TP-Link Tapo C200 Review

Likes

The TP-Link is cheap, and given how expensive baby gear can be, it is alluring to find a monitor with better-than-average night video quality. The images are good enough to see what you need to see.

While the daytime images are darker and somewhat blurry, the nighttime images are bright, and we can see more detail on our test bear, including his fur. It looks a little overexposed, but it is still pretty good.

Because it is a WiFi-connected camera, the range is wherever you have connectivity, and we had connectivity issues.

Dislikes

The day images aren't as impressive as the night video. The definition is surprisingly lacking and fuzzy. It is one of the few options we've tested in which the daylight video is worse than the night video.

The sound is also disappointing. While it sounds okay, and you can hear the baby cooing, there is some distortion when the baby cries, and with a max volume of 75 dB, it might not be loud enough to wake all parents. The white noise sound always comes through, but it does manage to cancel louder noises other than baby.

The real issue is that it takes over 30 seconds from the time the baby starts crying before a notification is sent to the phone. You can't set the audio to play when the phone is locked, so it only monitors the baby when you manually force it to. Even when cry detection was enabled, when the sound and phone alerts were on, the most favorable setting, it still didn't alert. This means it fails to deliver the primary objective of a monitor.

This monitor is harder to use, requires an app, an account, and an SD card to set up the camera. We accidentally set off a blaring alarm, and we still aren't sure how we did it. It seems like a non-starter for a place where a baby sleeps. It was very loud. Otherwise, there aren't a lot of features, and the interface is pretty basic. Because there is no picture-in-picture option to continue monitoring while using other phone features, you either brick your phone as a monitoring device or hope the notification system works (and it didn't for us). This makes it virtually useless for continuously monitoring your baby.

Security

Since the TP-Link connects to the internet, there is a chance of potential security breaches. It allows you to set up custom privacy zones and offers encrypted video storage or SD card support.

Should You Buy the TP-Link Tapo C200?

No. This camera is largely a security camera cosplaying as a baby monitor. While it might do some of the things you want, it doesn't do any of them very well. Its best redeeming quality is the low price, but its video and sound quality miss the mark. We also think it is harder to use than it needs to be, making it less desirable for tech-weary parents who are over downloading apps for everything. In our testing, it also failed to alert to baby crying, and the smartphone needs to be a dedicated monitoring device because it won't continue monitoring if you use it for something else. Even if you are already deep into the TP-Link ecosystem, we can't see adding this as another camera to your lineup, because it doesn't do what most parents want for baby monitoring.

What Other Video Monitor Should You Consider?