Hi all,
One of my Arlo Cams gave up today. As I had a few concerns in general about the Arlo System I wanted to switch anyways.
What I like about the system is obviously the small Form factor and the wireless functionality.
Do you guys have a recommendation for me which camera hits this criterias and works without cloud connectivity? If it’s not wireless it’s fine too but a small footprint would be great.
Thanks a lot
I’m a big fan of the Foscam cameras.
Good price generally and pretty reliable with a good picture quality.
Wireless is going to be a pivotal decision really, because it makes the difference between choosing from homeowner and pro equipment. I recommend wired if at all possible. If wired is OK, I recommend heading over to ipcamtalk.com and lurking around to research poe ip cameras. Such a system ain’t cheap, but you get a huge bang per buck. You’d probably need a poe switch, and an old PC to use as an NVR server (I use blue iris). You can buy all in one switch/dvr’s, but blue iris is really powerful and easy to use. I got a used hp 24port managed 370Watt poe switch for $120, a used i5-4th gen dell box for $100, and tossed in a new 3tb WD purple drive. This setup completely dwarfs the typical standalone DVR, and costs about the same.
For $125 or so you can get really good Dahua starlight varifocal cams, that will run circles around anything arloesque. The 2mp starlight series of poe cams is really good for the price; they come up a lot on ipctalk. For $200 you can setup cameras that can easily read license plates in the pitch dark from 100’ away (try that with an arlo). My neighbor has arlos, and he’s out there all the time with a ladder to recharge… he had to install an annoyingly bright floodlight just for it to be barely useful at night… and he has all the fun of wireless hd transmission. My assortment of Dahua ip cams have been faithfully ticking along for over 2 years without issue… other than having to clean cobwebs off now and then. No floodlights needed because they have excellend sensors with powerful IR emitters compared to the usual homeowner stuff. They also offer redundancy, as each cam has an sd card recording all the time (so if someone takes the DVR, the footage is still on premises… if other remote storage is not used). Dahua’s also have really good intelligence for triggering built in (blue iris is also good at this). This means a lot less false positives on cloudy days or areas with lots of tree shadows moving around. Dahua IVS system gives lots of flexibility to program/schedule motion detection and exposure parameters so you can really rely on them to do their job.
I probably sound like a dahua salesman… no affil. Other brands are decent too… the important core part is using poe IP cameras with localized storage. This is overall the best method for most use cases (this is also what you find in banks, malls, etc). If you stick to this, you’ll be miles ahead of wireless/cloud/homeowner stuff.
Well…Dahua should hire you 
No worries. I sound everytime like a testimonial when it comes to things I’m convinced of. Just to make it clear: I want to get rid of Arlo. The picture quality is somehow ok but only inside the house. Still: Having saved everything on external servers (ok despite that you can save the footage on an external storage with the newer systems) and Bein dependent from a company which can easily push the button and switch the cameras off makes me nervous (and I don’t want to talk about possible privacy breaches. I’m looking at you Amazon/Ring)
The switch to POE Cameras is for me save. Either like you suggested or with Synologys Surveillance Station, will decide on a later point.
I think I have not given all the informations: I’m using my Arlo currently as Babycams for my two little ones. We (my wife 
) don’t want to have later any cams on the house. That’s why I’m looking for a small maybe WiFi replacement. I can use them later in the garage 
As mentioned as DVR software I would like to surveillance station as I own a Synology NAS anyway.
I hear you, if it is something ‘temporary’ then the draw of wires becomes less. You may well be able to find a decent wifi solution for your application, depending on how much light the room(s) have and how far they are from the router (rf wise). That is the main issue with wifi surveillance, is spotty performance with high sustained bandwidth. Obviously with a battery matters get worse. Engineers have to work within these constraints on most homeowner systems. That’s why at similar price points arlos are so grainy compared to a pro level poe cam.
Even if you are looking at different systems, I recommend starting an account at ipcamtalk. Those folks are super knowledgeable and friendly. They’ll be able to point you in the right direction. Of particular importance at this stage in your research, is understanding your needs as far as resolution (pixels per square foot required to identify faces etc). A camera may be pointless if all you can see is a blurry ghost. That site has some great info on this subject that will help you choose cameras that have the lens, sensor, and zoom ability to do exactly what you need them to do.
On a related note… as those kiddos grow older, you may find a need for those cameras in front of the house rather than over the cribs. My 3 kids range 9-16… started all baby cams, but these days with friends TP’ing the yard, doorbell ditching, etc… the front yard cams are proving far more valuable LOL.
as far as connectivity I have always used a “home plug” system that uses my regular household 120v power system with adapters to connect my cameras with ethernet to my network. It’s almost 100% reliable - aside from the very occasional need to reboot an adapter which may happen every couple of months and is extraordinarily easy to fix (unplug it, plug it back in). I have one outdoor camera that runs on wifi only and I pretty much never have any issues. On the very rare occasion I have any issues with it I have it powered from a zwave outlet so a quick power cycle and I’m back up and running.
the night vision is pretty decent on them too.
My Foscam cameras can also do their own motion triggering and have pan/tilt and/or zoom (depending on model). And Foscams are a fraction of the price as stated above - most of my camera’s were only $60 to $80.
I can take some screen shots of the quality tomorrow for daylight if you want. and if you want some night vision shots I can post some examples up now.
And I have them also fed onto my desktop PC running Blue Iris NVR software. Which works pretty good but it can get to be a resource hog requiring me to reboot my PC every week or so.
That was the plan 
I don’t have issues with WiFi nor the lack of Network cables. The house is new so I took care to have at least 2-3 RJ-45 double outlets per room and a proper WiFi coverage.
Wifi because instill have more power outlets or could power a small cam with a battery pack. You know how it is with toddlers. Every cable which is in reach is an interesting one 
I will check the ipcamtalk forum. Thanks guys!