Resolution is the number on the box and the least useful thing on it. A 4K camera with a small sensor and weak low-light performance gives you worse usable footage at 2am than a good 2K camera — and 2am is the entire point.
What actually decides whether a camera is worth owning is whether you can get the video off it, how it behaves in the dark, and how it's powered. Here's what to check, in the order that matters.
Quick honesty note: this is a buying-criteria guide, not a hands-on review of every camera on the market. We're telling you what we look for when we spec a system, not pretending we've bench-tested every SKU on a shelf.
1. Can you actually get the video? (this is the dealbreaker)
Before you look at a single spec, check whether the camera gives you a standard video stream:
- RTSP — the long-standing standard for pulling continuous video.
- ONVIF — an interoperability standard; Profile S covers streaming.
If it offers neither, you can only ever use that camera through the manufacturer's app and servers. You can't record it yourself, you can't choose your own recorder, and the day they change the service, your camera changes with it.
This one check eliminates a big share of the consumer market, including most battery doorbells. When we tested one popular battery line, event-triggered clips were the ceiling — no continuous stream at all — and pulling even those was visibly hard on the battery.
Search the exact model plus "RTSP" before you buy, and check recent results: manufacturers have removed RTSP in firmware updates before.
2. How it's powered
| PoE (Power over Ethernet) | Wifi | Battery | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | Highest | Medium | Lowest |
| Continuous recording | Yes | Yes | Rarely |
| Install effort | Highest — run a cable | Low | Lowest |
| Fails when | Cable damaged | Wifi congested or jammed | Battery flat |
| Best for | Permanent installs | Renters, awkward spots | Temporary placement |
For anything permanent, PoE is the right answer. One cable carries power and data, there's no battery to change, nothing to contend with on your wifi, and it's far harder to disrupt.
Wifi cameras are fine in the right spot, with one caveat worth knowing: consumer wifi is easy to jam, and a wifi camera that loses its link stops delivering. For the camera covering your main entrance, run the cable.
Battery cameras are a convenience product — great where you can't run a cable, poor as the backbone of a system.
Running cable is the part most people don't want to do themselves, and it's the part we handle on every install.
3. Low light is where cameras are really judged
Nearly all footage that matters is captured in poor light. Compare these:
- Sensor size — bigger gathers more light. 1/1.8" meaningfully beats 1/2.8". This matters more than megapixels.
- Aperture — lower f-number lets in more light. f/1.6 is much better than f/2.4.
- Colour night vision vs infrared. Infrared gives you a clean monochrome image. Colour night modes need either an excellent sensor or a bright white light. Sharp monochrome beats smeared colour, because you're identifying a person, not framing a photograph.
- Wide dynamic range (WDR) — essential for any camera pointed at a door with bright sky behind it. Without it, anyone standing in that doorway is a silhouette.
4. Resolution and frame rate: enough, not maximum
- 2K (around 4MP) is the sweet spot for most homes. Usable facial detail at normal entry distances without destroying your storage.
- 4K earns its place only on a wide view you intend to digitally zoom into later, and only if the lens and sensor genuinely resolve that detail.
- 15fps is plenty for security. Higher frame rates multiply storage for smoothness you'll never use.
Doubling resolution roughly quadruples the bitrate, so this decision drives your storage more than anything else.
5. Lens angle — the most common placement mistake
A 110-degree lens sounds better than 90. For a driveway it is. For a front door it's worse, because the wider the angle, the fewer pixels land on the face you actually want.
- Narrow (around 2.8mm, 90-100 degrees) for identification at a door or gate.
- Wide (110+ degrees) for area awareness — yards, driveways, laneways.
Two cameras with the right angles beat one camera trying to do both jobs.
6. The quiet ones that matter
- IP66 or better outdoors, IK10 if it's reachable.
- Operating temperature. This is Ontario — check the low end is rated below -30C, not -10C.
- Local firmware updates, so a camera that never touches the internet still gets patched.
- The ability to fully disable the vendor cloud without losing features.
- A microphone you can switch off. Audio recording carries different legal expectations than video in Canada, and consent rules around recording conversations are stricter than most people assume.
7. What to ignore
- "AI person detection" as a headline feature. Detection quality comes from the model and the hardware running it — and if that's in the vendor's cloud, it isn't yours. On a local system, detection belongs to the recorder, not the camera.
- Built-in sirens and spotlights. Usually weak, and they put the deterrent in the wrong place.
- Anything sold mainly on how it looks.
The short version
Buy a PoE camera with a large sensor, a low f-number, WDR, RTSP enabled, and a lens angle matched to the specific view. Resolution comes second. Ignore the app entirely.
Then make sure whatever records it belongs to you — that decision matters more than the camera itself, and it's covered in where does your security camera footage actually go.
Or skip the research. Speccing cameras is genuinely fiddly — angles, storage maths, cable routes, which model holds up through a Toronto February. It's what we do all day. Tell us about your property and we'll design the system, install it, and hand you something that records to your own hardware with no monthly bill attached.
Frequently asked questions
What specs matter most in a security camera? Stream access (RTSP or ONVIF) first, then sensor size and aperture for low light, wide dynamic range, and a lens angle matched to the view. Resolution matters far less than people expect — a 2K camera with a good sensor beats a 4K camera with a small one in the conditions that count.
Is PoE better than wifi for security cameras? For permanent installs, yes. One cable carries power and data, wifi congestion is irrelevant, and it's much harder to disrupt remotely. Wifi is reasonable where cabling isn't practical, but avoid it for the camera covering your main entrance.
What is RTSP and why does it matter? RTSP is a standard protocol for streaming video from a camera. If a camera supports it, any recorder you choose can read the stream, so you can record locally instead of depending on the manufacturer's servers. No RTSP generally means no genuine local recording.
Do I need 4K security cameras? Usually not. 2K at 15fps gives usable identification at typical home distances for far less storage. 4K is worth it on wide views you plan to zoom into, and only when the lens and sensor genuinely resolve that much detail.
Which security cameras work without a subscription? Any camera exposing RTSP or ONVIF that can be recorded by hardware you own. Subscriptions are tied to cloud storage and cloud detection, so pairing the right camera with a local recorder removes the monthly cost entirely. Check that disabling the cloud doesn't disable what you bought it for.
How much storage do I need? It depends on camera count, resolution, frame rate and how many days you want to keep. As a rough planner, one 2K camera at 15fps recording continuously runs to a few hundred gigabytes a month; recording on motion instead drops that sharply.