Kasa Smart (KC200) Outdoor Camera by TP-Link, 1080p HD Smart Home Security Camera with Night Vision, Built-in Siren, 2-Way Audio, Motion Detection, Works with Alexa & Google Home

When I purchased this camera I expected to have to wall mount it, but was delighted to discover it can be ceiling mounted under an eave, which trivialized my installation since an eave is much easier to deal with than a wall. All I had to do was drill a hole in the eave for the cable (which is about 8' long), mount the bracket, thread the cable through the hole and stick the camera into its bracket (where it is held securely by a very clever magnetic ring, a superior design that makes it really easy to make small adjustments to the camera view). To finish my install I simply connected the cable and its supply to an extension cord from the light socket in my attic and was good to go (I spent more time verifying the camera worked than in installing it). Since I did a ceiling mount, the camera was upside down, but the Kasa app has a setting to turn the image upside down, which corrects for that. Resolution is excellent, night vision is surprisingly good (much better than both my Ring doorbell and a couple of older Samsung cameras I have indoors), and lag is less than my previous experience with wireless cameras (I would guess about a second). Response is a function of bandwidth, so you have to take that into consideration in selecting where to install this or any other wireless camera. As an outdoor camera, it should be able to easily handle the indirect weather under my eave, but I can't say how well it would do in a more exposed location.The Kasa app is designed for use with smart phones and simply adds the camera to whatever other TP-Link Kasa devices you already have. With the app you can set up to 4 motion detection inclusion zones by dragging the corners of a quadrilateral to set each one. That allowed me to block off the curved street in front of my house to keep passing vehicles from triggering alerts. The alert screen (bell icon) on the Kasa app gives you access to the most recent 2Gb of recorded video triggered by alerts (you set alert sensitivity according to time persistence of movement). You can run the Kasa app on a PC if you install one of the Android simulator apps on your machine (I went with BlueStacks 4), which brings up the look and feel of your smart phone on your PC display. When the camera goes live, you get a widget in the lower right corner that allows you to switch from portrait to landscape, taking the image to full screen, which sure beats the heck out of using a smart phone to catch details. The camera has audio and a "siren", which are perhaps nice to have, but which I don't anticipate using (although if I spotted a perp I would certainly fire them up). I verified those features work, although the siren is not one that would wake the neighborhood, and the audio quality is about what you would expect from a wireless device. The audio pickup is quite good, maybe even too sensitive since I can hear leaves rustling.

I own two nest outdoor cams (3 yrs old), two nest outdoor iq cams (1 yr old), and have tp-link smart bulbs everywhere. The last time I went out of town, I realized that I had some holes I hadn’t really considered when I am at home. I needed some indoor coverage as well. So when Kasa sent a coupon for 25% off a three pack for indoor cameras I decided to give it a try. Their performance/price ratio is tremendous. Since I already have the kasa app opened most of the time it’s not an albatross of needing one more dedicated app. I initially planned to put one of these cameras on the screened In porch, but opted for the garage when I got worried about the humidity and blowing moisture in heavy rains.So I bought and installed the kasa outdoor camera, and any companions I make are to nest cameras. My first peeve about what’s available today in cameras is they are all very wide angle, I wish there was a choice - in some areas I would love more zoom and less width (like a driveway). Thankfully there are enough pixels to zoom in; I will say the nest IQ cams facial tracking auto zooms for you. I do like the kasa mount. It makes positioning the camera easy and so far there has been zero movement. I do wish the base had the ability to feed the cable through the back. Nest does a real good job of this. But as you can see on the pictures above the camera detail at distance(40 ft to be exact) the detail on the chais lounge is about as clear at distance as it is zoomed in. Yes you can get an idea of what is going on but I’m not sure I could pick up subtle facial features of strangers.I am tired of the outdoor cams being white with whit chords. The skins for the next are a solution but is anyone going to make brown, grey, or black chords?Now for the value proposition, the outdoor cam is $80 vs $200 or $400 for nest. I will add nest cameras for the heavy lifting but, but the kasa cams are very attractive for filling gaps...the big benefit is 2 days of cloud storage is free.As I said, if the camera provides a great value with a low cost of ownership and low initial cost. As long as the camera continues performing, it is a welcome addition. Officially I would give it 4 1/2 stars if I could.