TP-Link Tapo Mini Smart Security Camera, Indoor CCTV, Works
TP-Link Tapo Mini Smart Security Camera, Indoor CCTV, Works with Alexa & Google Home, No Hub Required, 1080p, 2-Way Audio, Night Vision, SD Storage, Device Sharing (Tapo C100)
From the brand
| Weight: | 260 g |
| Dimensions: | 6.76 x 6.46 x 9.89 cm; 260 Grams |
| Brand: | TP-Link |
| Model: | Tapo C100 |
| Colour: | White |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | TP-Link |
| Dimensions: | 6.76 x 6.46 x 9.89 cm; 260 Grams |
Very nice camera, easy set up and great value for money. Picture quality Inc night vision is excellent. You can also talk 2 way through the device. Very happy and would highly recommend.
WiFi camera do payment plan just connect to your phone and watch. You can pay for extras but it’s click the cross and you don’t hear from them again no ads nothing just what you wa
I used this when I was not at home to keep an eye on my cat. I can see all of my living room even leading into the hallway. And I love how you can zoom in to see exactly what your cat is doing
Had to get a camera for back garden as kids from woods kept climbing over fence
Some time with decent internet I’m on the fastest board and it sometimes goes down witch is annoying it away . As you have to reset on the camera not on your phone . Should be some way of resetting on your phone when boardband back on . Have another for front window on my car
Defo get sim cards save you buying from the cloud . Sound good I don’t have it on thou cos it notify me when someone in the back or front. If I’m away I use it and you can hear everything cars birds voices
Nothing to dislike. Excellent value for money. Good clear picture. Amazing night time infant red quality. My garden shed is is very dark at night. This camera makes it look as if the lights are on.
I bought this to replace a British Gas Hive security camera which I bought 5 years ago and which has failed. I was looking for something cheap, cheerful and works. I’ve used it in France and Here in UK at my house, and it has proved to be really reliable, and efficient. I recommend. It was also recommended by Which?
I purchased this device for my hamster cage so that I can monitor her behaviour. The quality is great and the motion sensing is amazing where you get notified if it senses movement. In addition, you can also make it so that the camera records the movement during certain hours in a day. For example, when you wake up, you can watch video snippets to see what they were doing. Highly recommend this product!
Overall I would absolutely recommend this product for peace of mind. Worth every penny.
I wanted a camera for a nursery. After buying a Ring Doorbell & Echo Show 5 looked for a compatible camera and chose the Blink Mini. This wouldn’t connect to the network (or if it did, it wasn’t stable). This was replaced with a Yi Dome camera and I encountered similar problems. That also went back.
Roll on a year and I purchased this camera (Tapo C100) in Black Friday week for under 20.
After unboxing, I followed the instructions on the small card included in the box. Scanning the QR code launced a webpage to download the Tapo App.
After powering on the camera – I waited for the flashing red/green LED indicating the camera was in setup mode.
First problem was that the Tapo App said that “Local Network Permission Needed” in iOS 14 and a button to go to Settings on my iPhone to do this. No obvious place as to where to grant permission.
I again link to the camera’s WiFi network then click “I’ve already given Local Network permission”.
Then after I think I’ve got that sorted, I have to create a Tapo account.
Enter email address and password in order to create an account and get the message that there is an error “Network is unstable. Please try again later.” WTF does that even mean?!
I then get a sign-in page where it looks like my account has been created and I try to log in and get another error which simply says ‘Error. Please try again later’.
So, because I can’t seem to go back to the start in the App, I delete the App and reinstall by scanning the QR code again.
Now I get the error message ‘Safari cannot open the page because the server cannot be found’.
Okay – so that was because I’d linked to the camera’s WiFi network. I had to reconnect to my router’s WiFi network and in order to try again.
Finally manage to get the camera and App working – now to get it working with Alexa
I’m told to open the Alexa App, got to ‘Skills & Games’, search for Tapo (although the image in the Tapo App shows ‘Tapo Smart Home’) and tap – however the Alexa Search turns up 3 results (image below) ‘tapo’, ‘tapo smart home’ and ‘tapo app’. Nothing appears to work first time, or second time either. Third time I get the app showing as per the instructions.
I go through the setup with Alexa – however Alexa doesn’t discover any new device.
I go to ‘Cameras’ in the Alexa app and find the Tapo camera listed but it says ‘Live view not supported’.
Okay, so I can live view through the Tapo app on my phone but not through Alexa on my Show 5??
So I go to the Show 5 and ask Alexa to “Show Office” to see what would happen and I get the live feed from the Tapo camera!
So, the hardware seems great it is just the instructions and/or software that is iffy.
