UPDATE: Many thanks to everyone for their input, and to Maddie (YippieSkippy) for letting me hijack her thread. :cop: I did about 3 weeks of research, and mapped-out the details/costs of various systems on a spreadsheet to compare. At the end of the day, I sort of went "middle of the road" for now. While ideally I would've loved to go custom and invest in a Synology or QNAP drive w/ individual cameras, etc, I just couldn't justify the ~ 2K or more expense at this time. Even a PoE one-box system begins to jump up in price quite quickly. So in the end I went a couple routes. I got a Ring Doorbell Pro since it was on sale and included the Chime Pro and Echo Dot. The Ring Pro gives us easy/convenient viewing at the front door and the 5G WI-FI connection is stable being so close to our WI-FI. So far we're pleased with that item. For the perimeter of our house, I went with a more traditional 8 channel/8 camera BNC cable set-up by Lorex. For the cost, I'm pleased with the included hardware, HD storage, camera specs, and warranty. I think this will satisfy our needs for now. In the future, I suspect NVR/PoE systems will only get cheaper as with any new technology, and perhaps we'll upgrade at some point. With all the manufactures and model selections out there, this was a very tough decision. Thanks again for sharing your experiences.