Most IP security cameras today require a subscription and for many manufacturers/models, this isn’t an option: if you buy the product, you’ll need the subscription to keep the cameras working even if you (honestly) believe you don’t need cloud storage. This is quite annoying and for many buyers, becomes a deal breaker when researching such cameras and this fact comes on board.
For many, this reality makes them forget completely about cameras of the IP reality, especially when they also present themselves to be of the wireless variant. For all such would-be buyers, it becomes very important when researching IP security cameras from Eufy to check and see first if they too require a subscription before making the all-important purchase decision.
So, this is the million-dollar question we’re going to answer here today (together with a few others). Do Eufy security cameras require a cloud subscription to work or any other subscription for that matter in order to do their thing?
The answer in a moment, after my affiliate disclosure notice, right below.
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Do Eufy Security Cameras Require A Subscription?
Eufy security cameras, generally, do not require a subscription or a cloud-based service of any sort to achieve their full functionality in terms of motion detection, recording, playback, storage of footage, and general control of the camera and associated base station, if any.
The footage is stored locally, encrypted on the base station (for models that require one such as the Eufy Cam 2 Pro) using a 128-bit key and for models that are standalone such as the S40 Solo Cam, the storage on the memory card is equally protected, making it practically impossible to access the content of the memory card after it had been divorced from the camera in question, irrespective of who does the divorce process.
However, there exists an optional cloud storage subscription for customers who are interested in such services and at the moment, it retails for about $9.99 a month and about $99.99 per annum (for the premier plan that can handle up to 10 cameras; the basic plan for just a camera is priced considerably cheaper).
However, this option isn’t heavily advertised nor is it given premium attention by the Eufy team per se. The grand logic and reasoning behind this remain that the cameras were designed, thought out, and marketed solely on the basis and promise of a ‘once off’ payment arrangement, with buyers resting easy, knowing well that after the initial investment, they’d hardly need to shell out any amount of money (again) under whatever guise to ensure that the cameras work and keep working in an optimal and intended manner.
And, this marketing strategy worked, brilliantly and as of press time, has kept on working in a flawless fashion. Launched only in 2018, the camera models have become a major contender in the smart, IP camera space and almost the defacto go-to IP security camera brand. Realistically, you cannot have any conversation regarding smart IP cameras without mentioning the several Eufy models or Eufy as a company.
It just isn’t possible.
And, I personally believe that more than the badass products that the company makes and the fact that they have a way of staying true to their vision while at it, what has ensured this meteoric growth singularly and more than anything else is the reality that footage is stored locally. And, this fact appeals more to privacy consciousness than even the financial realities (though that also factors), if I must say the complete truth.
Why You May Require Cloud Subscription For (Eufy) IP Security Cameras
Now, it is easy to wonder why anyone who has been ‘saved’ from the shackles of ‘perpetual bills’ via recurrent cloud storage fees would want to go the same route even after clear ’emancipation’ from this hitherto troublesome challenge. It truly does not make sense, especially when looked at on the surface.
However, there are real, cogent, and compelling reasons why you may need to consider or opt for IP cameras with the accompanying cloud subscription (or opt your IP camera system for same) even when it is clear that it is not mandatory and the system will work perfectly with or without one.
Here, they are:
1. The Need To Access Footage In The Event Of A Mishap
Mishaps, though not prayed for, are an indispensable part of day-to-day life. It is thus smart to plan for them well in advance should they occur.
One fire. Even if you insure your house or office properly and will be duly compensated in the sad event of a fire and the gutting of your property, including your Eufy (or any other brand’s security camera systems), the meat of the issue is that such a refund will not cover the content of the footage, once lost.
These are lost. Forever.
If, you’re thus curious to ensure that you always have access to the footage that your camera(s) are recording, going with a backup option in form of cloud storage is the only proper and logical thing to do.
Another thing is this: assuming you live in a flood-prone area or one likely to be hit by a volcanic eruption, cloud storage also makes perfect sense. In both these cases, the issues are largely unplanned for and when they happen, you’re likely to lose the footage saved on either the camera or the base station as both are likely to be destroyed or severely comprimised.
A cloud storage subscription, wherein the footage saved locally is also backed up elsewhere in the cloud gives you an added layer of security and ultimately, ensures better peace of mind.
Here’s a practical example from this video (opens in a new tab). That video is absolutely horrifying to watch as it details the last moments of two extremely brave US Marines who were blown to pieces by an explosives-carrying truck in faraway Iraq. These brave heroes who were worthily decorated with the Navy Blue Cross posthumously stood up to their jobs as soldiers, opened fire, and killed the driver of the truck, effectively stopping him from crossing the gate and putting the lives of 100s of others in danger and possible death.
