Tiny Spies

This shelf is for watching your own place. The front door, the hallway, the spot where parcels get left, a pet on its own for the afternoon, a nursery. The cameras here are small enough to sit where a full-size unit would not, and every product shows its rating and review count from real buyers, which matters because the two things listings overstate most are night vision range and battery life.

The range covers the usual jobs. Indoor minis about the size of a matchbox for a shelf or a hallway, most with night vision and motion alerts. Outdoor units that are solar powered and weather sealed, for a driveway, a side gate or a garden. Bulb cameras that screw straight into a light socket, including a 360 model that pans to follow movement. A door peephole camera that replaces the one you already squint through. A dedicated baby and pet monitor that pairs with its own 4.3 inch screen instead of a phone app. And a dummy camera, if all you want is the deterrent on the wall. Prices start around $20 for a basic indoor mini and run to a few hundred for the solar outdoor kit.

The honest catch is battery life. The smallest cameras have the smallest batteries, and a continuous stream flattens them in hours. They are built to sleep and wake on motion, and even then most people end up leaving them on a USB lead permanently. If you want something recording all day, plan for a socket within reach or buy one of the solar outdoor models instead.

A few practical notes before you order. Almost all of these join a 2.4GHz WiFi network rather than 5GHz, so check your router offers a 2.4GHz band, because a lot of newer routers hide it. Most record to a microSD card you buy separately, and some also sell a cloud plan on top, which is an ongoing cost worth checking before you commit. Night vision figures in a listing are a best case in a pitch black room, so read reviews from buyers who tested at night.

Install it openly and legally. Point cameras at your own property, tell the people who live in your home and anyone who works there that a camera is running, and check your local law before recording audio, because the rules on sound are usually stricter than the ones on video. Prices span roughly $20 to $430, shipping is free and most orders move within a day. Starting out? The doorway is the one that earns its place first.