Best Home Floodlight Security Cameras of 2024

Solution

Those bright lights work best when paired with a high-resolution camera that can capture lots of detail. A 1080p will do the trick, but for the best clarity for these (often high-mounted) cameras, we favor 2K resolutions, like some of our top picks.

Clarity and personalization

Lumens are a good indicator of visible brightness (don’t try to compare them to watts, especially with LEDs), and a few thousand lumens is a guarantee of bright lights that can fully illuminate a larger area. But we also like to see customization options for brightness, light color, and scheduling. That helps prevent lights from waking you up in the middle of the night or annoying the neighbors, so you can make adjustments as needed.

Smart Home Support

Smart home support with existing platforms is always nice to have, especially when setting up routines with other smart lights or cameras. We’re looking for support for both Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Apple support is much harder to find for security cameras right now, but as the Matter standard moves forward we hope that will change.

Energy options

While careful use of batteries can lead to good power management for wireless floodlight cams, these floodlights often consume some extra power. They are also often mounted in high locations, where it can be difficult to take them down to charge the battery. Think carefully about whether you prefer wireless placement or the free wired option, which can require additional installation work. Keep in mind that wired floodlight cams often need to be connected to a junction box.

Motion detection

Motion detection and object recognition are especially important for floodlight cameras, as they help the floodlights turn on only when there is a reasonable cause, such as a detected human figure. We have chosen a few cameras on this list that offer free object recognition, but you may have to pay a subscription fee for advanced features.

Night vision

Night vision isn’t as important for wide floodlights, but it can help improve clarity at the edges of the image when it’s dark. For the best clarity, consider looking for a camera that also has color night vision.

Two-way audio and sirens

Audio options can be very important if you want to question a stranger (or call out to a friend) or sound a siren to scare off an intruder. They’re not as valuable on floodlight cameras as they are on video doorbells, for example, but they’re still an important feature. Fortunately, most floodlight cameras now have these audio options.