Webcam advise-wireless if possible

Make sure your wifi is fast enough If that is in the plan. I live in the sticks,,and my dsl is barely fast enough to run 1 camera. The upload speed will be the problem.

I have 4 cheapy foscam cameras - pan and tilt with no zoom. color. they sit outside under the eaves of the house. they do not see a drop or water or snow but have seen -20 this winter and 100 with high humidity in the summer. they have been there 4 years. never had a problem.
They pose a tiny problem in the summer when there is so much light out, the picture is kind of washed out and or grayscale, but they still see. They serve their purpose in which i can check them from my cell phone when i'm at work, and to also provide a huge deterrent to theives. from work, i access the cameras and know 2 things. 1 the house is ok and 2, the power is still on. This is important for me to be able to check because I have well the pellet stove but more importantly the sump pump. If that thing is without power for 30 minutes i've got problems.

I have a water sensor with an autodialer on the sump pump but after 2 false alarms, i decided to set up a camera on that too. Now if the dialer calls me I can fire up the camera and see if its the real deal.
I dont remember what i paid for the cameras, but i know it was under 100 each. They are wifi capable but i hard wired them to my router and get way better performance especially when looking at all 5 at the same time. (4 outside, 1 on sump pump)