Outdoor Wi-Fi cameras not requiring base station?

I know it may sound like a petty difference, but I’m looking for options for outdoor cameras that work well with SmartThings that connect directly to your existing Wi-Fi network and don’t require an additional base station. The install location is a metal building, which has an outdoor 802.11n access point. I’m concerned the signal from a base station wouldn’t make it outside; plus I really don’t want yet another Wi-Fi signal in the picture. I know that the Nest Cam Outdoor (and the newer IQ model) is supported by the NST Manager SmartApp. But are there any others to choose from? As always, thanks in advance.

Look into this on Amazon:

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Certainly WAY cheaper than the Nest cams, but I don’t see much mentioned in the way of ST integration. Plus, at that price point, I’d be a bit suspect of the overall build quality. But thanks for the input.

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Everything I’ve heard so far is that those are pretty good cameras…I started to get 1 just to test but Wife told me no more cameras so…

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Not directly integrated with smartthings. Can use with IFTTT though

It is actually a pretty good camera quality wise. It “integrates” using IFTTT and will be viewable in actiontiles using tinycam pro as a webserver. It is not a battery powered camera if that makes a difference for you. The night vision for the camera is not the best I have ever seen, but it is definitely not bad either. I will say I get some false positive motion alerts based on changes in light etc. If you are just wanting something to be able to watch the area it would be great. if you are relying on it for purpose of security, notifying you and triggering sirens or flashing lights, I would probably look elsewhere because of the false positive alerts.

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Hi @wmbjr,

You get false positives in Arlo, Blink, etc., what this camera does do which those don’t is have local storage to complement their free (no contract) cloud storage which is just like Blink which I have and love.
The thing you did not tell us is the motion zones which I hear about Wyzecamera can set. Blink/Arlo/etc., don’t have them working properly or not at all.

I do love having access to the local storage which even though it says up to 64GB I have a 128GB in there working fine.

The motion zone is really not that helpful. You have one single rectangle that can range from full screen to only a small portion. While that is better than no zone at all, it has not really cut down the false positives.

They have made strides to improve with the zone and allowing 1-100 level sensitivity adjustments. Unfortunately because all they can do is pixel comparison for determinations of movement, you get clouds blocking sun equaling movement or distant headlights changing the color slightly causing movement. I have several FDT cameras that do a significantly better job at movement determinations but that are large, only 720p and probably sending feeds directly to China. The only thing they have going for them is I get significantly fewer false positives.

Wyze is a great camera. I just can’t rely on it to trigger anything based on movement because I would get 15-20 false alarms during the day because of the sun and another 15-20 at night because of headlights changing the brightness at night.

Have you looked at Foscam Cameras? The R2, C1, C2 and R2C are very capable cameras, inexpensive and run on WiFi. They have multiple detection modes (PIR, Human Detection etc) and even has PTZ movement with a 270 degree coverage.

@RBoy, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check them out. I’m probably leaning toward Nest (not the IQ series…too expensive), but certainly wanted to do my due diligence with other options.

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What is your desired integration within SmartThings?
That’s the key item you left out of your initial post.

Wyze cams are built well for the price and the picture quality is great. You can also daisychain power to them (they use micro-USB for power, but also have a full-size USB port that can be used to supply power to the NEXT camera in line).

They work with IFTTT and can be used with tinycam to show up in ActionTiles as @lmosenko linked.
It has Alexa support and the feed can be viewed on the Echo Show (or similarly functioning device).

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That’s a good question…and one that I had to think about a bit. I guess what I was really looking for was a camera that could have its events (motion, sound, etc.) trigger events in my ST system. I know IFTTT is always a fallback, but I’d rather not add an extra player in the mix if I don’t have to. The other pain point I wanted to avoid was having yet another app to deal with. In the end, I went with the Nest Cam Outdoor for the following reasons:

  • Direct integration into ST using NST Manager; the cameras act as motion sensors
  • I already have Nest Protect smoke detectors, so I use the Nest app already; plus they interface with each other (the cams will automatically record an emergency clip if the smoke detectors go off)
  • They integrate very nicely with my Google Home Minis; I can simply ask either of my Google Home Minis to show me a particular camera and they will cast them to the associated TV in that room
  • No extra base station; from my OP, this was key as I have an outdoor WiFi AP, but indoor signals won’t make it through the metal walls
  • Last, but not least, all of the integration points and usage fully passed the WAF (wife acceptance factor)

The downsides are that they require a NestAware subscription for the full functionality I’m looking for and they compete for a good chunk of my slow rural internet upstream connection. But nothing I looked at was the perfect solution. Thanks to all who provided input.