It turns out that this is a problem that isn't unique to the TC82, and unfortunately renders it useless when it's used in an automated manner.

 

A similar problem has been reported in these two threads:
https://community.tp-link.com/us/smart-home/forum/topic/724310 - Tapo C320WS

https://community.tp-link.com/en/smart-home/forum/topic/649522 - Tapo C500

 

And I'm surprised more people do not comment on it.

 

Of course, the camera in its night-time infra-red mode works really well and clear, typically. Until we get fog, which introduces a lot of water particles in the air, almost looking like snow, and it renders the camera useless. Affecting both AI Detection and Motion Detection.

 

To mitigate this, you're encouraged to instead switch to day mode, and then it's rendered useless again unless you have a light source, well the whole point of the camera is that it automatically lights up, or 'sees' at night, and this may be fine if I want to sit there monitoring the camera (well, it's battery, with a solar panel, I don't want to drain it by watching the camera all of the time) and means I have to keep maintaining and changing the settings to "day time with light" versus "infra-red night time" mode depending on the weather.

 

I do not see any solution to this from my end on using these cameras, and it appears to affect more than just the TC82, in fact, it likely affects all of the TP-Link outdoor cameras.

 

It looks like this should really be solved in software and not require electrical taping over any sensors, LEDs or manual intervention as suggested in the linked threads.

 

I also didn't see any evidence of what this actually looks like, so here's a couple of images from the camera so you can see how useless it is.

 

TC82 Fog Handling, or lack thereof

 

TC82 'Day' mode - purposely cropped but otherwise the same view

 

This needs to be addressed.