In February 2017 an AWS outage took down a significant portion of the internet for several hours — including several home security cameras in active use here at HomeCamCafe. The cameras that relied entirely on cloud infrastructure stopped working. The cameras with local microSD storage kept recording without interruption. That lesson has only become more relevant since then. Cloud outages have happened multiple times in the years since, each one revealing the same fundamental divide between cameras that survive and cameras that go dark.
The Core Problem: Cloud-Dependent vs Locally Resilient
Most home security camera brands run their app infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud. When either of those platforms experiences a major outage, it cascades through every service built on top of them. For cameras that route all communication — including live view — through cloud servers, an outage means the camera is completely inaccessible. You cannot see live video. You cannot review recordings. The camera is effectively offline even though it is physically powered on and connected to your home Wi-Fi.
Cameras with local microSD storage or a local hub handle outages differently. The camera continues recording to the card or hub during the outage. Live view may still be accessible on the local network. When cloud services restore, the footage is there. Nothing is lost.
Real-World Outages: What Actually Happened
February 2023 — AWS outage, Wyze breach. An AWS outage took Wyze cameras offline for several hours. As Wyze worked to restore service, an error in a third-party caching library mixed up camera IDs and user IDs. Around 13,000 Wyze users received thumbnails from other users’ cameras in their Events tab. Of those, over 1,500 users clicked on thumbnails and in some cases viewed short event videos from other accounts. Wyze disabled the Events tab immediately and notified affected users. The breach was a direct consequence of the cloud restoration process — not the outage itself, but the recovery from it.
February 2024 — AWS outage, Wyze nationwide outage. Another AWS-driven outage took Wyze cameras offline across the country. Reports began appearing around 4 AM EST and peaked at 9 AM before the service began recovering. Cameras came back gradually, with some models remaining down longer than others.
October 2025 — AWS outage, Ring cameras offline. An AWS outage took Ring cameras completely offline, while cameras from Tapo and Wyze that use local video storage were unaffected. The pattern was identical to 2017 — cloud-dependent cameras went dark, local storage cameras kept working.
Which Cameras Survive a Cloud Outage
The dividing line is local storage. Cameras that store footage on a microSD card or a local hub continue recording during a cloud outage. Live view on the local network often remains accessible. Cameras that have no local storage option and route everything through cloud servers go completely offline.
| Brand | Local Storage Option | Cloud Outage Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Tapo | microSD up to 512GB | Continues recording locally |
| Wyze | microSD up to 32GB | Continues recording locally |
| eufy | HomeBase or microSD | Continues recording locally |
| Arlo | SmartHub USB storage | Continues recording locally |
| Blink | Sync Module 2 USB | Continues recording locally |
| Ring | No local storage | Goes completely offline |
| Google Nest | No local storage | Goes completely offline |
Ring and Google Nest cameras have no local storage option on any current model. During a cloud outage both brands are completely inaccessible — no live view, no recordings, no alerts. This is a known and documented limitation that both companies acknowledge. It is also a meaningful buying decision factor that rarely appears prominently in reviews.
What You Can Do About It
For cameras with local storage available — add a microSD card if you have not already. This is the single most effective step. A high-endurance microSD card rated for continuous recording handles the write cycles that security camera use demands. Standard consumer cards wear out faster. For guidance on which cards work best, see the microSD card guide.
For Ring and Nest cameras — there is no local storage workaround. The cameras are architected to require cloud connectivity for all functions. If uninterrupted recording during cloud outages is a requirement, these cameras cannot meet it. The practical alternatives are Tapo, Wyze, eufy, or Arlo cameras that offer local storage as a fallback.
For any camera — keep firmware updated. The February 2023 Wyze breach happened in part because a caching library behaved unexpectedly during service restoration. Updated firmware reduces the surface area for these kinds of cascading failures.
Cloud Storage Is Still Worth Having
None of this means cloud storage is bad — it means cloud-only storage is a single point of failure. The ideal setup combines local storage for resilience with cloud storage for off-site backup and remote access. If a thief steals the camera along with the microSD card, local recordings are gone — but cloud-stored footage from before the theft remains accessible. Local and cloud storage together cover both failure scenarios.
For guidance on which subscription plans provide cloud backup at reasonable cost, see the brand-specific guides in the Subscription Plans section.
Bottom Line
Cloud outages happen. AWS and Google Cloud have both experienced significant disruptions that took security cameras offline — and they will happen again. Cameras with local microSD or hub storage survive these outages intact. Cameras with no local storage option go completely dark. If uninterrupted recording matters, local storage is not optional — it is the baseline. Ring and Google Nest cameras cannot provide it at any price. Tapo, Wyze, eufy, Arlo, and Blink all can.
This guide is part of our How-To Guides.
