Real Estate Agent · Orange County, CA · Member since 2016 · 36 posts · 19 votes
We're considering putting up 1-3 cameras for our rectangular shaped apartment. It's 2 stories, with 15 units.
The parking lot is out in front and we'd like at least one camera to see who is coming in and out since lots of them allow friends and family to stay over for weeks at a time. It's also a deterrent. They also block other people's parking spot or park in someone else's spot a lot.
Is it best to just sign up for a local internet and install a Nest Cam or two or is there another way to do it cheaper? I'm looking at about $50/ month for internet and maybe $10 a month for Nest monitoring. If I were to get internet, I'd probably put the router in the back laundry room which is 200 feet from the front of the building.
I bought some yi cameras on amazon and they’re great. Your storage consumption depends on how much recording is going to happen. I have motion sensing on and my cameras only go off for a few seconds per day so an SD card in each is all I need. Yi has a cloud storage platform you can use to scale if you have cameras on all the time and stores up to 30 days just like nest. I think it costs less too.