How to save money on smart tech subscription costs
Whether it's greeting visitors or warning off burglars, a wireless security camera or smart doorbell is a great addition to your smart home set-up.
Although these internet-connected devices can be cheap to buy, there may be more than £100 in hidden annual costs with video storage, subscriptions and more lying in wait.
In February 2024, Ring Doorbell owners received the unwelcome news that subscription prices could rise 40% – which left it doubling prices in just two years.
Fortunately there are ways to save money on smart home extras, and still record and store video clips in case you need them.
Smart home reviews - doorbells, cameras, thermostats and more all expertly tested in our lab.
Beware hidden costs of smart products
Increasingly, smart home products come with additional subscriptions that unlock enhanced functionality. In the case of wireless cameras and smart doorbells that's predominantly to store video clips in the cloud (essentially, online) in case you need to use them later, such as for evidence of a crime.
Subscriptions and costs vary between the providers, including for how long you can store video clips and how many devices are covered.
The average subscription cost of storing video from a single camera or doorbell is £41.76 per year, but that increases to £88.08 if you want to store video from multiple cameras and doorbells.
There are low cost options with local storage, but 18 out of 53 tested security cameras only let you store video if you sign up to a subscription, and that includes leading brands Ring and Nest.
Ring and Nest subscription costs
Ring Protect: With every smart doorbell and wireless security camera from the Amazon-owned Ring, the basic functionality lets you view the live video, respond to motion alerts and talk to visitors. To record and store video clips of events captured on the camera, you’ll need to sign up to Ring Protect.
- The Basic plan gives you 30 days of video storage for a single Ring device for £3.49 a month, or £34.99 a year.
- You'll need Protect Plus if you have more than one Ring device, giving the same 30 days of video storage for £8 a month or £80 a year.
So, unless you’re happy to use the doorbell or camera for live monitoring, you’ll need to factor in this ongoing subscription cost when choosing a Ring product.
Nest Aware: Google's Nest enables you to record video clips from the past three hours on the basic free plan, but that isn't much use as a monitoring set-up, so you will probably need Nest Aware. There are two tiers and both cover unlimited Nest devices.
- The basic tier gives you 30 days of video storage for £5 a month, or £50 a year. For £10 a month, or £120 a year.
- Nest Aware Plus increase that to 60 days of event video storage and also gives you 10 days of constant 24/7 video recording, a bit like CCTV.
With the average Nest camera costing £165, this ongoing subscription could really rack up the overall costs of going with a Nest device.
Browse our reviews:
- Ring smart doorbells and wireless cameras.
- Google Nest smart doorbells and wireless cameras.
Arlo, Eufy and Ezviz subscription costs
Arlo Secure: Available on Arlo cameras and doorbells, this subscription costs £2.49 a month for a single camera or £7.99 for unlimited cameras for 30-days video storage, enhanced motion detection and a pledge to replace your camera if it’s stolen. The Secure Plus plan costs £12.99 a month for unlimited cameras and increases storage to 60 days.
Eufy Cloud Storage: Eufy’s basic plan gives 30 days of storage for $2.99 (£2.46) a month for a single device, or the premier plan covers up to 10 devices for $9.99 (£7.49) a month.
Ezviz Cloudplay storage: You only get 7 days of video history with the basic (known as Premium) Ezviz subscriptiuon plan,covering a single camera/doorbell for £4.99 a month, or four devices for £7.49 a month. The Elite plan gives 30-day video history for a single camera at £9.99 a month or £14.99 a month for four cameras.
See how models from these and other brands scored in our wireless camera and smart doorbell reviews.
How to make savings on a smart device subscription
Some cameras include an amount of cloud storage at no extra cost. For example, Swann offers seven days of free storage for video footage, EZVIZ offers three days, and Google Nest offers three hours. For many people, this will be adequate, especially if you don't often leave your home for long periods of time – but of course, make sure you check reviews before you buy, to ensure other important factors such as performance and ease of use are up to scratch.
Otherwise, a great way to save money in annual costs is by going for a camera or doorbell with a local recording option - 35 out of 53 wireless security cameras we have tested have this as an option.
Many cameras have a MicroSD card slot, which works similarly to a smartphone or other device in extending the usable storage to record video clips.
Some brands, such as Eufy, support eMMC (Embedded MultiMediaCard), which is an integrated storage solution, often via a hub device. Others enable you to connect a hard drive, USB stick or NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive (often via the RTSP port) to really boost the available storage.
However, you will need to carefully research the storage options as connecting, formatting and managing the storage using these methods can be tricky. Also consider that the higher resolution the camera, the bigger video files it will create. It's easy to fill up a hard drive quickly, so make sure you get into the habit of regularly deleting footage you don't need.
