Outdoor security cameras are great, but there’s always a trade-off. On the one hand, wired cameras work year-round without your intervention, but they’re limited to areas where wires run. On the other, battery-powered options offer flexible placement, but you’ll have to take them down every few weeks or months to charge them. Then there are solar cameras, a whole category of ostensibly wire-free cameras that, ideally, give you the best of both worlds.

I’ve been putting the Arlo Essential Solar Camera through its paces. It’s a broad, flat, $100 outdoor camera with a large, square solar panel taking up most of its top side. Arlo says it can run for up to six months on battery alone and year-round on as little as two hours of direct sunlight per day. Like most battery-powered security cameras, it doesn’t record continuously; instead, it captures clips when it detects motion.

There are asterisks on its solar capability, though.…