I'm hoping this isn't the 'wrong forum' for this question...

Life has brought a lot of changes recently, many of them "involuntary".  As a result, I'm moving to a new city.  New job.  Unfortunately, the housing is suboptimal.  I'm renting was is essentially a townhouse apartment in a large complex.  Its not ideal, but its the best I can do for the next several months....

One concern is unauthorized access by maintenance personnel.  It happens.  I've had it happen before.   I'd love to install a serious, dedicated security system, but its both not physically possible and not financially possible.  One idea is a simply concealed camera.  Ive seen them advertised before... Various innocuous objects like a photo frame, wall charger cube, etc that contain a small camera and record to an SD card.    

Has anyone has experience with this sort of unit?  at 1050P, I suspect the images are uselessly grainy.  

any other inexpensive options?  Essentially, I'm looking for the household equivalent of the backwoods deer camera.   Something the sits in plain sight sense motion, and takes a couple of pics.  If and when I get Bubba the maintenance guy rifling through drawers, I can take pics to management and proceed appropriately...

Suggestions welcome.

Fro

I had a bad experience with Arlo. get eufycam 2 pro. I have one outside in a tree on my car, 3 in in front of appt, 1 on the back window. Too many break-ins to give a shit about what management thinks. they need internet connections and I can see perfect. even in next to no light. completely wireless

make sure to get the eufycam 2 pro or 2c

notifications sent to phone withing 30 seconds. can talk through them and get live feed.

I got these and really like them.  Wireless, 2 way coms, long battery life before need for recharge no monthly fee.  You can set it to record on motion and indoors you won't have animals or anything setting it off, if it alerts your phone you know something is up.

https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Security-Detection-Spotlight-Waterproof/dp/B08F3CVP38/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=DCT&qid=1625191868&sr=8-3

you know often times that messes up and misses real stuff if the "AI" can reliably read a human. like if someones running by the cam real fast or holding up a blanket to cover themselves. try it some times. you'd be surprised. Mine always set on "all motion" when I'm not there. even then, sometimes misses or gets the tail end of things,  

To OP. Im not sure how important this is for you. Eufycam and arlo are considered the top 2 wireless. Personally I couldn't trust my stuff to anything cheaper. Truth is, wireless aren't very good and are pretty cheap to begin with. I dont truly trust any wireless cams. I've had both arlo and eufy. With both motion detection is ok. The resolution has gotten much better. Lowlight is very good on Eufy. The apps and notifications are sub par on both but that is atlest partially due to modern phones putting the apps to sleep trying to save battery. Eufy app is better of the two.

No experience with them but I think what you're looking for is called a nanny cam.  Lots of reviews and options come up using that as a search term.

Good luck with you're fresh start.  Been there, done that.

Those little black wall charger cameras work pretty decently, since it's plugged in no need for power and continuously monitors for motion. One I found uses a double male USB to transfer data to a computer, and IIRC they have some wifi enabled ones now too but I don't have any experience with them.  Only issue is of course limited to wall outlet locations for field of view, unless you wanna run it off an extension cable or something but that'd be more out of place.

Why be discrete? Let the maintenance personnel know they are on camera in the first pace.  Ring makes more than just doorbell cams.  The indoor ones go on sale for cheap at Costco, etc.  There are other manufacturers, too, that sell identical style setups- Blink, etc.  Or just mount a cheap ass trail camera!  

I'd rather prevent an issue then have to respond to one.  People act differently when they know they are being recorded.

Funny to be reading this thread.  I an in the process of installing the eufy 2 pro as I type.  Just waiting on the batteries to charge up in the cameras.  One installed two to go.

Bought a hardwired system and took it back the next day.  Too hot to be in the attic right now and the neighborhood has been on alert to a scumbag casing the houses around me.

In the end I decided the imperfect security of wireless was better than none.

Will add to this with any additional observations from setting this up.

Wyze cams are small and easy to conceal. They are only $25 and offer good quality as well as notifications. They are available at Amazon, Home Depot, and even Walmart now.

I always changed out a lock on any rental to keep out Maintaining Folk.

This is what I suggest, they do need wifi to work but there are no monthly fees. I've had 4 of them up for a couple years now and they've been great so far. The newer wyzecam V3 has excellent night mode and is under 35 bucks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R59YH7W/

This.  I have Arlos conspicuously mounted around the house, with their LED flaslights set to turn on at night when activated.  I want them to be a deterrent as much as a recording device.  

[Edit] Edit to mention that you're going to need to find a way to keep them plugged in or hardwired to a power source, or you'll constantly be on a ladder swapping out batteries.  Drilling holes and fishing cords is the way.

I’m having to decide on new cameras for the house I moved into this week. Seems like the eufy at the go to for a lot here. I know they still record to sd so they don’t depend on an internet connection to record, but can you live view them while home without an internet connection? Like if the internet is out any amount of time.

Look for a 1080p cam for sure.  At one point, Arlo's were 720p, so I opted for a Nest cam.  I've since added more internal and external cams, the t-stat, etc.  Find a used one on Craigslist for $50-$75 and let it stream to the cloud so there's no physical box they can take or break.  Plus it will notify you of movement in a preset zone (or any movement) by text or email if you wish.