Can I get alerts even when I'm not recording to the cloud?

Yes, Camio Box itself can trigger the alerts even when not recording to the cloud.

In this example, the query "black or white vehicle" has been pinned to trigger alerts. Even though the recording schedule is nighttime-only 10pm to 6am, the alert still fires at 4:12:41PM, as seen in this screenshot from the live view, because the Box itself fires the alert:

Each alert has 3 links to view search results:

1. The search icon shows the query that was matched, and clicking that link opens the search results for that query.
2. The time icon shows the exact start time of the Event that triggered the alert, and clicking that link opens the search results for that time without any other camera or label constraints so that you can see everything happening at that moment in time.
3. The Event link icon shows only the 2-minute period following the start of the Event that triggered the alert. Requesting that 2-minute period causes the Events to be stored and indexed in the cloud even if you had not previously been recording to the cloud.

Separate from the alert itself, the step backward button at the bottom each camera's live view tile opens the prior 15 minutes of Events from that camera. If the camera had not been recording to the cloud in those prior 15 minutes, then click that button triggers the upload and indexing of all Events from that camera in that 15-minute period.