TP-LinkTapo 2K Pan/Tilt Security Camera for Baby Monitor, Dog Camera w/Motion Detection, 2-Way Audio, Siren, Night Vision, Cloud & SD Card Storage, Works with Alexa & Google Home, 2-Pack (C210P2)

My eyes were glazing over when I came across this item. I was trying to find a decent price for cameras to add to my security system. Pan and till HD cams at this price? Must be junk! NOT! These low cost cameras by TPLink (best known for network equipment) are a fraction of the cost for cameras by Blink, Ring and many others. They are very easy to set up, and they connect directly to your wifi network. Image quality on par or better with any of the above. And the response time, even if you are remote is nearly instant. You can subscribe to cloud storage, or just get an inexpensive MicroSD card to archive your clips. There are lots of options to configure your cameras just about any way you like. Adding additional devices is extremely easy after the first device because the network information is retained by the App. It's about as close to plug and play as this can get. And mounting is a breeze! (Mounting Hack: if you don't want to drill holes use an adhesive tape such as Alien Tape>) Sorry Ring, you just got Gonged!

Easy to setup, but I have experience with TP-Link via bluetooth setup. The motion tracking was not something I thought was integrated. The cameras do make a hum when they pan. I have some of my cameras pointed out the window, and the auto-nightvision lighting blinds the camera at night. I knew this would happen though. The Android software is very good. These cameras do have rtsp access, so iSpy can work with them. The TP-Link Tapo app can access from mobile data. They do use MicroSD chips too.

I now have 13 wifi cams -- 8 different models from 3 different brands, so I'm writing this review for anyone who's just not sure which affordable camera to get. My current setup includes three Blink minis, a Blink doorbell cam (& sync module), three Wyze 3s, two Wyze OGs, a Wyze Pan 3, a Tapo C120, Tapo C210, and now this Tapo C211. They all have their pros and cons, but the pan cams (Wyze Pan 3, Taop C210, & Tapo C211) are by far the best of that bunch.Unlike the Blink cams, this Tapo cam does not require a separate (and somewhat pricey) sync module in order to record on a micro SD card. And unlike Wyze cams, this Tapo cam has an RTSP stream, allowing you to add it to your own monitoring system. That means that with the right technical knowledge, you can use this cam without a Tapo Care subscription, which means you have a lot of control and flexibility with it. I haven't dived into that aspect of Tapo cams, but I may start dabbling with it soon.For those that just want something affordable and easy to use, the C210 & C211 Tapo cams are a great solution. First, you'll download the Tapo app. Next, plug in your new cam and wait for the lights to start blinking. Then open the Tapo app and click the + button to add your cam to the app. The app will walk you through all the (easy) steps to get your camera up and running. You'll automatically be on a free trial of Tapo Care, which allows you to receive notifications and view video clips on your phone. After the free trial, it's roughly $3.50 per month per camera to continue, or you can do the yearly plan for a bit of a discount. I find the plan worth it -- it stores event video clips (when it detects motion, etc) for 30 days, includes person detection, etc. If you plug a micro SD card into your camera, you can set it for continual recording on a loop, and you can view those recordings on your phone as well. And unlike the other brands I mentioned, the Tapo app marks evens in that long recording, so it's easy to skip ahead or back to the parts you want to see.The best thing about the Tapo C210 & C211 cams themselves is the ability to pan around and track motion. With my stationary cameras, someone can walk out of the frame, and I can't see what they're doing, but with pan cams, I'm able to follow them around. I can also go into the app and manually pan the camera over to what I want to see -- like when I can't remember if I locked the door when I left. This was something I found lacking in the first cams I bought, and these pan cams solved that issue for me. The only thing I don't like is that these Tapo pan cams don't move as quickly as my Wyze pan cam, but for all the other benefits that Tapo cams have over Wyze, that's a small complaint. (Oh, and be aware that they don't do well tracking motion *through* glass, like if you set it inside the window to watch outside. I made that mistake and was initially disappointed with my cameras, but I soon figured out my error.)Overall, this is a great cam, especially if you're just starting out, don't have a big budget, or just don't know much about wifi cameras. They're easy to use, the subscription is affordable and scalable, and they're pretty reliable. I wouldn't go so far as to call them "security" cameras, since a true security system is much more robust, but they're great for checking on things remotely, the video quality and event recording is good, and they offer some peace of mind to those of us without the budget or technical knowledge to set up a full security system.

