Back in 2019, we had some individuals (near by squaters, it turns out) constantly coming to our door in the wee hours of the morning. It was when we wouldn’t provide them free stuff anymore that they smashed beer bottles on our driveway knowing we have dogs that we walked every day. I wanted proof of the harassment so bought a NVR system, Reolink with 4 POE cameras and could add 4 more cameras. The hubs ran the cables through the attic which was a task that he’ll not do again, LOL, we’re old people, teeheehee. I then added 4 wifi cameras for monitoring different areas of house while we’re gone to keep an eye on the critters and at one time we had some fellow try to get into our house via the sunroom sliders. The cameras have two way audio which helps, LOL. And this setup has saved us a few times, like catching a fellow who crashed into our mailbox (turns out it was a kid in the neighborhood). Knock on wood, the system has been running strong since then. No cloud involved though there is a Reolink app I use on the phone and desktop, but I don’t use their cloud storage which comes now at a cost anyway. Yeah, the cost up front was about $500 for the NVR but it was worth it in the long run.
Thank you for the information