They chose to die and give their lives so that their friends and compatriot in arms could live. Two died and effectively stopped a truck that was poised to and would certainly have killed hundreds, were it and its driver not stopped.
However, besides the extraordinary bravery of these fine soldiers and their absolute patriotism, something else is worth mentioning: the CCTV camera that recorded the six (6) second action and relayed all that happened, firsthand though destroyed in the ensuing carnage itself.
Now, it is my guess that the camera would certainly have had awesome cloud storage paired with very efficient internet for that matter. Seeing that everything in that vicinity was clearly destroyed by the explosives, this is the only narrative that makes sense.
Has it become clearer now?
2. The Need To Make Reference To Footage Outside The Scope Of The Local Storage
The Eufy base station can only do so much, storage wise with its onboard 16GB eMMC storage. This storage, under ideal circumstances, lasts a solid 2 months.
However, in most usage scenarios, including mine, I have found out that the 16GB gets filled up fast and in most cases, doesn’t even last a week! For context, I have 3 cameras and collectively, they see an average of 70-100 recordings a day with each set to last at least, two (2) minutes or, until motion stops early.
In such a scenario as mine, explained above, after about a week, my recording space gets filled up and the old content is over-written in a classical manner for new footage.
The other stand-alone models, not reliant on a base station, do pretty much the same thing, depending on the actual capacity of the memory card slotted in them to save their captures. These memory cards, for models such as the S40 are only 8GB and the best that they can accommodate is maxed out at 128 GB.
Now, this is where the challenge comes: assuming you want to access footage that is two weeks old because it just got to your attention that something significant happened around that time, what do you do? Especially if you have the number of cameras I have and they also, see close to the number of actions mine see daily.
That won’t be possible and the footage will simply be lost for good, haven been overridden prior for new captures. END of story.
This is where cloud storage comes in. With cloud storage, you get at least, double the storage duration I have (with my current setup) when you elect to go with the Eufy cloud storage, irrespective of the size and action your cameras see daily.
For instance, assuming I have a very busy day around the house, say, maybe a party. It would be possible to write out the entire 16 GB eMMC memory of the base station, if I forget to switch off the cameras, for only that day, that is.
Now, what happens if I forgot to download very important footage of the activities of the day before? Such footage will be lost forever.
However, with cloud storage, you get a fixed and predictable 1-month storage before your old recordings are overwritten. This means absolutely no surprises and affords you the all-important opportunity to download and save everything important to you well ahead of time before the eventual overwriting happens.
This way, you get to sleep easy and actually get to close both eyes while at it.
3. The Need To Have Recordings Handy (Even In The Case Of Unauthorized Access To The Local Storage)
The primary essence of a security camera is to prevent and deter theft, as much as possible. However as seen in a recent article I published, arguing whether or not it is possible for an intruder to access content on a stolen Eufy Home Base or a standalone camera, it was clearly shown that while the actual content of the camera or base station cannot be compromised in the hands of an unauthorized third party, that the base or camera can actually be stolen and taken away or worse, destroyed during a break-in was never in doubt and is very well within the limits of possibilities.
Should such a sad, sorry reality befall you as an owner of a Eufy IP security camera system, your footage, saved on the camera or base station and possibly, even the very last ones that detail the break-in or compromise, would be lost forever. While the intruder would never get to see the content of what they actually stole, you as an owner would be at a loss too – which isn’t exactly the reason why anyone or you, in particular, has bought and installed the security cameras in place to start with.
This is where cloud storage comes in. With efficient and powerfully working cloud storage, this scenario, ugly as it is painted here, would never happen in the first place. This is because, while the physical hardware may be stolen and taken away, the recorded footage will be securely stored away in the cloud and will be accessible to you, on request, from anywhere in the world, as a legitimate owner provided you can authenticate such a request with the right login credentials.
This reality will likely help law enforcement in getting to the intruders and ensuring that justice is served and if something was stolen, possibly recovered.
4. The Need To Have Access To Footage Even When The Base Or Camera(s) Is/Are Offline
Sometimes, owning a smart IP camera can be a pain in the butt…and this isn’t restricted to just the Eufy brand. You need to contend with power – and ensure that it is available all the time (even for the battery-powered models that use a base station). Then, there’s the issue of WiFi. Then, there is ‘miscellaneous’ which can easily mean anything from the known to the utterly unknown (sometime, the cameras just stop being online and recording for no explainable reason at all and this, again, isn’t restricted to the Eufy models alone).
