I had already installed numerous Tapo devices (P125M plugs, C510W and C121 cameras, and D210 doorbells.) These were replacements for Blink devices. I have spent a number of years and a lot of dollars trying to get Blink devices to work. A very frustrating and marginally successful experience. If I had a dollar for every error message I got from Blink, I could have paid for this new system. Tapo equipment and software have been FAR superior to Blink in my experience. Blink sort of worked. Tapo just plain has worked. Your experience may vary from mine. The Tapo app is very smooth, doesn't cost anything if you use local storage, and is almost glitchless. The one thing I haven't liked is having to use a separate microsd card for each camera. The cost of the cards does add up and if someone steals the camera they also steal your record of them stealing the camera. I wanted to have centralized local storage. So that is the main reason I bought and installed this H500. It has worked flawlessly. I installed a Crucial MX500 two terabyte drive and achieved my main goal. The H500 detected all of my existing Tapo equipment without a hitch. Today I installed the excellent DL110 door lock (replacing a Sifely, which was a bit finicky) with no problem and intend to install a few of the Tapo smart bulbs. One important thing to do is enable "wifi backup" on your connected devices. I have had almost no signal problems since enabling -- unlike Blink. This integrates well with Alexa, though image quality through the Tapo app is better than Alexa. I like using Alexa routines for controlling everything, since I have some non Tapo plugs and lighting that Alexa routines handle very well. In summary -- an easy install and a good way to integrate the components of a very user friendly security/home monitoring/lighting system. One other thing I like about the Tapo app is that it works well with either a tablet or phone -- it switches between landscape and portrait mode seamlessly. Wish the H500 had been less costly, but it is worth the price to me. Read more
This is a totally logical step if you own Tapo cameras. A complete no-brainer. It works intuitively just like all the rest of Tapo's stuff, is solidly built like the rest of Tapo's stuff, offers solid and practically limitless add-on storage capacity options and easily connects via HDMI to view cameras on a proper monitor. It's just the natural addition for anyone with Tapo cameras and far more economical and private than a cloud subscription or buying memory cards for individual cameras. I'm no big worshipper of tech, but working in the industry I can tell you this does pretty much everything an expensive commercial system like Axis does with greater ease at a fraction of the cost. The entire Tapo ecosystem is well designed, well built and easy to adopt and expand. What's not to like except like everything else, it's sadly not Made in USA. But neither is Axis... Read more
Hubs easy to work with, the app detected it. Problem, and set up was super simple, the whole reason that I got this is so that I can record everything locally instead of throwing it up into the cloud and paying monthly fee. This is perfect if you use Tapo or Kasa. In case you're wondering, I recent to get the hub is so that if someone ever steals or destroys your cameras, you still have your data locally in your house, another thing to note is you can only choose to have data recorded either on the cameras or the hub, but not both. Fun feature, through the app. You could actually set up that if a person is detected or some sort of other event, the hub will play a ringtone notifying you. Read more
I wanted to have good, central, storage for my camera's photos and videos but didn't want them off in some unknown cloud with a constant subscription fee. I recently switched over to Tapo cameras because of their compatibility with Home Assistant. I was happy to also learn that they offered this H500 hub for centralized storage, and it came in at a decent price. It is easy to set up, plug it in, adopt it in the app, and toggle camera storage over to the hub. Done. Storage is expandable, I had an unused ssd lying around, installed it easily, the app told me it needed to be formatted. Done. You can turn AI features on or off for individual cameras, augmenting models that don't have any built-in AI recognition features. I have read about some issues with overheating, especially with an expansion drive installed. I put the unit on it's "side" with the bottom facing up with the hope that the heat will rise up and keep the unit cooler, but I agree it's a poor design to have heat radiating up through your expansion drive. Bonus, it works with the Tapo doorbell I purchased as a base, it can hook up to a TV to display your cameras there, and it can act as a fall-back WiFi base station for your cameras in case your main network goes out, or you don't have one (though it is 2.4 only and doesn't have the best range). Overall, I'm happy with this purchase and can recommend it. If Tapo could re-design it to eliminate the heat issue it would be a 5 star product. Read more
So far works great with the Tapo C217 cameras. Easy setup. Only thing was had to reboot the device to make it recognize the SD card. But otherwise works great! Read more
