I just put another one of these cameras in my cart. I've had one up since July and it still works perfectly. I do not use the cloud service, instead in installed a memory card. Super easy setup. It follows people, animals, bugs lol, it will pan and follow just about everything while recording. Super easy to view and watch recordings. I can download any recording with a quick click of a button to my phone. If I leave a review, it is either awful or I like it that much. If you're looking for a inexpensive, very good quality camera, I recommend this camera. Also, it paired easily with my alexa so I can use the camera with the app or alexa. This camera has been through snow, sleet, storms, not a single issue. When the camera is tripped, it records and puts it in a quick and simple location. Open it and with the memory card I can see any movements for the last 24 hours. You don't have to watch tons of video. From there, click download. That easy and you do not need another app or program to watch it and you do not have to spend a single penny, unless you want to pay for the cloud service which I cannot tell you how much that is. Get this camera, you won't be disappointed. Read more
Very good camera, excellent quality and easy to use I bought this Tapo camera for the outside and the truth surprised me for good. The installation was very simple and the app is intuitive. The 1080P image looks very clear both day and night, and the night vision works perfectly. I really like that it has a 360° view and movement tracking, since you don't miss anything that happens around. Alerts arrive quickly on the cell phone and AI detection works quite well, without the need to pay for a subscription. It works without problems with Alexa and Google Home, and the storage is practical. For the price it has, it offers a lot of functions. Without a doubt, it is an excellent option for home security. I totally recommend it. Read more
I’ve been using the Tapo C500 outside for a bit now, and overall I’m impressed. The pan and tilt feature is the real star here. Being able to rotate the camera and see everything around it from the app means there are basically no blind spots, which is exactly what I wanted for outdoor security. Motion tracking works well and follows movement smoothly without being jittery. The only issue with emotion tracking is that if something moves too quickly through its field of view it isn't able to keep up with it. But that's really only a problem if you're trying to keep up with every car that passes your house. Night vision is clear enough to easily see what’s going on after dark, and setup was straightforward. I also like that you can customize the light and sound alarms if you want an extra layer of “hey, you’re being watched.” It connects on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only, which is fine for most setups, just something to be aware of. I'm still on my 30-day trial of the paid service. I'm pretty sure we're going to go ahead and pay for it. The service seems solid and I've had zero issues with it thus far. Not to mention the price is very reasonable. Overall, this feels like a solid, reliable outdoor camera with good features and strong coverage for the price. Read more
I have been in the market for a decent camera for quite some time. Years even. Finally, it appears I found one that delivers I tried many many brands of cameras. The vast majority of them being other cheaper off- brand cameras. Most of them didn’t work right out of the box to failing just under a year of use. Most apps were clunky at best. Enter Tapo cameras. Easy to set up. Great app features. The Tapo app is extremely easy to understand and is thoughtfully designed. Tp-link actually manufactures the Tapo products. And TP-Link has been a very reputable brand over the years. The cameras themselves are good. Good clarity and great night time vision. I appreciate the ability to insert a physical micro sd card for video storage. You aren’t forced into some cloud service for that ability (although it is available if you want it). And yes, you can access all of the sd card footage from the app. There are only a couple of quibbles I have with these. If power goes out, the cameras do need to be manually adjusted back to their “home” position once power is restored. It would be infinitely helpful if there was an actual “home position” setting to commit the cameras to. So they will go back to this position in the event of a power outage. It’s annoying because all of your settings pretty much rely on this home position to function as desired The other quibble is if the WiFi ever changes the cameras have to be removed from your app and re-added to change what WiFi they are connected to. There really should be a WiFi change option in the app to handle this easily. Other than those two things I really appreciate how well these work. The motion tracking option isn’t bad (it’s not great though often moving too slow to keep up with the target). But it does move fast enough to keep the target within the field of view longer than a stationary camera would. The alarm function is nifty too. Set on a schedule (I have mine set at night) it will produce any number of variables like flashing lights and alert sirens if it detects people in the area. Good little feature to have to scare away someone if they think they just set off an alarm. Alternatively you can upload your own sound clip if you want verbal feedback towards your intended target. All in all these are great cameras. Now to see how they function in the long term. EDIT: After writing this review, I found in the app that you can set up to 3 different views for each camera as sort of a "pre-set". So, this makes it slightly less combersome to move the cameras back to the home position should they need to be manually moved back after a power outage. Also it's noteworthy to mention that shadows will set these cameras off no matter what the sensitivity settings are set to. So, on windy days the cameras are all over the place trying to chase the shadows. Also, this prevents them from returning back to the "home" position. Speaking of how they move, they are super clunky in their movements. Making motion tracking difficult for them to keep up with anything moving slower than a slow walk. I think the tracking should be sped up for this. Also, motion tracking does not work if motion is turned off. So if you just want it to track "people" it can't. Seems like an easy thing to implement if you want to void shadow tracking and only want people to be tracked. EDIT2: Just thought I would update my review to include more information after having the cameras for a bit now. I have now turned motion tracking off. The reason being is that, as time goes on they get worse at moving to track anything. They also randomly get stuck in the field of view when tracking something and then start erroneously tracking everything all over the place after that. Never returning to the home position. So, what you get is eventually the camera will drift so far away from home position you will often get the camera just looking at the ground or up in the air somewhere until you manually re-adjust them back yourself. I knocked off a star for this as it's a feature that seems to be more of a gimmick than a real useful function. I really do home they can update the firmware and app to make this feature more useful in the future. Read more
Value for the money with night vision , video is clear and fast. Wish it’s a little quieter when rotating but hey for $40 it’s a really nice cctv camera and I don’t have to pay monthly subscription. Read more
Very impressed with the quality of these cameras they work very well. I have used AM crest security cameras for years and I’m just tired of having to deal with them and their apps that they have. There’s always issues with the apps whereas with these they’re super easy to set up absolutely no problems with the apps at all I have a total of 11 cameras, and I am switching all of my cameras over to these and throw the other ones away, buy them you’ll be happy you did Read more
