The Best Smart Indoor Security Cameras of 2021

The Arlo Ultra 2 is widely considered one of the best systems that Arlo has to offer as a company. There's a good reason for that: it includes great zoom features, two-way audio, and high resolution video that captures a crisp view of anything that happens to be going on in the vicinity. Plus, it has 24/7 recording, night vision, wireless connectivity, and cloud and local storage options.

Unlike many of the other cameras in this price range, the Arlo Ultra Series does not feature any AI support. It also has a significant livestream delay for when you're watching your recordings or live feed via the app. The lag does bring it down significantly, especially since it has so much else going for it. But if you can't see most of what's going down live in a reasonable amount of time, that's a major lack of security and peace of mind for users.

Otherwise, the Arlo Ultra 2 offers much of what users have come to expect from the brand -- it just seems to suffer from the same problems many of the other cameras in the series do. It all depends on what needs you’re looking to fill in the end, but the lag really kills it for this one.

The Lorex Indoor/Outdoor WiFi Security Camera has useful features like color night vision, smart motion detection, and smart deterrence capabilities like a remote-triggered siren and a motion-activated LED light. It captures easy-to-see 1080p video both day and night, quickly sends accurate smart alerts, and has stronger weather ratings for extreme heat and freezing cold temperatures than other outdoor security cameras we’ve tested.

The camera is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and it can also be managed using the Lorex Home app. Continuous recording is available on the camera when using the included 256GB microSD card, and recording schedules can be set up within the app. Lorex cameras can also accurately differentiate between people and vehicles at close range and had no problem spotting someone 50 feet away. The camera isn’t as smart as Nest and Arlo outdoor cameras, which can alert you to animals and packages, in addition to people and cars.

Lorex’s camera is rated for indoor and outdoor use, and one of its strongest features is its IP65 weather-resistant rating. The camera can withstand temperatures as hot as 140 degrees Fahrenheit and as cold as -22 degrees.

Like Arlo cameras, the Lorex Indoor/Outdoor camera features a siren that can be triggered remotely from the Lorex Home app or automatically when motion is detected, but the siren is too soft to deter unwanted guests. It also lacks two-factor authentication and requires a nearby outlet for power. Overall, the Lorex camera makes a good option for a reliable home security camera that can be used inside or out.

The D-Link Omna 180 Cam HD is the only Apple HomeKit-enabled indoor security camera in this roundup and as a camera, it's the best we tested. The lens is phenomenally wide at a full 180 degrees, and razor-sharp edge to edge. Compared to a camera like the Blink Cam, which offers a mere 110 degrees, it’s almost like getting two cameras for the price of one. Footage from the Omna 180 looks just as good at night as it does in daylight, too. The camera is easy to get running, thanks to HomeKit’s simple setup process, and the app is pretty straightforward.

There’s just one big hitch: notifications. To put it simply, once they're activated, there’s no way to stop them aside from manually shutting them off. There’s no notification scheduling, no snoozing, no nothing. They're just on or off. That wouldn’t be so bad if there was a convenient on/off toggle, but no such thing exists; the option is buried deep in a submenu of a submenu, which makes it a chore to enable and disable. When you add in the fact that the Omna HD only works on iOS and that it’s the only camera we tested that doesn’t offer some sort of cloud storage option (all videos are saved to a microSD card instead), you’ve got a recipe for a camera not many people will want to buy, despite the awesome optics.

The Kangaroo Security Camera is a diminutive yet functional piece of tech that's highly affordable and unique. It's simple to install indoors, offers decidedly sharp footage at 1080p resolution, and even comes with a special privacy shield to ensure the camera isn't seeing anything it shouldn’t. When you do allow the camera to operate, it can detect both motion and sound, depending on the parameters you set within its app.

You can set up Alexa or Google Assistant to run certain routines if you'd prefer some functions to be automated. For instance, you can instruct your digital assistant to schedule your camera to turn on or off at a certain time. One of the camera's biggest draws is its free 24 hours of cloud storage, so you can always have the past day's-worth of security footage to look back on if necessary.

Unfortunately, the Kangaroo camera also has issues with recognizing some things due to its AI-powered detection software, which is supposed to differentiate between people, cars, and animals.. In our testing, the Kangaroo camera was often set off when the phone rang, when no motion was detected. During other times, the camera would completely fail to recognize a small dog crossing its path. Compounding the potential frustration here, the camera's night vision can also be a bit unreliable. There's also some sluggish response times, with some expanded features requiring subscriptions.

The Swann Tracker another camera that does include plenty of features, but unfortunately also forces users to deal with some frustrating communication delay and issues with settings. Sometimes, the camera light refused to shut off when it was supposed to, and there was also some lag in terms of live viewing. During initial setup, the camera failed to make a connection until multiple restarts were performed.

On the plus side, the Tracker boasts excellent 1080p video, a 180-degree field of view, and an abundance of local storage (a whopping 2TB) to keep all the hours of footage that you need. It can't be used for outdoor surveillance, but using it inside will net you automatic pan and zoom features as well as two-way audio, night vision with infrared view, and automatic motion tracking.

