Top Outdoor Cameras to Catch Porch Pirates

You’ve definitely seen those hilarious videos where someone sets up an elaborate goof for package thieves. Everyone who has ever had a package stolen wishes the thief had snagged one of those glitter-spewing booby traps from YouTube instead of their actual merchandise. However, not everyone is an adept prankster, and not every package on your doorstep is a decoy for online shenanigans. There is something you can do to protect yourself, though: invest in one of the top outdoor cameras. These outdoor cameras give you a way to catch package thieves in the act and help you to alert authorities to these annoying nuisances.

Top Outdoor Cameras

Best Value

If you’re looking for the best overall value in an outdoor camera, then you’re looking for the Amcrest UltraHD 4MP HD camera. If you’ve got Amazon prime, you can scoop this bad boy up for just $40, and it’s going to outperform pretty much every other camera in that price range while it’s at it. Installation isn’t exactly breezy, though, as it requires an ethernet cable in order to send the images it’s capturing anywhere.

This isn’t exactly a bad thing, though! Many security experts urge homeowners to use cameras with hardwired connections instead of wireless cameras. Hardwired connections won’t go down due to wireless interference, weather conditions or dips in internet service. If you’re looking for a good storage solution for the UltraHD images this camera captures, Amcrest has you covered on that front, too.

Amcrest sells both 4 and 8 channel DVR boxes that can track and record multiple camera signals at once. If you’re looking to keep a close eye on what happens in and around your home, these are a great option. After all, a camera alone won’t help you if it’s not recording any images! This way you can ensure the images are recorded and can be given to authorities should someone break the law in front of your camera.

Best App

If you’re looking for an outdoor camera with a stellar app, look no further than the Ring Floodlight Camera. You might know Ring for their doorbell technology that has a built-in motion-sensor camera and communications features. The Floodlight Camera is similarly excellent, easily sporting one of the best and easiest-to-use apps on the market.

The camera itself is great, as it is both motion-activated and equipped with a microphone. That’s in addition to the camera’s speaker, which allows it to also double as a motion-sensor alarm. You can set it up to blare loudly if it detects motion to scare off potential ne’er-do-wells. The microphone and speaker also allow you to speak to anyone you see through the camera.

The communications angle is great, as it uses the stellar Ring app to allow you to talk to people you catch on camera. If it’s just the mailman or someone you know, you can chat for a moment and see how things are going. If it’s a thief, you can tell them they’re on private property and are being recorded and to get the heck away from your stuff. In either event, this is a great camera for lovers of high-tech apps!

Best Video Recording Quality

The LaView 4K UltraHD Bullet Smart IP Surveillance Camera has the best recording quality of any outdoor camera you can find today. When you really, really need to make out the images your camera is detecting, image quality can be the biggest factor. That’s why a lot of security professionals recommend that those people who are serious about security should go with the absolute highest resolution cameras they can find. These high resolutions make it easier to make out features of thieves and intruders, making finding them after the act more likely.

The LaView 4K camera offers incredibly sharp images, clear pictures and great quality that makes it well worth the price. While you may be paying a bit more for 4K image resolution, it’s important that your images be as clear and easy-to-read as possible. It won’t help investigators find someone if the footage you capture of them is blurry, soft and out-of-focus. Unlike on TV, you can’t zoom and enhance an image after it has been captured!

LaView offers a package deal for security enthusiasts that includes 4 of the bullet cameras and 2 dome cameras, as well as a 3TB storage device to store the video your cameras take. This is a good thing, as 4K images tend to take up a lot of storage space, and 3TB is a ton of storage!