IP Cameras Tips: Cloud Video Storage

The popularity of consumer-grade IP cameras (sometimes known as WiFi or network cameras) continues to grow by some estimates more than 40% annually with IP cameras surpassing analog cameras in sales.

With this growth in device sales has come demand for features that bring more value and accessibility to the camera, specifically:
– live video viewing
– mobile apps
– cloud storage of video

Most camera manufacturers provide some options to access the camera over the web, and mobile apps exist but are often hit and miss with their quality and availability. Bottom-line, these features really depend on the camera manufacturer but in general aren’t great (there are exceptions of course).

These value-add features are why services such as Camcloud are stepping-in to fill the gap… and the #1 feature IP camera users ask us about is: Cloud storage of video or images.

I suspect this is because virtually all IP cameras provide some motion detection capabilities and the ability to record the video around that motion event, so users want to know where they can easily and securely save the video.

Options for this depend on the camera model (again!) but include:
1. Save the video locally on the device via the on-board SD card. Obviously this is simple but the available storage is limited.
2. Configure the camera to save it in a specific location on your network or email the image/video to you. Again, not all cameras support this and it’s not a very scalable solution.
3. Save the video or images in the cloud.

My preference is obviously to store the video in the cloud, seeing as I’m a… ahem… strong advocate for a cloud services company. Still, my reasons boil down to:
1. Better security since the video is stored off-site and risk of tampering or file corruption is very low; and
2. Mobility – once the video is in the cloud it can be viewed from anywhere and the ability to add value-added video management and sorting features becomes readily available.

Do these reasons make sense to you? If so, check out our supported IP cameras page or just sign-up for one of our plans today and try it out!