I have put a reasonable amount of research into security cameras recently and started putting together a bit of a system although less from a security perspective but more to be able to check on the dog downstairs when WFH...
I'll try and break a few things down for you because personally I am not a fan of cloud storage options.
There are three types of storage you can get: Cloud, On Camera (SD card) and NVR (local storage solution which could be a recorder or more generic PC/network attached hard drive) and usually some combination of 2 or all 3.
If you are looking for cloud storage only then there are various options. Most require monthly subscriptions for storage and AI features such a person detection. Some will offer a free tier that gives a rolling 7 or 14 days storage.
In the cloud storage space the main players are Google Nest, Amazon Ring and Netgear Arlo.
- Google Nest
- Don't offer a spotlight camera
- Has a Video Doorbell that could cover your front door instead of a spotlight
- Their cheapest camera starts at £110
- Offers integration with Google Home and other nest products like the thermostat
- Requires a subscription for storage starting at £5 per month
- Doesn't offer any local storage
- Amazon Ring
- Has a spotlight camera. Starts at £180
- Also have various indoor cameras and also a video doorbell.
- Also requires a subscription I think starts at £2.50 and goes up from there
- Has minimal Google Home integration but will obviously work a lot better with Alexa
- Netgear Arlo
- Wide array of camera systems including spotlights, wireless cams, video doorbells
- I think their physical cameras are much better than either ring or nest although they have so many different versions now it's hard to keep up
- Their cost however is much higher I think about £250-350 for their cheapest two camera systems
- However, this includes a base unit which offers some local storage options
- They also offer a free subscription tier which I think offers free 7 days subscription but I'm not sure that still exists
- However, the free subscription doesn't offer any of the extra AI type features like facial recognition
- Should work with both Google Assistant and Alexa
There is another manufacturer who are sort of in this space:
- Eufy Cam
- Offer very similar products to all of the above in video doorbells, spotlight cams
- They are generally cheaper than their rivals above
- As with Arlo they offer a base station for local storage however not all of their cameras support it which I didn't like
- None of their AI features require a subscription.
- I believe they offer a cloud service but I couldn't find details of it on a very brief search.
- Part of the reason I didn't go for these it that there are various features I wanted that their support team are apparently "working on" but never seemed to appear
However, I did not like the idea of going down any of the above routes (although I was closest to going with Eufy cam). Ultimately with these cameras their usefulness is entirely tied to the subscriptions because in most cases that is the only way to store recordings. With some of these cameras various features are only available if you pay the subscription fee as well so I would hate to think what would happen in a few years if Amazon or Google etc. decided to stop supporting a particular product. Google have already had a history of this as they changed the way Nest devices could integrate with third party systems to lock everything down which removed a lot of functionality for users who relied on other smart home apps that Google's own. Also nothing is cross compatible so you cannot simply mix and match the best products from different companies and if you want to add to your system in the future you would have to stay with the same manufacturer.
The route I chose to go down was to use cameras that support a local streaming protocol called RTSP and ONVIF. These expose a local stream on your network which you can log in to and view like going to a web page. The brand I have gone for is Reolink (they are pretty cheap and always on a lightning deal on Amazon) but there are plenty of others. These support an SD card for local storage but also crucially RTSP so I can eventually hook them up to a home server using some recording software or a Synology NAS (1 camera free and costs about £40 per camera after that) to record everything and I could then back that up to the cloud if I wanted. The other thing is because RTSP is an open standard I could buy cameras from other manufacturers and be able to hook them up to my system. I would say Reolink were perfect for you but they don't currently offer their cloud service in the UK due to not meeting GDPR. However, like I have said I am not a fan of cloud subscriptions for this kind of thing so if you were willing to drop that requirement for storage on an SD card (you can still access your recordings and live stream via and app) I would recommend them.
At the very bottom of the spectrum and if you are particularly sneaky and tech savvy there are Wyze cams which cost about £20 each so are a dirt cheap entry into the security camera world. These aren't technically available in the UK but there are various companies selling the same camera model which is possible to flash the firmware from Wyze on to, which I think gives you some access to their cloud storage options... But that is all starting to get a little ridiculous...
What I discovered and hopefully you can tell from the above that it is a little bit of a minefield. It becomes even more of a minefield if like me you are interested in trying to hook up motion events into a smart home system as well but I will leave that one there or I will be here all night.