Do I really need a pet camera with a subscription?

No. Several of the most-recommended models in the reviewers we read — including eufy's E30, the Kasa EC70, and the TP-Link Tapo C100 — work fully without a paid plan, recording locally to a microSD card. Subscriptions mainly unlock cloud storage and AI behavior alerts (barking detection, activity summaries), which Furbo's ecosystem leans on most heavily.