TP-Link Tapo 2K QHD Outdoor Pan/Tilt Wi-Fi Security Camera, 360° View, Motion Tracking, Color Night Vision, Free Person/Vehicle/Motion Detection, Cloud & SD Card Storage, 24/7 Recording, Tapo C520WS…

This has exceeded my expectations! I got this item to keep an eye on my dogs when they go outside to the dog door during the day. I was just expecting something to view them on the porch going out the door. The motion tracking Works fantastic how about the quality is better than I expected for the price. It pretty much follows my dogs out the door and the whole time they're in the yard until they go back in the house. From home, and go back and monitor every time they went outside, or I can just watch that whenever I want to check on them. I also have their indoor cameras, but this is much nicer. For my purposes, this meet and exceeds my expectations in every way. Some takeaways you may want to know, you're going to hear the motor on the camera, this model is only 15 frames per second, but I'm not shooting professional video here. Just want to make sure my dogs are okay and motor their activity. You can pay more to get a higher end model that can ignore pets and cars, but I don't want that. What this offers is exactly what I want.

I’ve had these cameras for a long time now and realized even though I’m very impressed with them, I never wrote a review. I think for the money, they are the best cameras you could buy. They are simple to set up and install. They will accept micro sd cards for storing video so you do not require a service or a monthly fee. I chose these because they will track movement. So I can see my dogs or my child wherever they go in my back yard. I set up two: one on one side of the back door and one on the other. The only stipulation is they require an outlet to plug them in. But I have a pool in back so I have outlets in several places for plugging in the pool robot and entertainment devices. I can view both cameras via an app on my phone or my Alexa Show device. The image quality is good and with both I can see my entire back yard. I highly recommend these cameras to anyone looking for some simple home security or just the security of being able to keep an eye on your pets or children in your yard.

I bought this as a second camera in addition to my Tapo C425 and in my opinion, it‘s better than the C425 for the comparable aspects.Connectivity is very good and responsive is fast. The C425 lags and sometimes looses connection. I must add that both cameras are at the same location just 2 meters apart. The WiFi mesh AP (also TP-Link) is just 20 meters away.The night vision (infrared) gives also a better image than the C425.In general, although both have 2K UHD, IMO, the 520ws has the better image quality.Besides, the 520ws has some features the 425 doesn‘t but could have. For example the option to switch to color view in night upon detection and back to IR afterward.The only drawback with the 520ws is the missing internal battery. That‘s why I have a 425 at the same location for backup in case of power outtage.At the end, I like the 520ws as it has good connectivity, the image quality is good (could be better) and the 360 pan/tilt head with auto tracking works well. Installation was super easy too.

I have been in the market for a decent camera for quite some time. Years even. Finally, it appears I found one that deliversI tried many many brands of cameras. The vast majority of them being other cheaper off- brand cameras. Most of them didn’t work right out of the box to failing just under a year of use. Most apps were clunky at best.Enter Tapo cameras. Easy to set up. Great app features. The Tapo app is extremely easy to understand and is thoughtfully designed. Tp-link actually manufactures the Tapo products. And TP-Link has been a very reputable brand over the years.The cameras themselves are good. Good clarity and great night time vision. I appreciate the ability to insert a physical micro sd card for video storage. You aren’t forced into some cloud service for that ability (although it is available if you want it). And yes, you can access all of the sd card footage from the app.There are only a couple of quibbles I have with these. If power goes out, the cameras do need to be manually adjusted back to their “home” position once power is restored. It would be infinitely helpful if there was an actual “home position” setting to commit the cameras to. So they will go back to this position in the event of a power outage. It’s annoying because all of your settings pretty much rely on this home position to function as desiredThe other quibble is if the WiFi ever changes the cameras have to be removed from your app and re-added to change what WiFi they are connected to. There really should be a WiFi change option in the app to handle this easily.Other than those two things I really appreciate how well these work. The motion tracking option isn’t bad (it’s not great though often moving too slow to keep up with the target). But it does move fast enough to keep the target within the field of view longer than a stationary camera would.The alarm function is nifty too. Set on a schedule (I have mine set at night) it will produce any number of variables like flashing lights and alert sirens if it detects people in the area. Good little feature to have to scare away someone if they think they just set off an alarm. Alternatively you can upload your own sound clip if you want verbal feedback towards your intended target.All in all these are great cameras. Now to see how they function in the long term.EDIT: After writing this review, I found in the app that you can set up to 3 different views for each camera as sort of a "pre-set". So, this makes it slightly less combersome to move the cameras back to the home position should they need to be manually moved back after a power outage.Also it's noteworthy to mention that shadows will set these cameras off no matter what the sensitivity settings are set to. So, on windy days the cameras are all over the place trying to chase the shadows. Also, this prevents them from returning back to the "home" position. Speaking of how they move, they are super clunky in their movements. Making motion tracking difficult for them to keep up with anything moving slower than a slow walk. I think the tracking should be sped up for this. Also, motion tracking does not work if motion is turned off. So if you just want it to track "people" it can't. Seems like an easy thing to implement if you want to void shadow tracking and only want people to be tracked.EDIT2: Just thought I would update my review to include more information after having the cameras for a bit now. I have now turned motion tracking off. The reason being is that, as time goes on they get worse at moving to track anything. They also randomly get stuck in the field of view when tracking something and then start erroneously tracking everything all over the place after that. Never returning to the home position. So, what you get is eventually the camera will drift so far away from home position you will often get the camera just looking at the ground or up in the air somewhere until you manually re-adjust them back yourself. I knocked off a star for this as it's a feature that seems to be more of a gimmick than a real useful function. I really do home they can update the firmware and app to make this feature more useful in the future.

While Tapo/TP-Link would like you to subscribe to their cloud storage service, it is not required. Installing the Tapo phone app is required for setup, however if you already use the Kasa app for other TP-Link smart devices you can sigh into the Tapo app using your TP-Link ID. If you wish to use Blue Iris or other 3rd party apps there is a choice in the setup menu to allow this. My Android app, IP Cam Viewer Pro, found the correct ports automatically. I used that information to facilitate the setup in Blue Iris. After specifying port 2020 for ONVIF, I clicked the Find button and Blue Iris did the rest.If you don't use surveillance software the camera has ample built-in features for motion detection, alarms, notifications, and the choice of cloud or SD card storage. If you still use some old & less secure cameras, this is a great upgrade.