Top pick
This camera detects a wide variety of motion and sounds, has the best image quality, and works with or without a subscription.
Compatible with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT, SmartThings
Although the TP-Link Tapo C120 is labeled as a 2K indoor/outdoor camera, I specifically recommend it for indoor use because when I used it outdoors, the plug died after a few weeks. It’s cheaper than all but our budget pick, yet it captures high-resolution 2K video and can distinguish between motion caused by a person, pet, or vehicle. It can also detect sounds, including crying, glass breaking, barking, and meowing, without a subscription. Like our outdoor camera pick, it has settings that you can tweak to customize how and what it triggers. It can also capture all of that action locally to a microSD card or to the cloud, if you add a subscription, which starts at $3.50 per month.
It can identify more sights and sounds. Despite being a low-priced camera, the Tapo C120 can identify more types of sights and sounds than any other camera on our list—and unlike with other models, you don’t have to pony up for a cloud subscription to use them. The Tapo C120 can detect what caused it to trigger—a person, animal, vehicle, or general motion—and then tag video clips accordingly.
It can also be triggered by specific types of sound. I regularly used its audio alerts to detect whether my cat was crying (and it worked well, because he can get chatty when I’m not home), but it can also listen in and notify you if it detects human crying, a dog barking, or glass breaking.
You can easily customize it to suit your needs—and those features are all free. The Tapo C120 allows you to adjust motion sensitivity for each of the alert types. For my living room, I kept person and pet alerts on medium and cat meows on high but turned alerts for vehicles and dog barks off. (I found that sometimes I would get dog-barking notifications from action on a nearby TV.) It also has Activity Zones that don’t just allow you to choose where you want motion detected but also what you want detected: For instance, I created a zone that would alert me whenever a person walked into the room, but then I created a separate zone around the couch to alert me whenever my cat was climbing up for a snooze.
It captures the best stills and video of all the cameras we tested. Although three of our top picks are 2K cameras, the Tapo C120 delivered the best overall image quality. Looking at the specs on the files, I found that the Tapo C120 had a resolution of 2560×1440, in contrast to the 2304×1296 on the Eufy Indoor Cam C120 and the Tapo C110. It’s a tiny bump in quality, so you would be unlikely to notice the difference. However, I compared our picks’ still images and video side by side, and the output of the Tapo C120 was noticeably brighter and sharper.
The Tapo C120 is also the only one of our picks to include adjustable dual spotlights, which turn normal night vision into color night vision. I especially appreciate that this feature is adjustable, because I found the top level to be too bright and prone to washing out details.
A subscription isn’t necessary, but we recommend it anyway. The Tapo Care cloud subscription starts at $3.50 per month for one camera and increases to $7 for two, $10.50 for three, and $12 for up to 10. It’s more expensive than the plans for any of our other picks, but we think it’s a still reasonable price. For reference, Google charges a flat fee of $8 per month for unlimited cameras, and Eufy charges $3 per month for one camera and $10 for up to 10.
As with Eufy cameras, with TP-Link’s Tapo cameras you aren’t really missing out on anything if you don’t subscribe; the only extra features you get are Rich Notifications (the little thumbnail with your alert) and the option to organize videos by the type of activity. I’ve talked to a few readers, and very few want to pay for another subscription, and I get it—although we strongly recommend doing so because then you’ll still have access to your recordings if the camera dies, loses power, or gets stolen.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
- Although the Tapo C120 is technically an indoor/outdoor camera, I don’t recommend it for outdoor use. The company doesn’t sell a separate weatherproof cord or plug, and the original plug died when I was working on outdoor testing.
- The Tapo C120 does not support Apple Home. If that’s important to you, the TP-Link Tapo C125 may be a model to consider. However, the Tapo C125 doesn’t work with HomeKit Secure Video, as our runner-up does, and it’s more expensive than our top two picks.
Privacy and security snapshot
- Video transmits directly from the mobile device to the equipment with end-to-end encryption, but not when passing through a cloud server; however, the data transmission is still AES-encrypted.
- Location data is recorded but not shared.
- Recordings cannot be accessed without permission, unless it is in response to a legal request, and then only by limited personnel.
- Two-factor authentication is available but not required.
For more details, read TP-Link’s privacy statement.
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