Tapo C615F Kit floodlight cam review: Lights, camera, solar!

Price When Reviewed

$99.99

Best Prices Today: Tapo C615F Kit

The “Kit” in TP-Link Tapo C615F Kit refers back to the inclusion of a photo voltaic panel that comes with this full-featured safety digicam/floodlight combo to maintain its battery charged. That’s proper, you don’t want to attach it to your private home’s electrical wiring, significantly increasing your choices as to the place you put in it.

That battery powers each a motorized pan/tilt digicam unit and its onboard floodlight, masking all of the bases for wire-free outside surveillance. With a $100 MSRP—and a road worth of simply $85 as of this writing—it’s a really spectacular worth.

Specifications

There’s loads to unpack right here, so let’s take it step-by-step.

Foremost, there’s the IP65-rated digicam, recording at 2304 x 1296 pixels at both 15 or 20 frames per second, with a reasonably tight 100-degree diagonal viewing angle. But that narrowness is countered by the truth that it’s mounted to a pan/tilt motor that may scan 338 levels horizontally and 97 levels vertically. It’s designed completely to be mounted on a wall, ceiling, or eave; there is no such thing as a approach to successfully use the digicam on a tabletop or to invert its picture.

The digicam (and its floodlight, which I’ll get to shortly) is powered by a capacious 10,400mAh battery that may be charged through a wired USB-C connection or the included photo voltaic panel. There’s a dual-band (2.4-/5GHz) Wi-Fi adapter onboard, two-way discuss assist, and a 97dB siren. The system is suitable with Alexa and Google Home, however the product’s net web page doesn’t point out Matter certification (the Matter standard wasn’t expanded to include security cameras till November 2025).

Christopher Null/Foundry

Videos will be saved domestically on a user-supplied microSD card (capacities as much as 512GB are supported) or saved to the Tapo Care cloud-storage service (as much as 30 days of occasions). Tapo Care additionally provides a couple of additional options, probably the most notable being the choice to obtain wealthy push notifications with snapshots when movement is detected. Pricing for the plan begins at $3.49/month or $35/12 months for one digicam, with numerous plans ratcheting as much as $11.99/month or $120/12 months for as much as 10 cameras, however most customers most likely gained’t want a plan in any respect.

A single dimmable floodlight panel sits above the pan/tilt digicam; it might emit as much as 800 lumens of white gentle at a cool shade temperature of 4000 Kelvin. The floodlight will be pointed in a set path independently of the digicam, however it’s not mounted to the digicam’s motor and have to be manually adjusted.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Most hardwired floodlight cameras, such because the Eufy Floodlight Camera E340 we very very similar to, have two or extra a lot brighter floodlights that may be adjusted independently of one another. The E340, for instance, delivers as much as 2,000 lumens of brightness. On the opposite hand, this Tapo mannequin additionally has a set of 4 LED spotlights subsequent to its lens, so that they pan and tilt together with the digicam. TP-Link doesn’t publish the variety of lumens these spotlights produce, however they sufficiently illuminate the scene to seize shade photos at night time.

The closing piece of the puzzle is a 6.82 x 4.74 x 0.61-inch (173.42 x 120.42 x 15.7mm), 2.5-watt photo voltaic panel that you simply’ll connect to a posable arm. The panel will be mounted atop the floodlight or you may mount it in a distinct location that gives higher solar publicity; a USB-C extension cable is included for that objective. In the previous configuration, it’s also possible to mount it to a pole, as I did for this evaluate.

Installation and setup

Christopher Null/Foundry

A broadsheet fast begin information explains the fundamentals of setup, and it may be useful as a result of after the system is unboxed, how the items all go collectively will not be instantly apparent.

A brief USB-C cable is affixed to the photo voltaic panel, with a connector on the different finish that’s wrapped with a strip of rubber to make sure a watertight seal once you plug it into both the digicam or the extension cable. But the rubber is so thick it’s tough to push the plug all the best way into the port, or to inform if it’s really in all the best way. The solely means to make sure that the digicam’s battery is being charged is to place it within the solar and verify the app. When I set the digicam up on a wet day, this made for a very troublesome journey.

I’ve complained concerning the Tapo app’s setup course of earlier than, and that criticism stays the identical right here: To onboard your digicam, you have to choose the mannequin from a menu itemizing dozens of arcane and infrequently related choices. If you’ve forgotten the precise mannequin quantity you’re organising, you’ll have additional work to do trying it up. Tapo, please repair.

Other than that, onboarding was simple, and after a brief firmware replace I used to be up and working.

Using the TP-Link Tapo C615F Kit

Christopher Null/Foundry

The Tapo C615F has a bevy of options out there via its app. On the house display for the digicam, a grid of on-demand instructions permits you to report video and seize clips manually, provoke a two-way discuss session, set off the siren, activate the highlight, or launch handbook pan and tilt controls. Up to 4 waypoints will be configured within the pan/tilt system, supplying you with fast views of generally used areas, and there’s a restricted patrol choice permits you to command the digicam to briefly sweep backwards and forwards (or up and down).

A deeper dive into the settings menu reveals some helpful choices, together with settings to robotically observe objects in movement, and whether or not you want to detect individuals, pets, automobiles, or all movement. The digicam will also be set to comply with objects in movement as soon as they’re detected (which is half the purpose of a PTZ digicam). A 24/7 recording mode can also be out there, however it’s a bit of deceptive: This mode captures a nonetheless picture at an interval you specify, then information video provided that movement is detected. It’s akin to a time lapse mode that fills within the gaps between recorded clips, and it really works moderately nicely.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Floodlight brightness is adjustable, as is the period of time the sunshine stays on if movement is detected or they’re manually activated. Two night-vision modes are supported, together with a full shade mode (energetic when the highlight is on) or an infrared night-vision mode. Both modes look surprisingly good, thanks largely to the ability of the floodlight, highlight, and the infrared lighting.

Day or night time, video high quality is kind of good for a 2K picture; I used to be in a position to make out facial options at a spread of no less than 30 ft below good lighting circumstances, and video distortion was virtually nil because of the restricted viewing angle. Clips are restricted to a most of two minutes in size (that is user-configurable), and cooldown will be configured to zero time between motion-triggered recordings if desired. Video loaded rapidly from both cloud storage or the microSD card I used, and I didn’t encounter any hiccups with lacking video, thumbnails, or the like. There’s additionally a neat “video summary” function that allows you to make a (very) abbreviated super-clip of the day’s exercise, all rolled right into a single video.

TP-Link

I did run into a couple of small points with the app. Person and pet detection could possibly be hit and miss at instances, and I acquired a number of false positives for each when nothing was occurring on digicam. Overall, I discovered movement sensitivity to be quite missing, even at its highest degree. I additionally had hassle with the digicam’s privateness mode, which disables the digicam video on demand. Once activated, I couldn’t flip this mode off attributable to a persistent error within the app, and I ended up having to dig up a workaround to get the digicam again on-line.

The photo voltaic panel, although restricted in wattage, was absolutely profitable at retaining the battery topped up even throughout a collection of overcast, wet days and with 24/7 recording activated. I’m assured that with cheap entry to the solar, this digicam will be capable to keep a cost indefinitely, even with important use.

Should you purchase the TP-Link Tapo C615F Kit?

With a listing worth of $100 and a road worth as little as $85, it’s onerous to argue towards the unimaginable worth that the C615 Kit represents, significantly contemplating that it’s sensible use doesn’t rely on a subscription. It isn’t an ideal product, however its few flaws aren’t large deal-breakers.

Hopefully, app updates over the time will proceed to clean out a few of these.