Tapo TP-Link 2K QHD Security Camera, Indoor/Outdoor, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗣𝗖𝗠𝗮𝗴 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲, Color Night Vision, Free Person/Pet/Vehicle Detection, Invisible IR Mode, SD Storage, C120

I purchased this security camera yesterday, it arrived at my house this morning and this afternoon I have it installed and I have it linked to my WiFi Network and running on the TAPO app on my phone.I not overly techy at all and I found the app, and the bluetooth pairing with my phone, and the connecting to my house's WiFi etc... to be extremely easy to set up an use.I can see my front door, talk to people out there, turn a light on and I can even make a little alarm noise too. LOL.Local storage:I bought Extreme SanDisk 256mb Mini SD cards for local storage. Whatever card you get you will need a minimum rating of V30. 256 mb should record about 2 weeks on a loop, I think. this camera could support a 512mb card, but they are more than twice the price.Subscription:I signed up for the 30 day free trial of their membership subscription.I could run this app and view this camera on my phone and utilize my local storage without the subscription.The subscription adds cloud storage.Beyond Cloud Storage I do not relly know what other benefits I gain from the subscription, but will probably find out when it runs out. I'll try life without it and then determine if I want to sign up.Installation:I found the metallic mounting plate for magnetic mounting to be useless on a vertical wall application. The camera would just slide down the metal plate, the magnet was not strong enough.I drilled holes through the camera base and mounted it that way, worked very well and was easy to do and looks professional.There is a USB C or similar power supply plug on the camera end and the supplied power cord has a regular USB power plug on the other end.They supply your with a USB to 115 plug power block included in the box.I used a plastic handy box I had on hand anchored to a piece of truss framing to mount a regular 115 outlet that spliced into an existing 14/2 electrical wire running in the soffit above my camera mounting location.I have this power block plugged into that and the power cord for the camera plugged into the power block. I'm glad nobody will ever see it, looks crappy.I had all of this on hand and have wired multiple houses.If purchasing on outlet for this installation I would recommend purchasing a USB 115 outlet that mounts in a handy box.I bought two fo these cameras, these re my first security cameras.I am happy with these two for $25 a piece but before I buy more I will research and try to find a tapo option that just has a couple bare wires sticking out of it so I can just hardwire it directly to my house's electrical system.My cameras were purchase don sale. For $25 a piece and $25 a piece for the cards, so $50 a piece total, I am loop recording 14 days of security footage that I can access from the other side of the world via my phone and home WiFi system. Not to mention I can also talk to people on my front door.Who can complain about that?Of course if someone just cuts my internet cable, it'll all go to s*** anyways. I suppose the cameras would continue recording on my SD cards. Of course if they could see your cameras, they could take the cameras or just the SD crds too. But its better than nothing, I should have done this sooner.

These are great little cameras and the software app is very good. Looks more like and indoor cam but works great outside even at night. The starlight option makes video at dusk very clear. The IR night vision works well too. I added extra IR lights to give clearer night time video because everything bad happens at night. I tried another TAPO camera, the C520 and I like this better. The C520 has a patrol mode and can pan and zoom and follow people if you want that but the picture on this at night is slightly better. It is pretty wide angle too and setup and connected easily.Interesting, when I bought a second C121 camera to replace the C520, it had a slighly hazy image. I tried to reach out to support to see if there is an easy way to clean or refocus it, but that was seeming like a waste of time, so I just returned it. Interesting that the replacement I just got didn't have any plastic film over the lense like the other 2. So maybe it was a return too but it works fine so I don't care. I hope they don't sell my return to someone else, it is almost OK, but in comparison to my other 2, the picture is hazy.These are smaller than I expected (which doesn't really matter I guess) and the magnetic mount and mounting arm rotates in all directions making it easy to position. You can put a screw through the mount too so it can't just be knocked down by someone, but they could rip it down easy enough if they can reach it. These look a little delicate, so I mounted it under the eave to keep it out of the rain and snow.The Tapo-TP-Link software is better than some chinese ones I tried. I had weird glitchy issues with a couple other brands, like the dates not matching up, or going off line and needing to be reset. This just works well. You can zoom in on videos which is nice. It does not have 2X or 4X speed like my other ones did which was helpful when scrolling through a bunch of clips looking for something, but that is the only feature I miss.It does not record 24x7 to the card, but you don't want to have to replay that much anyway when looking for something. The motion video indicates whether it is a car, person, pet or general motion and you can set the level of sensitivity to get more or less recordings. I turn off notifications and just use these as security cameras to look back through if something happens. This can take a big microSD card so you have lots of days saved, more that I would ever need I think. I am using a 64 and 128gb card but it takes even bigger ones.Price was great too, especially on sale. So far I am very happy with it. I will post a followup if anything changes in the next several months.

First of all I used this for streaming a small bird nest on my front porch to friends and family on an http stream over a forwarded port from my network. It supports RTSP so that was possible. Granted VLC couldn't play the stream on mac (unknown issue) and linux (vlc disabled live555). FFMPEG was the solution since the audio codec is PCM ALAW so I had to transcode for both video and audio.The night vision is surprisingly good. The minimum focus distance is around 7-8 inches for good focus and around 5-6 inches for bare minimum visibility. I would prefer that distance were reduced but that's nitpicking for a $25 camera. The magnetic base is phenomenal. The bird nest is in a wreath that hangs from our screen door via a flat metal hanger so the base stuck to that easily. The degrees of freedom for the hinge is so impressive, you can crane and twist and folder the neck in more ways than expected by examining the photos. It was fairly easy to setup and it does exactly what I want, it just records 24/7.My only peeve was in the app I wasn't clear how to fully disable flash and sirens. I don't want to scare Mr. Bird. I think I configured it right as no movement sets off any alarms but the software wasn't super clear on that.Also when I first plugged it in nothing happened. I hit reset and nothing happened. I reinserted the USB-C cable and then it started working. That was a little odd but those types of hiccups are expected, I probably just hadn't inserted it all the way. Actually the cable was hard to insert likely due to the insertion point being IP66 rated so it's hard to get in and thus prevents water and dust from entering.