Daughter lives at the end of a gravel road out in the woods, but near town.

Been some sketchy situations with people driving up and turning around in front of the house. There are other places in the area with similar circumstances, so could just be people took the wrong road, but...

She'd like to set up one or two surveillance cameras that will connect wirelessly to a phone app. Solar would be great so as not to have to deal with batteries or long power runs. Ideal location for one of the cameras would be a couple of hundred feet from the house on a turn in the road.

Stuff I'm seeing on Amazon is mostly Chinese crap with what sure look like bogus reviews.

Recommendations for brands/sources appreciated. Need to keep it under $500. Don't need PTZ, fixed location/focus is fine. Onboard memory would be nice.

I use Amazon BLINK. 1.5V Lithium batteries last 6-12 months depending on activity.
Need Wi-Fi. I have 5 cameras up outside, one I use inside when we go out of town and 4 still to be installed. Individually camera Installation takes a few minutes after the command module is set up.
Billy

SOLIOM, avoid them. I have two, one at each end of the house. They are great until the solar panels stop working. Each one quit within a month of each other after about a year of use. There are no replacements unless you want to rig an independent generic solar panel to power them.

The cameras are mounted on 8' poles and are a pain to get to them. By the way, I live in Florida and the panels are in full sun. I took them down and put a meter on the panels, no voltage produced.

Also let me mention that I am no stranger to solar. All the outside lighting in my back yard is powered by a system I built as is an outlet for occasional use. I have two 100w panels, a very good controller, led spotlights, and two storage batteries. The lights are remote controlled via a key fob. When on, it's like a baseball diamond at night.

Reolink. I'm running 7 of them inside and outside the house and have been for 5 years or so.

I can watch them on my phone or on my computer, put in memory cards and set them up to overwrite if they get full. The cards I use are 128 Gb Micro SD cards. Work great.

Will the camera location have a WIFI signal? Several hundred feet from the house is going to be out of standard WIFI range. There would be no way to view the camera on an app. Otherwise your looking for a camera that will require a cellular data plan.

I know people who use the Amazon Ring battery cameras. They work off CR123 batteries and go into a sleep mode until motion activated. The only issue is the sleep mode adds a few seconds delay to recording. A car could drive past and you may only see the rear bumper.

Ring also has a solar panel you can add.

Ring also has a camera that is powered off an ethernet cable which plugs directly into your router. But you need to run that cable to the camera.

Your biggest issue is having a WIFI connection that far from the house.

I hate all consumer grade wireless cameras. They're all overpriced shit.

If it were me, I'd run an ethernet cable out there. Then use Power over Ethernet (PoE). This has a max cable range of 325 feet, so you should be good. Get outdoor rated cable.

Only issue is making sure the cable doesn't get damaged, chewed, or vandalized, which is another matter. But in a wooded area you can hide it pretty well. Even bury it part of the way if you get the direct burial cable.

I agree, anything that is not powered by a wire POE or otherwise will be a compromise.
The only options are consumer oriented foo foo cams that will be hit or miss ~ mostly miss.
The issue is that most will not spend the time, money and effort for an effective solution ~ somewhat understandable.

Is a trail cam an option?

I have the Blink set up as well, they work great and I don't pay the monthly fees. You would need wifi for these to work

Thanks everyone. I sent a link to this discussion to my daughter, she opted for the Reolink as suggestion by FlashLB.

I'll let you know how that works out.

I've been running Reolinks for years, they just work. Granted, they don't record 24x7 just when triggered, but that's a fair tradeoff.

Another vote for Reolink

You will need WiFi or Bluetooth from house to camera.

I'll ask my neighbor what brand she suggest. She has some 15 cameras on or near her house.

Yes......she is a weird one.

Cellular

Gosh, now I'm curious about this Reolink setup....