Best Facial Recognition Cameras 2024

Early on, Lorex decided to focus exclusively on security cameras. The decision has paid off. Today, Lorex’s arsenal of prowler-proof security cameras is pretty much unbeatable. But cameras are as far as Lorex goes.

You can’t build a smart ecosystem with Lorex, for example, like you can with Wyze or Nest (see below). You won’t get any professional monitoring either, like you do with ADT or Vivint. But if it’s reasonably-priced, pro-quality surveillance equipment you’re looking for, you can’t go wrong with Lorex.

In terms of facial recognition, Lorex steals the show with its precision. The Lorex 4K Outdoor Camera performed very well in our hands-on tests, comfortably IDing faces from the sidewalk, day or night. But there are a few technical idiosyncrasies to consider.

One, Lorex has some road to cover in the user-friendliness department. Configuring the face recognition feature is a multi-step process that, on the desktop version, might alienate non-technical users. Two, we found that face recognition only works if you’ve got a digital video recorder (DVR) or a network video recorder (NVR). And, weirdly, you’ve got to disable package and vehicle detection to set up face recognition with Lorex.

Is any of that a dealbreaker? Not in my book. Just be forewarned that if you want the world’s most sophisticated household camera, you’re going to have to get a little technical. If that’s not for you, don’t worry, we’ve got another option for you.

The folks at Wyze had a genius idea. Build a powerful, cheap, user-friendly camera that could basically double as a whole home security system. Hats off to Wyze — they pretty much succeeded. While we appreciate a heavy-duty, professionally-installed security system like ADT (see below), Wyze’s latest home security cameras are pretty much one-man security shows that now include their new AI-driven face recognition feature, Friendly Faces.

Friendly Faces is basically a library of faces your Wyze camera has been trained to recognize. It doesn’t happen automatically. Friends, family, and anyone else you want to invite into your circle of trust have to stand within six feet of your Wyze Cam so it can catalog their image. Once it does that, you tag the face with a name. The next time they show up at your door, you’ll get a notification: “Connie’s here.”

Before you reach for your credit card, there are two things you should know. One, if you live in Illinois, Texas, or the city of Portland, sorry, but your local surveillance laws don’t allow Friendly Faces.

Also, enabling Friendly Faces isn’t free. You need to subscribe to Wyze’s new professional monitoring plan, Cam Protect, which costs $3.33 per month, per camera. On the plus side, Wyze’s monitoring plan is one of the cheapest we’ve seen. Check out our complete Wyze camera review for the details.

Google’s big advantage in the facial recognition race — besides a solar-system-sized R&D budget —  is how easy their products are to use and connect to each other. There is simply no user experience around that can match the Nest in overall ease of use.

However, the stylish Nest Cam, which comes in plug-in and battery models, is no budget home security option. The entry-level plug-in Nest Cam wired costs a hair under 100 bucks. Battery-powered models go for $180.

On the other hand, video quality is pretty good for the Nest Cam’s kind of wimpy 1080p video resolution. If you invest in a Google Nest Hub, the Nest Cam fits right in, becoming the security arm of your Google smart home ecosystem.

The only thing is, if you want to use the Nest Cam’s facial recognition feature, you’ve got to subscribe to Nest Aware, which is really just a glorified video storage plan with an “e911” button that lets you contact the police from your Google Home app. The basic plan now costs $8 per month, which isn’t peanuts, but you get 30 days of event history and that fee covers every Google device in your home — just without professional monitoring.

With all the talk of DIY home security systems these days, it’s easy to forget that traditional, hardwired security systems are still around. But they are, and ADT security systems are still king of the hill.

And, actually, ADT has read the writing on the wall. They now sell their own line of DIY home security equipment — ADT Self Setup. In a similar vein, ADT has also teamed up with Google so homeowners can start integrating smart products into their ADT-secured homes.

In other words, ADT cameras don’t support face recognition yet, but you can integrate Google’s Nest Cams into your ADT system, and control them with the ADT app. From time to time, ADT will through in a free Nest Cam or Nest Doorbell, valued at $99 and up. Here are ADT’s latest deals. If you’re considering a hardwired security system for your home, take a look at our complete ADT security review.

How did Google’s new “familiar faces” feature perform in our tests? Pretty well. After a “get to know you period” where the Nest Cam stumbled a few times — it didn’t know what to do with hoodies — it was smooth sailing. My front door Nest Cam told me (via alert) who had entered my home. Anyone that wasn’t supposed to be there was an “unfamiliar face.” (Sorry, Bob from next-door). Just be prepared, when you start using this feature, for a little recording downtime in between back-to-back events. The Nest is notorious for this.

The indoor/outdoor battery-powered Nest also has pet, package, and vehicle detection, which worked well in my tests. So did the Nest’s Activity Zones feature, which segmented the Nest Cam’s field of view (FOV) into security-worthy areas and areas to ignore. Street traffic is a good example of the latter. I didn’t want my Nest to record it, and drain my battery with a non-stop torrent of alerts in the process. I didn’t have to pay for either of those features, by the way, but to unlock familiar faces (above) I did — $8 per month for a Nest Aware subscription.

The great news here is that ADT waives this fee for its customers, so in addition to face recognition, you get 30 days of cloud storage — or 60 with a premium Nest Aware Plus plan, but you’d need to pay for that.

You may not know eufy yet. They used to sell robovacs and have only recently moved into home security. But based on what we’ve seen, in another year or two, their flagship camera, the eufyCam, will be a household name.

As things stand now, our experience with the eufyCam left a little to be desired. To get our hands on their latest-gen camera, the eufyCam 3, Eufy bumped us up into a higher price bracket (over $600 for two cameras and a hub). Connectivity was limited, solar power wasn’t an option, and Eufy didn’t have any monitoring or cloud storage plans.

That said, eufy has doubled down in two areas that a lot of homeowners take very seriously — video quality and advanced features like face recognition. The eufyCam 3’s new 4K video quality is excellent and a huge improvement over the sometimes grainy eufyCam 2. eufy’s face recognition tech, Bionic Mind™, though a work in progress, was more than capable.

All in all, in our tests, we found the eufyCam 3 to be a very solid security camera. But if eufy wants to give (much) cheaper cameras with just as much power a run for their money, they’ve got to tweak those price points. When they do, watch out.