Now, as you can see, it takes a lot just to keep these cameras online and a slight ‘alteration’ with this ‘formation’ sees to it that they can go offline, completely. While most of the models and brands still detect motion and record activity when offline, especially if there challenge is a loss of WiFi connectivity, the plain, sad old truth is that even for the times when the issues are as simple and straightforward as WiFi challenges, accessing already recorded and saved footage is impossible and effecting changes on the app in a bid to control the cameras or base station, for instance, to either toggle the cameras ‘off’ or ‘on’ is simply not possible, until and unless when such a missing ‘factor’ is restored, e.g. WiFi, power, etc.
With cloud storage, however, this is all a thing of the past, especially if all your needs revolve around ensuring that you always get to view recorded footage whether or not the camera or base station is offline for whatever reason.
What Are The Arguments For Saving Your Footage Locally, Yourself?
In as much as the arguments for the subscription to cloud storage when going the smart IP camera way are as cogent as they are compelling, there is also an alternative way to look at the story, especially from the viewpoint of not wanting to save footage to the cloud or bother with any subscription service.
So, what are the reasons for desiring to save footage, locally, yourself, right on the base station or camera(s) themselves?
1. Better Security & Total Control
Cloud storage is generally safe when taken and viewed holistically. As a matter of fact, it is safer, on average, than the security systems of most third-world banks.
This means that your footage, synced and saved in the clouds is safe from prying eyes and unauthorized persons, not so? Essentially, yes.
However, like the rest of the internet, there are challenges here and there, once in a while. While these are largely sparse, far-between, and not issues you see every day, it is a remote possibility. A stupid employee, old software, a cyber attack, etc can all make your footage vulnerable and importantly, liable to falling in the wrong hands.
This fear (which in my opinion is reasonable by the way) is the major argument against saving footage online via a cloud storage service such as the one Eufy offers. Coupled with the fact that, once the footage goes out for storage in the clouds, your control over it isn’t 100% again makes even the most callous or naive of users or would-be users think twice, at least, before commitment.
2. Cost Effective
In the region of $9.99 a month (or $99.99 a year) for more than a camera, the cost of going the cloud storage way, while not prohibitively expensive, isn’t also exactly cheap. It gets worse when one factor in the 5-10 years that both the hard and software of the camera and its accompanying systems are bound to last.
If one is lucky to have these systems on in one’s home or office for about 10 years and for those 10 years or so, one has kept up with the cloud storage plans and payments, it is very easy to see that the overall cost that will wind up being payable will even be well in excess of the initial cost of acquiring the entire security unit as a whole!
With the rising inflation and the challenges of modern living, no one should be looking to add bills on his or her shoulders especially when such bills can be smartly avoided with no adverse effects.
3. Peace Of Mind
There is a reason Toyota is the world’s largest auto company and the best-selling one, all rolled into one: the company knows how to make great vehicles that manage to stay on the road longer and with the least problems during their service years.
What, if anything, does this teach the rest of us? While we may love flashy things (read: cars) that double as sporty and triple as being fun to drive, when reliability is of the essence and failure isn’t an option, there isn’t much by way of choice again: the Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs all seem to fade into insignificance at that point 🙂
This is the exact issue we have here. While cloud storage is a fancy thing that is good to have, it is expensive to maintain and requires constant internet to work flawlessly, and even with all these, is likely to still fail to work as intended, for reasons best known to it and beyond your understanding or even control at the time of the breach. This is the ‘German car reality’ when likened to autos.
On the other hand, there’s peace of mind and a reality that promises no stress to you at all, just buy and use. This is the reality of saving footage locally yourself. This is the ‘Toyota (Japanese) car reality’.
The choice is crystal clear for all to see.
Conclusion: Which Is The Smarter Way To Save Footage – Cloud Or Local?
The clouds are a beautiful means of storing your footage: the advantages are many and the flexibility is second to none. However, there are also challenges that must be factored when going this route, especially as regards the risks. It has to be looked at objectively and only adopted if and only if the perceived benefits overshadow the challenges as listed and explained above.
Saving footage locally is also smart but clearly also has its own challenges too. Thus, before you select or prefer it over cloud storage, you should be certain that the limitations of local storage and see how it stacks up against cloud storage before you take your plunge.
Personally, I tried the cloud storage option but found it to be highly unsuitable for my needs. While my cameras were recording 100s of footage a day, less than 10 were getting backed up to the cloud and even this was slow, sparse, and completely unpredictable. I had no option but to cancel as it wasn’t fit for purpose, at least for me.
Instead, I found a way around the local storage by making sure my systems were as badass as can be. Some of what I did is converted in my article where I answered the question: Can IP Cameras Work Without The Internet?
If you’re thinking of going local and having things remain with you either on the camera directly or on the provided base station, the article linked above is highly suggested. You should read it.
What you ultimately decide is up to you, however.
Good luck.