn more about the best CCTV systems.

Although there’s a huge selection of outdoor security cameras, some products don’t make the top rankings. Here are a few notable brands with excellent cameras in their own right, despite our nitpicks.

The Logitech Circle 2 is a popular security camera with many reviewers, and some will disagree with our choice to leave it out of our top five. Ultimately, we left it out because Arlo has better customer reviews and more free video history.

But the Logitech Circle 2 is still a great camera with a remarkably wide field of view—180° as opposed to the standard 130°. It’s priced affordably and comes in a wired or wireless version. While it isn’t our favorite, it’s a serious contender.

The Kasa Cam Outdoor is a great budget camera you can get for less than $100 and has an impressive two-year warranty. Nest is the only other brand that offers as much coverage.

What we didn’t like about Kasa is that its free cloud storage option has an expiration date. After two years, you need to upgrade to a paid plan to keep your recordings. We like to think of it as the longest free trial in the industry.

Canary makes only a single outdoor security camera: the Canary Flex. It’s a good camera, but we found it didn’t perform as well as Canary’s wired models in tests. Strangely, Canary ties its two-way audio to a paid subscription. Most other brands include this feature for free, so it’s not the best option if you want two-way communication.

We think that all of the outdoor security cameras on our list will do the job of helping you watch over your home. That said, each camera has strengths that might meet your needs more than other units.

• If you want a capable outdoor security camera with one of the best free cloud storage plans, go for the Arlo Pro 3.
• If you’re on a tight budget, take a gander at the Blink XT2.
• If you want affordable premium cloud storage, pick up a Ring Stick Up Cam Battery.
• If you want advanced facial recognition and seamless Google Assistant compatibility, think Nest Cam IQ Outdoor.
• If you want 4K video resolution and a free year of premium cloud storage, consider splurging on an Arlo Ultra.

Want to see how the best outdoor security cameras stack up against indoor models? Read our security camera reviews.

Are you looking for a home security system with security cameras? Check out our review of the best home security camera systems.

Contributing author: Brianna Jensen

Sources:

1. DSM&T Co. Inc., “IP Rating Chart”