How to Mount Your Smart Cameras Without Drilling

If you want wall-to-wall (or fence-to-fence) video coverage of your home or yard without drilling holes in anything, we’re here to help.

Why give up drilling?

While drilling a secure mount for your smart security cameras is the gold standard for security and stability, we can certainly understand why you might not want to drill holes and drive anchors into your home.

The most obvious reason is that you’re renting, and it’s against your lease (or at least jeopardizes your security deposit) to drill into anything inside or outside your home.

Patching a small piece of drywall is one thing, but most landlords would frown upon drilling a few holes in the side panel — it’s one of the reasons these no-drill video ringer mounts are so popular.

But even if you own it, you might not want to drill and mount things for the same reason: if your old aluminum siding is still going strong, why ruin a good thing by punching holes in it? The same applies to beautiful masonry or old ornamental wood. Or maybe you don’t want to commit to a specific location for your camera. Many of the mounting suggestions we highlight below are not only no-drilling, but extremely easy to move to a new location.

Whether it’s hurting your wallet because you’re worried about losing a security deposit, or you pride yourself on keeping your home’s exterior in pristine condition, you can skip the drilling and use these alternative methods to secure your smart security cameras to mount.

You can stick almost anything

All in all, smart security cameras are really lightweight. Just like smart home video doorbells, you can use quality mounting tape to attach them.

If you’re mounting the camera indoors, you can get away with a less aggressive tape as it doesn’t have to withstand the elements. Indoors, large strips of 3M Command tape may be sufficient to hold the camera mount in place, although we’d definitely recommend testing it first with something soft to drop the camera on in case the tape fails (a laundry basket with a pillow in it). that should work).

While outdoors you can try 3M Outdoor Tape Strips, the gold standard for a truly strong outdoor tape-based attachment is 3M VHB (Very High Bond) Tape. If mounting solar panels on the roof of their RV is good enough for RV owners, then mounting a camera weighing a few grams on your home is definitely good enough.

Mounting a smart camera with tape is much easier if the existing mounting base has a relatively flat and smooth surface. If the base that came with your camera is intended to be screwed to the wall, it may have a lot of free space and a rib-like cavity that offers little grip for the tape.

You may need to visit a third party base. In some cases you’ll even find bases to be taped or, like this magnetic mount for Arlo cameras, that come with a disc of 3M VHB tape already in the kit.

Of course, the disadvantage of gluing is that you have to peel off the tape without damaging the surface. And even if you don’t damage the surface, you’ll have to loosen the adhesive and clean it somehow—which is exactly why the specialty mounts in the next section are so appealing.

Use special brackets for gutters, doors and more

A significant number of the smart home cameras on the market, including those from Arlo, Blink, Eufy, Ring, and Wyze, use a standard screw-mount hole.

This screw mounting hole will be familiar to any photographer as it uses the 1/4-20 mounting screw found on tripods – it is 1/4″ in diameter and has 20 threads per inch of length.

This makes shopping for mounting accessories child’s play. You can still search for specific brand names if you prefer, but once you determine whether or not your particular brand of camera uses the standard “photography” mount, you’re in business and can buy any mount — out of the hundreds and hundreds more that do support it – in the market. You could even put the smart home camera directly on a real tripod.

Let’s take a look at a variety of smart camera mounts that take advantage of this compatibility.

gutters

Gutters are a pretty handy place to mount a smart camera. They’re sturdy, stick out of the house, and the lip makes it super easy to add a mounting bracket.

A great value, this gutter bracket kit includes both a 1/4-20 screw mount and an included flat plate that attaches to the screw mount. So you can either screw the camera directly into the post or VHB tape it to the plate if your camera doesn’t have a mounting point.

It’s also very useful for mounting camera accessories like a solar panel charging kit, like the Ring Solar Panel, the Arlo Solar Panel Charger, or one of the many third-party solar panels if you want to position the camera solar panel in a sunnier spot in the Vicinity.

However, if you’re planning on putting the camera and solar panel in the same spot, you might be more interested in this 2-in-1 mount that includes two attachment points on one mount.

doors

Sometimes you’re really limited as to where you can put a no-drill mount. If you are in an apartment without gutters and want to avoid sticking a piece of VHB tape to the common wall outside your apartment, a door bracket may be appropriate.

They work the same as wreath hangers and other things hanging over the door like shoe racks for closet doors. You slide the metal bracket over the top of the door and tighten the turnbuckle, then mount your camera to the screw post.

railing

You can use the same type of brackets that you would use for a gutter or door on a railing as most brackets on the market sold for both purposes are fairly widely spaced.

The same brackets that we recommended for the gutters will also work for railings (however, if the top of the railing is particularly wide, you may need to mount the bracket to the balisters rather than the top rail).

siding

Most trims have an interlocking design, where the top and bottom of each trim strip fit together. You can take advantage of this design by purchasing side panel brackets with a mating piece that mates neatly with the interlocking portion of your side panel.

You’ll find very small, lightweight options designed for small smart cameras like those offered by Blink.

There are also beefier options that support larger cameras like the Ring and Nest smart cameras.

When in doubt, it’s not a bad idea to go for the larger mounts, as they include an integral 1/4-20 post (the really small siding clips usually require the original camera mount to be screwed to the clip, and they’re a bit less stable due to their size).