Having some experience of different companies' home automation devices & apps, I can safely say Tapo is the best I've interacted with. The interface is clean & simple enough that anyone can use it, with advanced features accessible through a sensible, logical set of menus. The app is stable & feels mature. If you think this sounds like faint praise, you probably haven't had the misfortune of dabbing with some of the other home automation software out there.There's a clear sense that everything has been designed for simplicity & ease-of-use. There's the right amount of handholding for connecting new devices. Creating groups, rooms and automations (if you need or want them) is a breeze. Some companies' home automation software is a nightmare: buggy, wiggy, crashy or bloated, leaving you wishing the device you bought could be used without the excruciating pain of forced interaction with their awful, awful software. So congratulations TP-Link, I genuinely enjoy using your H/A software. Coupled to reasonably priced products & devices, you're miles ahead in the home automation space. H/A doesn't work without the software-based user interface and you hold a crucial competitive advantage thanks to the Tapo app.

So far I’m really liking the Tapo system. I started with one cheap camera but now have five cameras including two C420S2 which has amazing AI for people and car detection. Haven’t tried pets but assume it works just as well. We have a few acres and it’s hard to know when cars are arriving sometimes so the cameras will make the hub chime when a car is coming down the driveway. Or if it detects people late at night. We’ve got a bunch of globes but what I’m especially liking are the motion sensors and buttons. Unfortunately they’re not available in Australia yet so I purchased from Europe. They’re amazing. Lamps that turn on at night automatically, one button to turn all the lamps in a room on… there just doesn’t seem to be a limit yet for what’s possible.

I started out with one camera (c200) and had it up and running in less than 5 minutes. The app is pleasant to use with good features and interface. I’ve expanded my camera range after the good experience from the c200 and the app handles all the cameras live streaming simultaneously very well. What the stand out thing for me was how instant and quick motion detection notifications are sent to your device. I compared the tapo against two higher end hikvision cameras that were placed next to the tapo and viewing the exact same scene and on every occasion when I purposely walked in front of the cameras to set off the motion detection the tapo was the first camera that I received a notification of motion detection to my phone out of the three. The other two were not far behind but never did they beat the tapo. That’s pretty impressive compared to the price difference between hikvision and tapo cameras. Also recording and play back on an installed SIM card in the camera works well. And the wifi connection is unreal. The live feed is like it’s a wired connection. These cameras are good bang for your buck.

TLDR Do not buy these products because whenever you try to connect, it turns out and perhaps 3/10 attempts will work as intended. I am so frustrated with these cameras. I bought 2 outdoor cameras and two indoor, and it’s been hard work ever since. Whilst everything “works” - it is not demonstrating reliability. (1) Signal strength/break. The front camera that covers the street, parking and car, after a few seconds of watching the feed, stops working and after 30 seconds asks me to refresh the feed. I refresh and the. The camera simply displays “offline.” This camera is less than 5m from a router my phone and even the car pick up from the street 20m away. Tapo obviously blame my $400 router. (2) Notification “zone.” None of the cameras pay any attention to the boundaries I have setup. I don’t need to be noticed at 5am when my opposite neighbour leaves for work. I need to know what the silly man drives into the back of my car, on my driveway. (3) “Person identification” is absolutely useless. It sends a notification that a person has been detected when in actual fact it was - hold your breath - a possum. (4) Tapo Care/Cloud is PER DEVICE and not per account. Don’t get sucked into it. I wish I could believe all the 5 star reviews weren’t bots. Absolutely ridiculous.