We went through a similar process in the spring. My criteria:
- camera itself has to look half decent to the eye. Not wanting to add eyesores.
- once its installed I want to be climbing up the ladder as few times as possible to deal with it (especially in the winter). Arlo was tempting but I'd read enough about batteries needing changing that I decided to pass up on the temptation of an easy wireless setup. Hopefully folks that have bought Arlos are having good luck with that part of things because other than that they look cool!
- reasonably priced. Because I'm setting up multiple cameras, the less each one costs the less the expense adds up.
- don't want to commit to a monthly fee indefinitely. This ruled out Nest as nice as they look.
On Amazon there are quite a few cheap cameras with iffy reviews, but came across a company called Reolink that seemed to check all the boxes. Good reviews on average, priced real well and lots of different models so that I could pick the one that works best for the setup I had in mind. So far so good... setup was easy (had to run a wire for each camera, got the electrician's help to run one of them because I was a wuss for going up in the attic to the particular place that was needed), app works well with alerts et all and they've held up well in some of the cold weather we've had so far this month. I see they have an Arlo-like wireless model now too but still don't want to have to deal with batteries.
Good luck with whatever you decide. If you think of it please update this thread with what you end up deciding!
Edit: Re installing in a window, are you meaning installing the camera inside to point through the window outside? If so make sure that your infrared will work well enough to catch stuff through the glass at night!
Edited by Adam, 2017-11-19 15:48:19