If you are someone trying to break in a house and see a security camera, wouldn't you try to grab it in hopes of destroying any evidence it had captured?

The Argus being so small and portable, thieves would have no difficulty in grabbing it and along with the recording on the local SD card.

Given my internet is sometimes unreliable and also the fact that the internet cable runs openly from a public area into the house making it rediculously to cut (that's how it is setup for the whole neighbourhood so every one local knows) so if a smart thief with some knowledge of cloud based security system would know to cut the internet cable first. Once internet is gone, nothing will be recorded in cloud storage.

Having a hub/NVR unit to will make things much more reliable as it could be hidden away making it hard to find and loss of internet connection would not affect it. I understand concerns about battery life but since it still uploads to the cloud when triggered, I don't see any problem with it uploading to the hub at the same time. We don't need 24/7 recording, I only want it to store the video somewhere safe when the PIR sensor is triggered.

POE is not an option for me due to wiring difficulties and it looks like there is only one wireless alternative from another manufacturer that provides local storage option on a hub but its video quality is not as good compared to Argus. Especially the night recordings by the Argus 2 with the starlight sensor.

If there is any chance of a hub being available in the future (I have seen it being mentioned in an old review), I would wait for it to buy the Argus 2 but reliability of retaining a recording is still my primary concern and I might have to go with the alternative if there is no chance of a hub/NVR for the Argus.