The camera's design is intriguing enough, resembling something like a lollipop. Its app is easy to use,, but the Tracker suffers significant lag in its two-way communication. When you go into your app to change up settings as well, sometimes your alterations aren't saved, which can lead to some serious frustrations.

We loved Nest’s outdoor security camera, so it came as a bit of a surprise that the Nest Cam Indoor lagged so far behind in our testing. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it: It produces very good video and offers great two-way audio, it’s well-built, easy to set up, and the app is among the best in the business. It just doesn't stand out among these cameras like the outdoor version did among its rivals.

It took longer to start streaming than several other cameras. And while others offer at least a day of free cloud backups, Nest doesn't offer any cloud storage or facial recognition without a subscription plan. The list of near misses goes on and on. If you’re already invested in the Nest ecosystem, by all means, go ahead and grab a few of these. (Especially if you’ve already bought into a Nest Aware subscription.) But if you’re not, there are better values out there.

Editor’s note 05/19/2021: This week, Eufy security cameras experienced a privacy breach in which video feeds were exposed, affecting 712 users. Eufy’s official statement says the event happened on May 17 at 4:50 a.m. ET due to a software update performed on its servers, affecting “users in the U.S, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina.” “Our engineering team identified the issue at 5:30 a.m. ET and immediately rolled back the server version and deployed an emergency update. The incident was fixed at 6:30 a.m. ET,” the company said, also adding that it is beefing up security features like network architecture, two-way authentication, as well as upgrading its servers.

Eufy recommends unplugging and reconnecting the home base, as well as logging out and back into the Eufy Security app to resolve the issue. We’ve reached out to Eufy for more information and are currently reevaluating our Eufy recommendations. This is breaking news and we will update this post once we know more. Read Eufy’s full statement here.

The Eufy Indoor Security Camera is a slick, modern-looking option that's extremely affordable. It not only features 2K resolution and runs off of AC power, but it also utilizes AI to detect people, animals, cars, or even a crying baby. Coupled with its motion detector, this can make for a useful camera that can be relied on in many living situations.

Its motion detector is quite accurate, and since the camera itself is simple to install, you can put it just about anywhere in your home. If it's easier for you to automate home security recordings, which the Eufy can do, the camera can be set up with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. This way you can set up motion detection alerts up with event-triggered monitoring that’s set off with special activity zones. For example, if something walks into said zone, your camera will send you an alert.

The camera is easy to set up, with 2K quality video footage and the option to automatically issue commands. Unfortunately, as the camera is a bit larger than others on the market, takes up a lot of space in comparison to most cameras. And despite how competent the camera can be in some areas, the AI often has issues recognizing and differentiating between people or other types of motion. We also experienced multiple delays when using the app. If the camera suffered from less lag, it would be a much easier choice to recommend.

The black metal Kasa Cam looks great, and its high-quality video makes your house and family look good too. It’s produces great footage, with realistic colors and balanced lighting.

Sadly, the app doesn’t quite live up to the camera’s quality. The setup process is a little clunky, and the app oddly doesn’t let you take photos or videos from the live stream. Streaming started the slowest of all the cameras we tested, and when you’re using two-way audio, the app waits for you to finish talking before sending everything you said to the camera’s weak speaker in one chunk, leading to awkward delays.

With its low price, you might expect this security camera to be a piece of junk. The Wyze Cam is not. With 1080p resolution, easy ways to schedule alerts and adjust the sensitivity, and a genius feature that can notify you if your smoke alarm or carbon monoxide alarm goes off, this camera has everything most users would need, and it only costs $26.

The Wyze Cam’s field of view is a lean 110 degrees, the smallest of any camera we tested, but with its low price and with no cloud storage fees, you could always add more cameras for more coverage. The Wyze Cam is easy to adjust and light enough that you don’t need screws for mounting, just the included magnetic plate that sticks to your wall or ceiling with adhesive.

Wyze Cam captures video in 1080p, 720p, or 360p, and shows you how much bandwidth you’re using at all times. The video quality is very good, with just an occasional stutter in the live stream when viewing it at 1080p. Night vision was adequate once it kicked in, and a button on the live view lets you engage it manually if the Auto feature is struggling to keep the camera shooting in color when there isn’t enough light for it.

The app could be a little better organized. Its controls and settings are easy to use, but notifications and the videos you saved yourself are kept in two different places, which isn't that intuitive.

Still, we’re willing to forgive these shortcomings since Wyze Cam gives you 14 days of rolling cloud storage for free to save motion clips, and has an SD card slot if you want continuous recording. It’s not perfect, but there’s a lot to love.

Wyze cameras offer free 14-day cloud storage, but we prefer the stationary Wyze V2 camera over the Cam Pan. While the Pan camera can track motion, its movement was choppy, struggling to keep up with my family members as they walked through the room. It can also cycle through four preset camera positions, which helps with that issue somewhat.

