Your own recorder
or the cloud?

An NVR, or network video recorder, is a box that lives on your own premises and that the cameras connect to by cable or over the internal network. That's where, and the only place where, the footage is stored, on a hard drive sized so that the recording loop lasts a month: when it fills up, the oldest video is overwritten automatically and nothing needs touching. It's switched on once, set up with your own username and password, and from then on it runs on its own, without depending on the internet working or on paying anything on a recurring basis simply for recording. The only outlay is the initial one: the recorder, the drive and, if you need more ports, a switch. After that, adding a new camera means one more port, not one more subscription on every month's bill.

The video leaves your premises and travels to the manufacturer's servers, where it's stored. The advantage is real: you can view it on your phone without opening or configuring any ports on the router, because the brand handles all that technical side itself. In return, you have to pay a monthly subscription per camera to keep the history accessible, and that fee is neither optional nor one-off: it's a cost that recurs for as long as the camera is in use. If at some point you stop paying, with most brands the recorded history disappears, and with some the camera itself stops recording even though it's still physically connected and switched on. It's worth reading each manufacturer's small print before installing, because what happens without a subscription varies a great deal from brand to brand and isn't always clearly explained on the box.

It depends on the time horizon, and that's the trap of comparing only the day-one price. In the first year the cloud almost always wins: the camera is cheap and there's no extra equipment to buy. From the second or third year onwards the sums reverse, because the monthly subscription never goes away and every new camera you add puts another line on the recurring bill. Your own recorder, on the other hand, is a bigger outlay up front — the recorder, the drive and sometimes a switch — but that cost isn't repeated: once it has paid for itself, running the system costs practically nothing beyond electricity. For an installation that will last years, which is the norm in a shop or a home, the recorder ends up cheaper even though the first bill is higher than the cloud's.

With an NVR, yes, without a doubt: the cameras and the recorder are connected to the building's local network, which keeps working even if the router loses its connection to the outside world. With cloud cameras, no: if there's no internet connection, there's no way for the video to reach the manufacturer's servers, so that stretch simply isn't recorded. The problem is that internet outages aren't always accidental: a burglary that rips out the router, building work that cuts the fibre or a deliberate power cut are exactly the scenarios in which you most want footage, and they're also the ones that most often coincide with the line going down. A system that stops recording precisely when something is happening loses much of its point as a security measure.

Yes, and it's just as convenient as with the cloud. You set up your own remote access, with a username and password chosen by the system's owner rather than the device's brand, and from then on you can check any camera from your phone while away from the premises. The difference from the cloud isn't ease of use, which is practically identical, but the route the video takes: here it only travels to your phone when someone chooses to look at it, rather than being uploaded continuously to an external server twenty-four hours a day. It's worth enabling two-factor authentication if the recorder's manufacturer offers it, and always changing the factory password on first startup: poorly protected remote access is the most common way an outsider ends up watching a business's cameras.

The period that applies is the same whether the footage is stored on site or elsewhere: one month. The problem isn't the cloud as such, but that several services sell retention of 60 or even 90 days as a perk of the paid plan, and switching that option on means breaching the time limit, not improving the service. What's more, when footage leaves your premises for an external server, an additional party appears that doesn't exist with your own recorder: the data processor, i.e. the company hosting the video, and there has to be a contract with them governing what they do with that data. Before signing up for any cloud camera, it's worth checking in the settings how many days of retention are switched on by default and lowering it to the correct figure.

Yes, and in some cases it's the most sensible option: an NVR for the bulk of the cameras on the premises and a single cloud camera for the one spot that's impossible or prohibitively expensive to cable, such as a distant outbuilding or an exterior entrance where building work isn't feasible. What doesn't make sense is paying for both solutions to cover the same view, or ending up with two different apps, two passwords and two different retention periods to keep track of separately. Mixing systems also means mixing responsibilities: the NVR cameras stay fully under the premises' control, while the cloud camera still depends on the brand and its subscription. Before combining the two, it's worth being clear, point by point, about which camera solves which problem, so you don't end up paying twice by accident.

It depends on whether the installation is permanent or not. If the premises are rented or the installation is meant to be temporary, there's no point changing anything: sticking with the Wi-Fi cameras and their subscription is the most practical option while that situation lasts. If, on the other hand, the business is staying put and you intend to add more cameras, the time to move to your own recorder is before installing the third one, not after: up to two cameras the monthly fee and the upload load on the line are manageable, but beyond that both start to become really noticeable, both on the bill and in the upload speed left for the rest of the business. Taking that moment to move to an NVR saves you having to dismantle and reconfigure everything a year later.