This review is for TP-Link Tapo 2K Pan/Tilt Indoor Security Camera for Baby Monitor, Pet Camera | Motion Detection & Tracking | 2-Way Audio | Cloud & SD Card Storage | Works w/Alexa & Google Home | Black | Tapo C211.Great video quality in 2K or 1080P but loses some details farther away, which is expected. So while I can zoom in on something, it does lose sharpness if it’s far away. I use it to watch my senior dog when he’s home alone. Setting up the camera is pretty easy by just following the quick setup guide. However, if you have VPN installed on your phone, turn this off first before you proceed or you will have a hard time connecting to the camera and your wi-fi. You can turn the vpn back on afterward. So basically 1) Pause vpn, if applicable 2) connect the phone to the camera wi-fi ID and once that’s connected then 3) connect your phone to your own wi-fi 2.4Ghz network and then 4) resume vpn, if paused earlier. If you don’t turn off vpn you will waste a lot of time trying to figure out why the camera could not connect to your WiFi. Been there done it and this is my 7th Tapo camera setup so just saying…I like Tapo specifically because I don’t have to buy cloud storage. This means that if you don't buy the cloud service or do not have a microSD, the camera will not record any activity by itself. It will still notify you of the activities you’ve set up to be notified about but it will not be possible to see what had just transpired without a microSD. I personally use a high endurance one that is designed specifically for monitoring cameras and dashcams, not just a phone microSD, because it needs to be able to handle the amount of read-write-retrieve that these cameras require. This is the one I use for all my cameras, if interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NY23WBG Just don’t go beyond the 512Gb limit for this camera.The camera is very good in general but I noticed that it can also lose track of me in terms of motion tracking and pan/tilting especially when I’m wearing dark clothing. After a while it would go back to the original position, leaving me baffled at times. It has also gone offline regularly for no apparent reason so I had to disable motion sensing which took care of that problem but it defeats the purpose of that feature! I thought the unit would rotate in the middle, at the ball joint, but it actually rotates at the base. I can hear it move and I leave the status light on to alert me that it’s on when I’m home so that I can remember to go into privacy mode and turn off the camera. This is usually when I wish that there is a Watch app that I can just click to turn on/off the camera without opening up the whole app to do this. There is a Home/Away mode for this though which can be set up automatically. Everything you need is in the app and I think it’s a great app. They’ve updated it a few times since I’ve been using it and it gets better every time. There’s always something new to play around with and explore. I love being able to download the video to my phone to share with friends and family. The only thing I do find annoying is that it will prompt me regularly every 5 minutes to continue monitoring and I have to respond or the screen is frozen. This defeats the purpose of it being a full fledged monitoring camera so it’s not great for baby monitoring. Something to keep in mind.Overall, this is a pretty good camera and is feature packed like all my other Tapo cameras but it had some quirks for me like losing track of where I walked and also going offline until I stopped motion sensing completely. It has great night vision and very crisp daylight videos though. It’s just a matter of fine tuning the settings to get things to behave the way you want that can take some time to get right. I don’t like subscribing to anything so the best part is that no subscription is required! I would give it a 4.0/5.0 - 03/11/2024.Side note: You only need to do the setup on one phone and will be able to view the camera on all your other devices whether iPad or whatever other tablets once you log on to the Tapo app. However, you will -not- be able to view the cameras on your laptop or the web by inputting the ip address in the browser (I’ve tried). Well, I’ve never found a way to do this and I’m not that tech savvy to figure it out but it may be possible using some other authentication method.Also, you can set the camera to do continuous recording vs only detection recording (Default) by going to Setting - Storage & Recording - Recording Schedule and editing the time blocks from Orange (Only when something is detected) to Blue (Always record) or even to White (Don’t record anything).Note that your phone can be connected to the 5GHz wifi all the time but the cameras will only use 2.4GHz by default. Many cameras only support 2.4GHz. As far as I can tell, it will not support or connect to any unsecure wifi network. It seems to only support WPA or WPA2 encryptions. WEP, Portal, WPA/WPA2-enterprise, or WPA3-only networks are not supported.If your internet drops, you can still use the cameras or watch live views without an internet connection if you are connected to the same wireless network. However, you won’t get any notifications since this requires internet access.I have the Tp-Link Wifi extender (RE220) and I use the Tapo Tethers app to connect half of my cameras to the hidden SSID (_ext) I set up in the app. I would recommend it if you want to have a greater wifi range.06/04/2024: Note: If you set up this camera to turn on and off with another camera (like with Leave Home or Arrive Home automation), and you turn on the other camera, this camera will also turn on by itself as soon as you appear in front of it (despite being in Privacy Mode i.e. camera is OFF). I believe this is a serious bug and so don’t be surprised to find the camera has turned on all by itself even if you have privacy set to ON, if you have this type of setup. Otherwise, it will stay shut down in privacy mode. If you don’t want this to happen then do not add this camera to your automation routine. However, this doesn’t just happen with this camera. It happens with all my other Tapo cameras as well that are linked with a motion sensing camera such as this one. For example, if you set Arrive Home to turn OFF both this camera and a non-motion sensing one, and you manually turned on this motion sensing camera, it will also force the other non-motion sensing one to come on as well so be careful with this type of setup lest you find it recording you doing something you may not want to be seen on camera. LOL Hopefully, Tapo will address this issue in one of their future software releases but be warned!!!