The audio on the Wyze Cam Pan also didn’t live up to the Wyze Cam v2, with a longer delay and less volume. If you need to monitor a large area, you're better to just stick up multiple units of the Wyze Cam v2 to watch multiple locations from one app.

Swann is a security retailer that takes its hardware seriously. The company doesn't flaunt the same bells and whistles as other manufacturers, and as such you get a no-frills camera with the Swann Enforcer. It performs most of its duties well, and you can certainly count on it to take on the role of sole security system in your home. It’s not as feature-rich as our top pick, SimCam, which offers AI-powered detection on board as well as person, facial, car, and pet detection.

The Enforcer camera itself looks great, and it packs an ear-piercing alarm to help deter intruders from coming into your home. You pay no monthly fees to keep the camera live, and you can even use it outside, thanks to weatherproofing and thermal sensors. Though there are no subscriptions, you can still count on 24/7 recording with wireless support via the cloud or local storage as well as night vision.

Unfortunately, though, the Swann Enforcer lacks a zoom feature. It's self-monitored (there is no 24/7 monitoring unless you watch it yourself), and we experienced instances when it failed to respond to motion or heat, which is a big demerit for a security system. Warm objects like people or cars should trip the Enforcer's lights, though it isn't meant to detect flames or anything of that nature. Still, detecting humans by way of warmth is a very interesting feature.
With all that in mind, it's good for a basic system, but you might want to opt for something more robust, depending on your needs.

The Nooie Cam 360 is a budget-friendly indoor home security camera that features motion tracking and, as the name implies, 360-degree rotation. The camera is equipped with a 1080p high-def lens and two 940nm infrared LEDs. It has other smart camera features like two-way audio functionality, night vision, and a status light indicator that can be toggled on or off.

The camera excels at tracking motion motion and detecting sound, but is sensitive to normal settings. However, you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion and sound alerts within the Nooie app. Push notifications come in a timely manner, but there are no photo or video preview options for you to quickly check and see what’s happening. With the Nooie Cam 360, you have to pay for cloud storage if you don’t want to use a microSD card to back up your camera’s event history.

There’s no support for Apple’s Siri but the Nooie Cam 360 easily integrates with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. With a smart display like the Echo Show 5 or the Nest Hub Max, you can ask Google or Alexa to “view the [room name] camera” and a live stream with audio will appear on screen.

For a smarter 360-degree camera that offers 1080p resolution, we recommend our No. 1 pick for indoor smart cameras, the SimCam 1S. It retails for more than double the price of the Nooie Cam 360, but there's no subscription fee, it works with Alexa and Google, and it can differentiate between people, animals, and more for more intelligent smart alerts.

Like the Nest Cam, Netgear’s Arlo suffered in the move indoors. Once again, it was simply outpaced by cheaper, more capable rivals like the Logi Circle and Yi Dome Cam. The app took a surprisingly long time to start streaming, and had more of a delay than most other cameras we tested; sometimes the stream would lag more than a minute behind real-world events. It’s worth mentioning that we tested these cameras on a weak WiFi network, but all were tested under the same circumstances. While others coped with the conditions, the Arlo Q stumbled.

But it’s not all bad. The Arlo Q is well made, with a physical design much like the Nest Cam Indoor’s. Setup is simple, and the app—while far from being as intuitive as Logi’sor Nest’s—has lots of options for those who like to really tweak their setup. Perhaps the best thing about the Arlo Q is that Netgear offers a full week of cloud backups for free. That makes it a pretty good bargain—as long as you have a good router and internet connection, anyway.

Canary’s flagship security camera is pretty (it reminded us of the monolith from 2001) and the app is good-looking, too. The camera also houses a very loud siren, which is a great feature if you need to scare off an intruder or play a prank on your family. (Just kidding! Don't do this. It's really loud.) The device starts streaming quickly and image quality is good, if not great. It’s also very good at recognizing when you’re home and when you’re not, putting the camera in the right mode based on that info. There are other neat customizations, like a feature that auto-populates local emergency phone numbers so you can dial with one click. Still, the app is short on options—you can’t customize much at all—and the camera is missing features common on other devices, like two-way audio. Given the relatively high asking price, there are simply better options.

Blink's battery-powered cameras get a lot of love from the DIY security crowd, and it’s easy to see why. Its cameras are small, they run for years on readily available lithium AA batteries, and they're relatively affordable. (You can get three cameras and a sync module for a fraction more than most cameras in this list go for alone.) That means you can put them just about anywhere in your house without worry, or so you'd think.

Unfortunately, in our experience, setup was a pain, the Blink app was an ugly, buggy mess, and live streaming took forever to start, often failing entirely. (Get used to seeing “System is busy, please wait.”) If you don’t care about live streaming and just want motion-triggered clips, the experience is better. Despite its 720p resolution, the Blink Indoor Camera produces very nice footage, and you get free cloud storage for up to 1,440 five-second clips. The clips are easy to retrieve, download, and share, too.