I've been using Tapo products for a year and I love it!

 

Day/Night and Lights

From what I understand the Night mode  have 3 settings :

 

1. IR Black and White
2. Full Color + Spotlight
3. Auto: automatically choose between IR/Full Color

I am not allowed to install my camera anywhere outside so I hooked one of my camera on the windows and whenever the lights turns ON the reflection of the lights blind the camera, both IR and Spotlight reflect back into the camera.

 

Day Mode/Night mode is the same minus the lights.

 

In Night Mode if you try to turn off spotlight/light button it won't work and then the screen become IR + Spotlight. 

Btw in Day Mode you can also use spotlight/light,alarm flash.​​​​​​​

 

1. I think you should add an option to turn the light off in Night Mode because I'd like it to act like a floodlight

 

Alarm need an option to act like a Floodlight

the Alarm use Spotlight to flash when something is detected.

 

2. in Night Mode let's say I turned the lights OFF in Night Mode Setting:

 

In the alarm setting I would love to have the light turn ON and remain ON when motion is detected and then turn OFF after X seconds. 

 

I don't plan on using the sound/flash setting, I feel like that setting is really INTRUSIVE and my WHOLE neighborhood will hate me for this!!!

 

It should be added in the Alarm setting because of the motion event + scheduling. It cannot be set in Detection because it doesn't have Scheduling.

 

And lastly I believe the lights would last longer.

 

Just saying: If it's called Spotlight why does it not turn ON automatically when motion is detected at night? like other Floodlight hardware. you have both light+motion capability...

 

Motion Tracking

I hate it because it tracks everything that moves even tree and flies on the camera , makes no sense that you cannot choose what you want to track in the image detection.

 

Patrol Mode / Pano beta

I hate the lack of option in patrol mode , for example:

 

1. I'd like to be able to select the angle/degrees
2. I'd like to be able to choose 2-3 Viewpoint the camera will move from
3. I'd like to select the speed at which the camera moves

 

I tried Pano beta but the AI is really bad at choosing the up/down angle it's always looking at the sky.

 

Lastly if not "hardware" limited I want to talk about the bitrate

All cameras need higher bitrate, when motion happens it becomes blurry, especially in the case of motion tracking.

 

On the tapo app it fluctuates up to 2600kpbs, depending on the camera model and resolution.

 

1080p and 2k resolution need: 

 

1. Low : current setting 
2. Medium: 4000kbps(1080p) and 8000kbps(2k) 
3. High: 8000kbps(1080p) to 16000kbps(2k)

 

I'm not talking about recording bitrate, just the Tapo APP/RTSP live view, that way I can record high quality footage manually with my Phone/PC/RTSP Server etc.

 

add a bitrate option in the Video & Display settings.