So far, setup has taken around an hour of fiddling about (and I’m not a computer novice at all) however it now seems to be working with both the Tapo App on my phone and with the Alexa Show 5 and gives a great picture in daylight and a nice sharp picture uder IR lighting at night (see picture).
I’m using the camera as a nursery cam and to that end, I installed the Tapo app on my iPad. This worked faultlessly first-time and I now have the option of viewing the bedroom on the Show 5 or on the iPad (but not at the same time).
The iPad app gives around 5 mins of viewing time before it asks if you want to continue viewing.
I can’t give the camera 5 stars (quality-wise it deserves 5) simply because of the faff of getting the camera to work in the first place and the poorly-written software.
Given the quality of the image in both daylight and under IR I’ll give it 4 stars.
Sweet little CCTV camera for the price. Was going to add it to my Synology Surveillance Station but when an additional camera license costs twice as much as this camera I haven’t as yet. Luckily though, there is a Tapo app which can be used for live viewing.
So, what do we have here. It’s a very lightweight, budget camera. It’s basically point and shoot as there are no adjustments that you can make without physically moving the thing. So, no lens adjustments, PTZ etc. But, you wouldn’t expect those on a camera this cheap. Without hooking it up to my Synology, I can’t actually record anything on it – only live view. However, there is an SD slot so I assume that you can record and playback via the Tapo app, but I don’t know if this is a free or subscription feature? Haven’t tried it.
Night vision is great and there is two way audio and a motion alarm that can be set – all cool features. I just set this one up pointing at the front door with the motion detection and alarm set. If anyone were to open that front door, I would get notifications on my phone and the alarm on the device would sound. Would hopefully put the opportunist intruder off.
The two way audio was the only slight let down. I did try and have a conversation with my son over it when he was in the house and I was away but he told me it kept breaking up. But hey, this is not the main feature so no biggie.
The Tapo app on the iPhone is pretty slick. As I said, I haven’t tried the recording and playback side of things so I do need to dig out an SD card and give this a go. But, these are ONVIF devices so they can be plugged in to any NAS or DVR system that supports ONVIF. At the price, you could very cheaply cover the inside of your house with these. Bargain.
Lets start at the price point, this is essentially an indoor camera and at very reasonable price. It came in really quick time and was well packaged. Instructions are easy and setting up really simple. I have the unit set up with Google home and therefore attached to a mini hub and my iphone. I have also set up the unit outside under an overhang so its covered yet in the open. Picture quality is very good as is the movement detection. setting up the camera was easy and the app is intuitive with various settings to play with. The cameras orientation is easily change in the app so you can mount the stand from a ceiling for example. The app receives notifications which are easily viewable and presented in an easy to read timeline. Camera stores the images on a micro SD card, not included. It may not be a sophisticated and more expensive units but this little camera works very well and would be idea for just keeping an eye on your property inside or out but bear in mind it is not waterproof. You can also talk to the camera to alert people outside if necessary. Nice product. I have tried this away from home on 4G and it works as well as on home wifi.
What can I say, a really great little camera for 20 quid. It was very easy to setup with router and I didn’t need to disable 5Ghz band on my broadband router like I have had to with some smart lightbulbs and plugs.
What is tricky? The instructions are lacking in as much as its a small paragraph about inserting an SD card which is not included(fair enough considering the price).
It does say the SD card can be up to 128Gb. It also says you don’t need to format the SD card first. I did as I couldn’t get it working straight off and this was one suggestion.
What it doesn’t say is you need at least a Class 6 speed SD card, I got a Class 10 to be safe.
I plugged in a 16Gb SD card and got a audio message from the built in speaker saying there was a problem with the card. After about half an hour unplugging and reinserting the SD card and nothing working I went onto google.
What would be very helpful would be clear instructions.
You have to switch off the camera, plug the SD card in.
Switch it back on then go into the app and find the Format SD card section in the Settings and then it will work.
I work in the IT industry so it was a little frustrating but for someone with very basic knowledge this could be a bit of a nightmare.
This cam is designed for a primary surveillance which has many uses I.e baby monitor ect….. The cam is able to recorded to a micro SD card with a max size of 128gb class 10. When using a micro SD card you will enable local storage to record live footage only via motion activation (not continuous recording)
On the app you can setup the area that you wish to setup as motion zone. If there is activity detected inside the motion zone which you have setup the cam will immediately record the footage to the SD card.
The app is really good to view activity by motion. One thing I would do is turn notifications off as you will get bombarded with notifications. The motivation zone activation recording is very accurate.
There is a 2 way voice calling mode but my exoerice of this was that there was too much noise distortion. There is a built in mic where you can hear live audio.
My verdict
It’s ok. It doesn’t shout out 1080p quality. It’s more 720p. I’ve seen other cheap branded cams that are 1080p which provide kick a*s images. Both daytime and nighttime images is pretty low quality. By today’s standards it should be much better. On the plus side the app is great. The playback is great. For what I’m using the cam for it’s just about acceptable.
