TP-Link Tapo

I have a Tapo door contact sensor and a camera to help provide some security when I’m away. I love that this app has so many features and automations and doesn’t try to up-charge you at every turn. You can set your cameras to record to an SD card and access the recordings from the app. Cloud storage is optional and not as expensive as competitors if you want it. You can also set home and away modes for all of your Tapo devices so they can behave differently based on which mode you select. For example, your home profile can set all of your cameras to privacy mode if you wanted. You can also control when you get notifications from sensors. I have mine set to notify me whenever triggered but you can just set a specific time range to monitor too. Another cool feature is that your Tapo devices can talk to and trigger each other. If you leave the house in the morning and your door sensor is triggered, you can set it up so that your cameras automatically exit privacy mode and start recording. The app is very detailed, well thought out, and deserving of its high praise!

I called customer support to specifically get details about how the app functions after the free trial (which is automatically on when starting) operates. The person repeatedly reassured me all features *other than* cloud storage still worked. For me the biggest thing was if the motion detection & notifications still worked. Rep said yes. I would only need to purchase an SD card if I wanted to record. My free trial just ran out, I haven't ordered the cards based on this, and turns out that was all *not true*. What you get without a cloud subscription is a live feed, full stop. You may even need to be on the same wifi network, where otherwise you can get notifications & view from anywhere. So I'm feeling pretty annoyed right now. I thought ahead and did all the work to try to get the right info and now my system isn't serving its function until I scramble to remedy this. I don't even know the solution tbh. I don't want to pay for cloud, I already pay many clouds. But moreso I do not trust these companies with my data. It's a honestly kind of a rip off to advertise these features if they only work st the cost of compromising your data & privacy, but hey I guess thats why they're so cheap! Ain't nothing free! But yeah, be warned. You're either adding one more subscription to the massive pile of subscription everything we are being forced into in this nightmare or the only feature you get is a live feed. The first hint was how incredibly effing unclear & vague all the instructions were. Usually when a company obfuscates the true nature of their product they are hiding something.

I bought this camera to watch my kittens while My husband and I are at work. We have two dogs who have never been around such small kittens so we just wanted to keep a watchful eye on the kitty’s. We put them in our empty guest room and use this camera to peek in. One of the kittens does not use the litter box properly every time and one of them doesn’t get a lot of food bc he is pushed out of the way. This camera has allowed us to have such peace of mind when leaving our newly adopted babies. The quality is great and even the night vision is amazing!! I love the amount of features the camera offers and is so nice to be able to move the camera around to see the entire bedroom! Something our others camera do not have! Definitely will be buying a couple more of these for our house soon!!! If you’re debating on buying it, just buy it. You will NOT be dissatisfied!! Amazing quality and provides such peace of mind 🐈‍⬛🫶🏻