this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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Privacy
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Cameras in general aren't as easy as cheap plugs to deal with. There's the OpenIPC project but it seems only to support very specific chips that are sometimes older, hard to find or not price/feature competitive like something such as what TP-Link offers.
For what's worth TP-Link Tapo cameras (TC70, 71 etc.) aren't that bad when it comes to privacy, there isn't much "cloud". They do require you to use their mobile app and cloud to setup the camera but afterwards you can just run them on an isolated VLAN / firewall them from the internet completely and you'll still be able to use all of the camera's features. Those cameras provide a generic rtsp stream that even VLC can play and there's also a good HA integration that provides all features of the TP-Link Tapo application like pan / move / download recordings from the camera's SD card and whatnot 100% locally / offline.
I particularly like their cameras because they're really cheap and decent, while not perfect in terms of privacy they've a good trade off when it comes to price but require initial cloud setup. They also have wireless versions, ethernet versions and a cheap PoE splitter will be good for those.
Do you have any good guides or articles diving deeper on this? I was also pondering Home Assistant - it supports tapo devices, but I don't know much about it. Would that be a possible solution?
would this include a live cam feed?
I just told you it works fine under Home Assistant and provided a link to the integration. https://github.com/JurajNyiri/HomeAssistant-Tapo-Control
Yes. It includes, live feed, the ability to move the camera, ring the bell, turn on privacy mode, enable patrol mode... and use the camera's sensors. There's also an option to automatically download recorded video on the camera's SD card every x hours or days. Here's the full list of entities available under HA for those cameras (note that your camera must support the feature):
Sorry, didn't click the link, didn't realize HA stands for Home Assistance there. As you can tell, pretty new to this. Thanks for the answer!
Sure, no problem. The bottom line is that it works very well for the low price of those cameras and I couldn't be happier.
If you wouldn't mind, could you share how you managed to make the Tapo cameras work with Home Assistant? I finally got it set up and while I had no isse with bulbs, cameras just can't be adde through the TP Link integration. There are no Tapo cameras listed as supported on the Home Assistant web eithet
As I said before, you've to install this: https://github.com/JurajNyiri/HomeAssistant-Tapo-Control then go to Settings > Devices > Add and search for Tapo.
I guess that's the issue - I assume this needs to be installed on the hardware running the Home Assistant. I went with the easy option of getting the Home Assistant Green hub, so I don't assume there is a way for me to make it work... or it's just beyond my capabilities
Thanks anyway for your patience with me, unknowingly asking the same damn thing over and over like a dummy.
Yes, and why would that be an issue? After you've HACS on your HA you can just search for "Tapo Control" and click install.
If there is a way to do this on the Home Assistant Green hub I bought I have no idea how is the issue. But oh well, looking into workarounds. I at least figured out how to add it as a simple IP cam for now.
I believe it has an "advanced mode" somewhere in the profile that can be used to enable SSH access to the thing and then it will behave like any other HA installation on generic hardware. You can go there install HACS using SSH and then use the UI to install the tapo thing.
Will try to look into that, thanks!