The best home security products of 2022/2023

Ring’s best doorbell was its first home security product to feature radar-based 3D motion detection, a technology that can now be found in the Ring Floodlight Cam Pro and its Spotlight Cam Pro family of devices. Its camera captures what it sees in very high resolution–1536p–with HDR and a 150 x 150-degree viewing angle, so you get a head-to-toe view of visitors on your porch (and any packages they might have left for you). Ring’s Pre-Roll feature will record six seconds of motion before it sends you an alert, so you can see exactly what triggered the alert. If you also have an Alexa smart speaker or display, you can use Ring’s Quick Replies to have Alexa answer doorbell rings for you–and even record vistiors’ messages. You’ll need a Ring subscription to enable those last two features and to get recordings; you’ll only get a live feed without one.

The Logitech Circle View Doorbell offers video resolution 1200 x 1600 (WxH) pixels to give you a head-to-toe look at visitors, and it boasts a very wide field of view: 160 degrees. An LED light strip on the bottom of the doorbell will provide color night vision up to six feet from the camera, which is equipped with a 5-megapixel image sensor. Like all security cameras in Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem, you’ll get fabulous privacy features: First and foremost, if you also have an Apple HomePod mini or an Apple TV 4K (2021 model or later), you can keep all your security cameras’ video recordings processed locally. These recordings are encrypted when uploaded to your iCloud account, and no one but you has the keys needed to decrypt them.

Despite its name, the Nest Doorbell (Battery) can operate on either battery power or low-voltage wiring if you’re replacing an old wired doorbell. If you do have that kind of power source, the doorbell’s onboard battery will kick in in the event of a power outage. The Nest Doorbell (Wired) is equally worthy of consideration; it has the option to record 24/7 for up to 10 days. These are dual-band devices that can be connect to either 2.4- or 5GHz networks. The camera’s artificial intelligence can distinguish between people, animals, and vehicles moving within its 145-degree diagonal field of view. It can also remember familiar faces to provide you more informative alerts when someone approaches your porch. There’s two-way audio support, of course, or you can have pre-recorded greetings play when someone rings the doorbell. As with Google’s other Nest cameras, storage for three hours of recordings is included; you’ll need a Nest Aware subscription if you need more than that.

The Nest Cam (battery) is a powerful home security camera that’s flexible enough to be deployed indoor or out and is truly wireless. Its magnetic mount makes for easy installation and aiming, and it supports both 2.4- and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks. You get 1080p video resolution and a generously wide 130-degree field of view. Unlike some of its competitors, Google includes cloud storage for three hours of video recordings without a subscription. If you need more, its $6-per-month Nest Aware service bumps that up to 30 days for as many Nest products as you own, while a $12-per-month Nest Aware Plus plan increases your allotment to 60 days and up to 10 days of 24/7 recording (the camera must be plugged into its optional AC power cord to enable that feature).

The Spotlight Cam Pro combine Ring’s best outdoor security camera with a pair of floodlights producing 3,000 lumens of brightness. Features including 3D motion detection, a 140-degree horizontal and 80-degree vertical field of view, and 1080p resolution ensure you won’t miss much. While it’s a given that you’ll get motion-detection alerts, you can opt to be notified only when people are in your yard. If you find the Floodlight Cam Pro too visually intrusive, take a look at the more discrete Ring Spotlight Cam Pro, which offers nearly all the same features in a considerably smaller package. We reviewed the plug-in version of that camera, but it can also operate on battery power, and there’s a solar panel that can keep its batteries topped off. Whichever way you go with a Ring camera, you will want at least Ring’s $4-per-month subscription so you can record video events.

Take all the goodness of the Nest Cam (Wired), attach a pair of powerful floodlights (dimmable from 2,400 lumens), and you get the Nest Cam with Floodlight (Wired). Both the camera and the floodlights are very easy to aim, and the camera features a wide 130-degree field of view. Onboard motion sensors trigger the camera to record and the lights to turn on, delivering color night vision. You also have the option of turning the lights off and relying on the camera’s night vision to see in the dark. As with Nest’s other camera and video doorbells, you get three hours of recordings at no charge. You’ll need a Nest Aware subscription if you need more.

Ring Alarm Pro has been on the market for a full year now, and no other company has come close to matching its value; this despite Ring having doubled the price of its professional monitoring service from $10 to $20 per month. In addition to a top-shelf home security system, the Ring Alarm Pro features an integrated Eero 6 Wi-Fi mesh router. Most of Ring’s sensors are based on the tried-and-true Z-Wave platform–a mesh network in its own right–but the base station also has Bluetooth and Zigbee radios (although the latter is still dormant). And since an alarm system that stops working when your power or broadband service goes down is worse than worthless, Ring includes a LTE service as a communication backup and optional battery packs to keep the hub/router running during a power outage.