A couple friends put some of these around their houses and have been telling me how great they are. Obviously it's a DIY product and not the same as a the systems we install, but for the price, I have a few applications where these might be the right option. Does anyone have any feedback on them?

A builder I work with keeps asking me about them cause his friend told him they are great. I sold him a NVR and some Hik cams to install at projects to keep an eye on things and he keeps asking me the difference. They may be great, but as far as I know they require power to be applied to them which is not great on a job site. Unless we splice some stuff up to make them work. Either way, I have no interest in supplying them with a diy product.

Well, the power issue is what actually got my attention. They run on lithium batteries. CR123's. My friend said his have been on the same batteries since January 1. But he lives in an area that doesn't have a lot of motion to trigger recording. Also, they have a 3G/LTE version. That one really interested me.

I haven't used one yet but reading thru all the specs and the design, it's easy to see:
It's a glorified webcam and nothing more.

1st) It's only 720p. I don't get out of bed unless a camera is at least 2MP minimum these days.
2nd) 130° viewing angle. My god! Talk about fish bowl vision. Funnier still, there is not a single capture from the camera, on their website that shows a 130° view. So marketing lies either in the pictures shown or the view claim.
3rd) It's wireless 2.4GHz only. Yeah, what could go wrong. Huge mistake to trust something that just HAS to work, on a band that is easily interfered with. Let's not even talk about the built-in range problem.
4th) 1 year warranty, 90 day tech support.  lol
5th) Most every manufacture exaggerates the IR range of their cameras. They say 25ft. :)

I'm not impressed. I bet they look REAL horrible at night. But that won't stop your friends from claiming how great they are. Ignorance is not bliss.
You should do a screen shot from one of your systems at night. Then have them show you one from theirs. I bet you never hear about those cams again :)

I've seen the live video (on his phone). For the average person, it's good enough. Better than old SD analog systems we all did. But the night vision is an interesting issue. I'll see if he will save a night image.

Let me give more explanation for what I thought these may work for. One scenario, we have a builder that has a weekend house on a lake in TN. Because it's a weekend place, he doesn't want to subscribe to internet, he uses a Verizon hotspot. The lake is a flood control lake, which means in the winter they let the water down to prepare for the spring rains. So his boat dock has to float, and he has to let it out further when the water goes down. He has asked before for a way to check the lake level without driving 3 hours to see if he needs to let the dock out.

Another scenario, my family has a place on the New River. We can't put a permenant structure on it, so it has RV spots. I've tried to figure out how to add a few cameras, mainly to watch for flooding, without having to trench cat6 and power around the yard.

I have a few customers that have lake houses and I installed alarm systems with Alarm.com and added Image Sensor cameras. Its not video, but they can request a picture or even have them scheduled and sent via text or email. There is a monthly fee, but they are getting a picture and a security system. then you can sell them a thermostat, lock, and lamp modules, etc.

You missed the part that he doesn't want to pay for an internet service and uses a Verizon hotspot when at the house. Argo has an LTE camera that might be right for his situation.

alarm.com image sensor does not use wifi. it uses the alarm.com cellular 4G / LTE connection that the alarm system uses.

Ah, sorry. But still, he isn't going to pay for the alarm.com service either.

Why? He would have to pay for the Arlo service to use LTE

Let me ask you something. Do these people find you or do you find them?

Use a cradlepoint router that you can use to bridge the hotspot over to ethernet and install whatever CCTV system you want.

I put one for a contractor after his dump trailer got stolen from job site. Like others have mentioned, the night time images are crap!!
He's ok with it as he can check the site at any time and see who's there. HE also gets emails from motion, which goes crazy sometimes he said. He has a hardwired internet connection from neighbor to view.
Bottom line, they're better than nothing but far from good. I wouldn't sell them.

Lemme ask you a question: in addition to being cheap and not wanting to pay for what he needs, is he also a jerk, or is he a friendly enough kinda guy? If so, he should use his friendliness to arrange what he wants.


This means that some county or state official has exact knowledge of the height or depth of the lake. Some friendliness with that guy/these guys might get him a number he can call to ask what's happening lakewise.


A phone call to the guy who knows. That's the ticket! As a matter of fact, if he develops a respectful relationship with the guy, the guy might just pick up the phone and call if he expects trouble!


There is no free lunch. If you can't schmooze your way into a person to contact, you might just have to spend money to make it happen.

They have the arlo pro out, it has rechargeable batteries. I had one to play around with and it only recorded 10 seconds of video. You can change it to a bit longer. If the camera loses wifi the battery dies in 8-12 hours...uses its energy trying to find a signal. Range on he unit I had was a whopping 30 ft at best. Some times I was unable to access the camera with the app, the speaker never worked for 2 way communications.

I played around with it for about a week and had to send it back as it was pretty bad. I do have a client with a few at 2 locations and they seem to be happy with them.