Tapo/Kasa (TP-Link) - Tapo D235

Forgot to add my concern about the Tapo and Eufy is they could easily be removed by someone else, unlike the Ring. Also an advantage to me of the Ring and Eufy is their removable battery. Although the Ring uses micro usb which I thought we'd all moved on from years ago!

Thanks for this. Reading replies like this is really helpful as they help to flesh out the ideas I'd already been having about them all. I think overall the Eufy is probably going to provide the best solution for me, albeit with the potential risk of theft. However it is generally a very safe and secure building where I live, so hopefully that wouldn't happen. I've also seen a YouTube vid from Lifehackster who shows you can add an additional screw to the pinhole to make it harder to steal, something I would definitely do. And I've got to agree about the Tapo. It is very thick, tall and heavy. The Eufy is slimmer and not quite as tall, and also looks shorter still because of the cutaway at the bottom for the lower camera.

Tapo is good if you don't want to pay Eufy prices, but they suffer from the shortcoming of storing footage on an SD card in the doorbell unless you subscribe. However, the doorbell has an anti-theft mode with a fairly loud alarm, and the subscription is £28 per year for a single doorbell/camera which isn't bad at all.

Feels like I'm the lone warrior here recommending Tapo 😅 I have the D235, and it's great. It does cover head to toe, but you need to be strategic with placing it to ensure it covers the toe area you need. I like the ring-to-call feature — instead of just a notification, I get an actual phone call. A doorbell press is important, so I think a call demands immediate attention, unlike a pop-up that you might miss. The lag is mimimal - it was the fastest among the ones i compared (Eufy e340 and Reolink). I did a similar test like you've done - i bought all three and returned the Eufy and Reolink. Reolink seems to have a lot of fans but it performed so poorly compared to the Tapo. It was significantly laggy and the app was bad. Tapo's app is so much more refined and polished. A few reasons I didn't go with Eufy are 1. No 24x7 recording (You'll need it sometimes if you don’t have a dedicated camera in the front) 2. No RTSP support and 3. Eufy has a history of lying about it's encryption. You can read about it online

I have the Tapo model that's wired & works with our existing doorbell chime that we really like the sound of - so no need to charge or plug in the little chime that comes with. I also don't pay the subscription, just popped a decent SD card in. Recommend it to everyone now who's just looking for a doorbell cam, it's fab. Reolink is another one that I looked at, and will probably go for that brand when updating our other external wired cameras around the house. Found it much easier to navigate building a system vs the likes of Ubiquiti. So u/Logical-Device-5709, if you're planning a larger overhaul I'd recommend a Reolink doorbell cam if you like having everything match.

Tapo, presumably. Better news here. https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualIreland/s/y8WuzmJJNC

And better news here https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualIreland/s/y8WuzmJJNC

That's great news. I didn't realise that you could keep limited access to the cloud service without paying. This is important to maintain access to images of someone who decides to break the camera, with the memory card, off the mounting. Tapo ofc.

The doorbell is great, but a bit big

I have some Tapo stuff, which was cheap and it's grand. The app can alert me and record etc. It doesn't need a subscription.

Yes, Tapo ones are as good as Ring and around the same price to buy but are subscription free.

I have a Tapo, cloud is optional videos can be stored on an SD card in the indoor part of the system which I do

I have a tapo doorbell, it stores everything on an SD card inside the box plugged into my router instead of paying for a subscription and as far as I know does everything else a ring does.

I made the switch from Google Nest to Tapo after my doorbell broke after a year of frustrating ownership. Everything works great. No monthly fee and uses local storage. Highly recommend. I found it equivalent or better than Nest for all features.

I’ve been on Tapo for probably 6 months now. I have had no issues so far. Same functionality as Nest, but my Nest would run out of battery every 2 weeks, take half the day to charge, and had a shitty mount and would wobble, AND it was double the price with a $10 a month subscription.

D235 will ring mech chime but needs to be in battery mode with hardwires charging battery and ringing the chime. It's a good doorbell cam.