Overall very good value for a HD camera that supports an H.264 stream and ONVIF.
The C100 does not have any fancy features but as I use with an NVR (hence requirement for ONVIF) I am not interested in cloud storage etc. and only want a decent image and motion detection. For 20, this provides a quality HD stream encoded using H.264 (efficient use of bandwidth and storage) and the basic motion detection works reliably, triggering NVR recording without issue. It’s not professional grade but a big improvement on my old cameras which only support 640×480 resolution.
The biggest downside for me relates to mounting options. The integrated stand is fine for standing on a table etc. and that is probably the target use. However, it is not suited for wall mounting despite having the necessary screw fixing holes in the base. When fixed to a wall, the back of the camera itself is flat to the wall making adjustment of the field of view impossible. Would work okay if mounted to a ceiling but do not buy if intending to fix to a vertical wall. It’s a shame, as a little more thought in the design of the stand would have solved this.
Finally. The power cord and plug are black which is at odds with the camera itself. A white power cord and plug would blend in better.
Bought a pair of these out of curiosity on movements in and around my property.
Initially was looking at Amazon Blink outdoor cameras but after some bad reviews I thought it may be a high cost just to satisfy my own curiosity.
With the lack of outdoor sockets, and my own laziness I then ventured into the indoor camera world. In hopes I can point them out my windows. Looked at google nest cams, but had the same conclusion as per the Blink – high price for me just being nosey.
Then came across this camera, had fair to good reviews and at 19.99 at point of purchase it was exactly what I was after.
After buying 2 cameras and SD cards, they are now set up, pointing out of windows and I genuinely am amazed with them.
– Really simple to set up
– The picture quality is almost unbelievable for the price
– The app is simple, clean and very fluid to use
– The cameras can be set up for zonal motion detection and is sensitivity
– remote control when away from the home allows you to change from LQ/HQ Day/Night mode and record.
The only issues I do have is that the motion sensor picks up the rain against the window pane, but that’s not the cameras fault.
And night vision doesn’t work against window panes, again not the cameras fault. It does work well in low light on day mode – as you can see in the pictures.
For a 20 camera, you don’t expect the additional support to work so well (the app and integration with google home etc..)
Cameras have been up and running for a week and had no snags at all, so far….
So yeah, we’ll done TP-Link, will probably buy more.
Bought this when it was on offer for 19. Iv’e got quite a few of these types of cameras so the only reason i bought this was because it can be used with the google nest hub so i can quickly get the camera picture on the google hub or on the tv and it does a good and quick job doing this. My camera points out through a window on to my driveway so the fact that i can keep the camera on “day mode” all the time stops the night vision from working when it gets dark because when the leds come on at night the image reflects back off the window so you just get a reflection of the leds on the camera. None of my other cameras have the feature where you can turn the night vision off.
From my experience and from reading the reviews is the issue of trying to get a sd to work. I tried 2 different sd cards but they wouldn’t work and both were bought from reputable retailers. i tried to format them from the camera and then tried to format from a pc before putting them in. I couldnt get a 64gb to work at all from the camera but eventually after trying a 16gb card a few times it managed to work in the camera. i get about 18-24 hours of continuous playback with this card and thats all i really need.
Overall the camera is good and gives a good picture, the app is easy to navigate. I haven’t tried the motion detection and just have this set to record 24/7 and the recording just loop records when the card is full.
If i didn’t have issues trying to get the sd cards to work i would have given this camera 5 stars.
overall i’m glad i bought it although i wouldn’t pay full price.
Please click on helpful if my review helped you, thanks.
There’s a lot I like about the Tapo C100. In some ways it over-delivers – it isn’t obvious from TP-Link’s website that you can record and monitor the camera output from a PC using your own storage with no cloud subscription as well as to an internal SD card. Setup was a little messy and connecting to Netcam Studio (thanks to another reviewer for the hint!) took a small amount of head-scratching as I had to set up an account on the camera effectively. I also had mild palpitations setting the camera up as it spoke to me which I sure as h*** wasn’t expecting. The picture was better than I expected, the mobile app on Android is good. As other have commented, the night vision looking through a window simply reflects the IR lights back but that’s only to be expected. I haven’t tried yet but I do expect to be able to view the camera stream on a Chromecast-attached TV.
However, there’s one irritation which, to my mind, reduces the usability of the camera. You cannot give the camera a static IP address so, when it upgrades firmware or you move it to another room or have a power cut, it can reappear with a different IP address. TP-Link suggest that you should be able to force your router to reissue the same IP address but this may not be possible for many routers and, frankly, the right way is just to let you chose a static address. It’s lost a star for this and possibly future purchases as the irritation caused with one camera must surely be worse still with several. It’s lost a star for this.
