Best Motion Sensor Security Cameras

Lorex offers dozens of camera models, but at the moment we’re particularly smitten with the A4, which features Lorex’s new Smart Motion Detection system. The A4 doesn’t just detect motion. It can distinguish moving objects based on how they move. Turns out bicycles don’t move like cars and squirrels don’t move like people. The A4 is smart enough to know which objects represent actual threats, which means you only get alerts that actually matter. As if that weren’t enough, the A4 also listens for threats so it can detect problems even if they’re off-screen.

Types of Motion Detection Available with Lorex Cameras

One reason Lorex is at the top of our list is that it’s exclusively focused on home security cameras. It doesn’t offer entry sensors or smoke detectors. It doesn’t sell whole home security packages or provide professional monitoring plans. If you’re looking for cameras that include those features, you’ll need to look elsewhere. If you’re looking to purchase a stand-alone camera, though, or create a home security system made up entirely of cameras, you really can’t do any better than Lorex.

Plus, Lorex makes it easy to self-monitor your system. During our testing, we got real-time alerts as well as access to both live footage and recorded footage. That’s right, we had playback options without having to sign up for a cloud storage plan. Lorex actually offers several different local storage systems, including DVR, NVR, and microSD cards.

With such an extensive inventory, you can always find a Lorex camera that suits your price range. For more, check out our list of Lorex’s prices and products.

Google Nest impressed us with its many high-tech features. The company sells just three cameras — the wired indoor Nest Cam, the battery-powered indoor/outdoor Nest Cam, and the wired Nest Cam with Floodlight – but all three come loaded with sophisticated AI that not only makes you safer but makes home security easier.

Of course, all three cameras include motion detection, and all three can tell the difference between people and other types of objects. As we mentioned earlier, that cuts down on false alerts, and fewer false alerts makes you more likely to pay attention when your system contacts you. Person detection is so last year, though. Google Nest Cams also come with facial recognition. No, they’re not connected to an FBI database or anything like that, but we were able to teach our Cam with Floodlight to recognize our friends and neighbors.

Technology isn’t cheap, and Nest charges about twice what you’d pay for comparable Ring cameras. The Nest Indoor, for example, is $99, while the Nest Spotlight we tested was $279. In addition, you’ll need a a Nest Aware monthly subscription if you want to unlock advanced features like facial recognition. Nest’s lowest-priced place is $8 a month. You’re never going to get something for nothing, though, and Nest’s value more than justifies its prices.

Check out our Google Nest Cam review to get the full scoop on our live Nest tests.

Ring cameras don’t include facial recognition software, but they do come equipped with People Only Mode, and that’s really more important to your security. Without that, we’d get alerts every thirty seconds or so, all triggered by our neighbor’s cat who likes to lounge on our front porch. At some point, we’d just start ignoring them, and that would put our home’s security at risk. When you only get alerts that matter, you’re going to be safer.

In fact, Ring’s motion detection also includes customized motion zones, so they don’t pick up activity in your neighbor’s yard. And, with customized scheduling, you can make sure motion detection is off at 5 am when the street sweeper comes by. Ring’s cameras are also smart enough to trim video footage for you automatically, so you don’t have to scroll through video to find out what happened. All of these features improved our overall security, and after all, that’s why we buy home security systems in the first place.

Want to know more? Check out our Ring Cam analysis for a complete review.

Motion detection works best when it’s attached to a camera capable of recording in high resolution. After all, what difference does it make if you know something happened at your house if the image is so fuzzy you can’t make it out what it is. As we note in our review of the Arlo Pro 4, this camera’s 2K video gave us a crystal-clear view of absolutely everything in and around our home. It wasn’t just that we knew who was out our door. The Pro 4 captured enough detail to identify the reckless driver who had been terrorizing the neighbors. Once the police had the license plate, we didn’t have to worry about cats – and kids –  on our street being in peril.

As a bonus, Arlo’s motion sensor technology and high-resolution cameras are all totally wire-free. That means they don’t need wires to communicate with other system components, and they don’t need wires to receive power. That’s particularly useful outdoors, since it means you can place cameras out of reach of potential burglars. Oh, and did we mention these cameras are stylish? Don’t get us wrong – security is the priority, but if you can get security that improves the look of your home, why wouldn’t you? Find out everything you need to know about Arlo’s equipment costs and monitoring in our complete price guide.

We sometimes get so caught up in talking about fancy motion security tech that we don’t have time to mention other important camera features. One thing Blink does especially well, though, is manufacture customer-friendly products. Complex internal software and the latest gadgetry can actually be frustrating rather than helpful if it’s too complicated to use. You want lots of control over your devices. The more adjustments you can make, the better your cameras will perform. If you can’t figure out how to make those adjustments, though, what good are they? Blink manages to strike a perfect balance between control and ease of use.

One nice side-effect of simplicity? Blink is eminently affordable. In fact, no camera in Blink’s suite is more than $140. Of course, you get what you pay for, and these cameras don’t have extras like fine-tuned motion alerts or color night vision. These cameras provide great basic security, though, at a price point that’s within reach of almost anyone. Here’s the breakdown:

We’ve talked several times already about just how important it is to choose a camera with motion detection that can tell the difference between people and other sorts of movement. Kuna cameras can do that. They can also differentiate between people, pets, vehicles, and packages. You can set your Kuna camera to screen out everything but people, or you can set it to let you know when that important package you’ve been waiting for arrives.

Supposedly, these devices will also eventually be able to tell the difference between people in your home and detect burglars based solely on their physical behaviors. And you won’t have to invest in new models to take advantage of these features. Your current camera should evolve over time. There aren’t many devices you can buy these days that actually improve the longer you have them.

Kuna’s light-camera models also gave us extra options when responding to motion-triggered events. When our camera picked up motion on the front porch at 2 am, we were able to shine a light on the situation. Turns out, a neighborhood possum was making its rounds, but once our light came on, it sauntered on its way. We controlled everything from the Kuna app, which meant we could both pull up video and react in real time, and we could have done that even if we were on vacation on the other side of the world. Want to know more? Check out our complete Kuna camera live testing guide to learn all the ins and outs of this system and see if this camera makes sense for you.

We’ll confess that we’d like to see Kuna offer more straightforward camera models. It’s not that we don’t like their lighting/camera combos, but we like their cameras so much that it would be nice to have options. Would it kill them, for instance, to manufacture a camera we could use in our living rooms? At a minimum, we’d like to see more options when it comes to their light fixture models. Still, this is a company that found a unique niche and they occupy it well.