Best early Prime Day 2025 deals on security cameras and video doorbells

First, consider where you intend to set up the camera. Indoor cameras are a no-go if they’re going to be exposed to the elements. While you can set an indoor camera on a window sill and aim it into your yard, you’ll run into problems with glare and/or reflections. A floodlight camera will provide both video security and a wide pool of light. Video doorbells are, of course, the perfect solution for keeping an eye out for visitors—and porch pirates!

The higher the camera’s video resolution, the more detail it will capture about things such as faces, license plate numbers, clothing, and other bits that can be used as forensic evidence. Consider 1080p to be the absolute minimum but know that a camera that touts its 2K resolution doesn’t offer twice as much resolution.

A 1080p spec usually means the camera captures 1920 x 1080 pixels. 2K usually means the camera will capture 2560 x 1440 pixels. So, you will see more detail with a 2K camera compared to a 1080p model, but it won’t be that significant–the difference is an increase of only 640 x 360 pixels, after all. On the other hand, a 2K camera might offer lots of desirable features in addition to higher resolution. If you’re shopping for a video doorbell, you’ll also want to consider the camera’s aspect ratio. A video doorbell with a 1:1 aspect ratio can provide head-to-toe views of the visitors on your porch.

Where stationary cameras focus on a single area of your room or yard, a pan/tilt model can cover more than twice as much real estate. This isn’t an option with video doorbells, but lots of indoor, outdoor, and even floodlight cameras have pan/tilt motors that can move the camera’s lens nearly 360 degrees left and right and up to 180 degrees up and down.

Some models leave this positioning up to you and the camera’s app, but others can track an object or person moving in the camera’s field of view and automatically pan and tilt the lens to keep them in frame.

Smart home dwellers have a love/hate relationship with subscriptions. On the one hand, you often can’t unlock all the most powerful features of many cameras without ponying up for a subscription, because those features depend on a connection to the cloud—and not just for storing the camera’s video recordings. On the other hand, you’ll find yourself paying for that subscription for as long as you want to get full use of the camera.

Manufacturers have a reasonable expectation to recoup the costs of their cloud services, so make sure you know what you’re getting into when you buy a camera—or at least make sure you’re comfortable with not getting any features that are tied to one. Subscription prices also vary—by a lot. Caveat emptor!

Where stationary cameras focus on a single area of your room or yard, a pan/tilt model can cover more than twice as much real estate. This isn’t an option with video doorbells, but lots of indoor, outdoor, and even floodlight cameras have pan/tilt motors that can move the camera’s lens nearly 360 degrees left and right and up to 180 degrees up and down. Some models leave this positioning up to you and the camera’s app, but others can track an object or person moving in the camera’s field of view and automatically pan and tilt the lens to keep them in frame.

Given that most consumer electronic devices—including security cameras and video doorbells—are not manufactured in the U.S., tariffs are likely to increase the prices of these home security devices. This is a low-margin business for manufacturers, so it would be extremely difficult for them to just absorb the cost of tariffs—these taxes will be passed along to consumers at some point.

No one can say with any certainty how much the price of any given product will go up, but the Consumer Technology Association issued a report in May predicting that the price of tech products such as smartphones could increase by 31 percent, while laptops and tablets could go up as much as 34 percent.

Given that President Trump has paused tariffs until July 9—and he has said as recently as two days ago that he doesn’t intend to extend the pause beyond that date­—Prime Day looks to be a great time to buy. Any goods already in Amazon’s warehouses have already been subjected to existing tariffs, so buyers should be in the clear at least until the Prime Day sale ends on July 11.