I’ve been looking for a camera that allows easy recording to my own storage at a reasonable price. This is so nearly a perfect fit.
I had been looking for a while for an inexpensive camera that would complement my Nest camera’s and which would work on the smart displays from Google. These Tapo camera’s are overall quite a decent purchase. They have a good range of features, Google compatibility being the main one that I was looking for. There are however a few issues that stop them from being a 5 star product (at their discounted price).
1 – They still use a power brick which is unforgiveable when similar camera’s are USB powered these days. While the cable is really quite long it does mean you have to have a dedicated socket for them.
2 – For reasons that elude me, my two Tapo camera’s continually default to the low quality video option, no matter how many times I select the high quality option. Doing a little bit of reading online, it does seem to be a problem that other people suffer.
3 – The video playback is quite snappy and works well but it does need the ability to fine tune a time frame. What I mean is that it’s quite difficult to select a specific period of time that you want to review. The interface doesn’t allow for you to ‘zone in’ on a time.
Other than that I’m quite happy. Set-up is easy, video quality is good and integration with Google works well.
I was surprised just how easy this was to install.
Firstly I have wall mounted it so used the included template to drill the two required holes, its just a case of slipping the camera base over the two included screws, plug it in to the mains and I was ready to start the set up procedure.
I downloaded the Tapo app and this found my camera straight away, I then followed the on-screen instructions to connect it to the WiFi and this took no more than 2 minutes.
The only other job was to format the memory card I had inserted (64Gb), they recommend formatting it in the camera itself and once again I simply had to follow an on screen instruction to get it done.
The picture quality is excellent considering the price of the camera, no its not crystal clear but its more than adequate for my requirement.
The night vision is very good with the camera automatically switching itself to infra-red when it gets dark.
I’ve set this up for continual, looped recording and I can review the recording whenever I like through the app on my phone.
This is where I’ve experienced the only problem in that the recording doesn’t seem to like playing back at more than 2X speed, maybe I’m doing something wrong as I haven’t used it for long so I’ll try a few other things to see if I can remedy this.
I tested the motion tracking and this works very well in both light and dark, sending a notification to my phone when motion is detected.
So as you can tell I’m delighted with this camera, it was a doddle to install and works very well indeed.
The price is fantastic and the fact that there’s no regular subscription fee is a big bonus.
I hope you find my review helpful.
I’ve been trying different setups for a couple of years now, got an ip cam, got Honeywell C1 etc… but they just don’t cut it. Up cam with Danale app means I can sit and view all day long, to get alerts etc I need to subscribe to cloud, don’t want to.
Honeywell gives alerts but can only watch 90 secs so very restricted.
Looked at the main security guys recently and although their cams seem ok, the apps have dire reviews (Swann, Yale, Arlo…)
Fell over TP-Link and the app had rave reviews, checked the cams & omg, so cheap by comparison!
Bought C100 for 20 to try, app foc, insert old micro sd and hey presto, can watch till my hearts content (I don’t) get alerts, records, no subs picture amazing. It’s an indoor cam but I’ve got it outside under the eves as the TP outdoor cam isn’t released at the time of writing but will be buying as soon as poss.
If you’re looking for a very easy to set up, cheap, excellent quality security solution then I cannot recommend this high enough. Oh and it works with Alexa show too although you have to find the trick to setting it up, it’s about giving Alexa access to your TP account to connect rather than finding the camera via Alexa search. But it’s really easy to do once you find how – I think the info was on the TP site rather than Amazon’s Alexa stuff
Slightly disappointingly in order to activate rtsp/onvif functionality you have to do it through the tapo app which means you have to register and log in. This isn’t a major problem, but by signing up it automatically allows you to access your camera from anywhere, which means it’s uploading the data somewhere which I’m not a massive fan of. It has a privacy mode which is nice, but this also enables it for the rtsp stream too and there’s no way of just disabling the cloud functionality and having it local only. Luckily I’m running PiHole, so I just disallowed it from accessing its cloud service and now I can run it entirely locally and control exactly where I can access it from outside my network which is nice. The app still works fine when you’re on a network local to it too, so you don’t lose too much functionality either.
Overall the quality of the camera is good, even though it does have a few artefacting problems every now and again, where parts of the image get corrupted and ends up making any image detection software pick it up as motion. Night mode is great and high quality, and has good enough range for a large room in a house. Like other reviews have said: You can’t place it pointing out of a window as a rudimentary outdoor camera as when the night mode comes on it just reflects back at itself, but that was expected.
It’s a good camera at a decent price, even if it takes a bit of effort to disconnect it from the net.