SECURITYCAMERAS
ISSUE 378|COMPUTERSHOPPER|AUGUST 2019 107
ASUSEFULASsecurity cameras can be,
whether it’s fordeterring thieves, collecting
evidence or monitoring your home while
you’re out, they’re not always the simplest of
devices. Besides the expected hardware
differences, there’s also the matter of cloud
storage plans, which can get confusing in
terms of what you can save and forhow
long. The TP-Link Kasa Cam KC1ι0 aims to
simplify things, offering two days of free
cloud storage forvideo footage and a
ɩexible stand that makes it easier to install
anywhere.Anywhere indoors, at least.
Standing on atall stick of astand and
decked out in black plastic, the TP-Link Kasa
Cam KC1ι0 is afairly inoffensive-looking
security camera. Importantly,the stand is
practical, giving agood degree of adjustment,
including the ability to point the camera
straight down without the stand falling over.
If you’d rather put the camera up on a
wall, there’s astickymetal plateinthe box,
on to which the stand’s magnetic base
attaches. This gives you afair amount of
ɩexibility to capture what you need. With a
130ȑ lens, you can capture most of aroom
from practically anywhere,too.
Installation is pretty straightforward
once you’ve downloaded the TP-Link Kasa
app.This is the same app that’s used to
control other Kasa devices, such as TP-Link
smart plugs and light bulbs. Having everything
in one place makes alot of sense and means
that you don’t need to get aphone full of
different apps.
TWITCHY FEELING
Hooking the camera up to awireless network
proved incredibly straightforward. The app
generates aĒĚcode,which you show to
the camera͵ it pulls in your network name
and password from this, quickly connecting
to your home network. The KC1ι0 supports
80ι.11ac networks, so you’ll have no trouble
connecting to amodern network to get the
fastest streaming speeds. This gives the
KC1ι0 an advantage over the BT Smart
Home Cam and Neos SmartCam, which use
the slower 80ι.11n standard.
Once connected, the camera is ready to
go,and starts monitoring the surrounding
area formotion. The default settings aren’t
great, however.Pointing the KC1ι0 towards a
door covered in blinds, the changing sun or
the shadows caused by moving cars would
trick the KC1ι0 intothinking that there was
movement inside.
TP-LINK
KasaCamKC120
★★★★★
£76•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
Slightlyover-the-topmotiondetectionaside,the
KasaCamKC120isaqualitysmartcamera
There are ways of cutting
down on this problem. First, you
can simply reduce the motion sensitivity.
Second, you can set up to four motion
alert zones so that you focus only on the
areas you want to monitor.
Even so,with the KC1ι0 set to low
sensitivity,changes in light were still
detected as motion. TP-Link could
work on improving this͵ fornow,we
recommend pointing the camera
awayfrom awindow.WAKING MOMENT
The KC1ι0 can
also be set to
start recording
when it detects
loud noises. The
accuracy of this will depend on where you
place the camera. If you live somewhere quite
noisy,it’s probably not avery useful feature͵
if you live somewhere quieter,you’ll find that
you get fewer alerts.If you don’t want the camera
to record, you can turn it off.
There’s also aschedule option, so you
can set when the camera is active.It’s a
shame that there’s no geolocation to turn
on the camera when you go out and turn
it off when you return, however.
All clips are saved to the cloud. By
default, clips are stored fortwo days,
although you’ll be able to upgrade to
longer cloud storage plans in the future
̣they’re currently not availablȩ. Even
so,two days is afairly generous
offer,even if it’s not up in
the same league as
what Arlo and Neos
provide ̣which is
seven days and 14
days respectively̧.
Clips can be viewed in the app.The
interface is quitesimple and clear.You can
use the datepicker at the toptofind the date
you’re interested in, then scroll through the
list to find the one you’re after.Clips can be
downloaded to your phone,which is handy if
you want to save the evidence.
By default, the KC1ι0 was set to record at
Ͷι0p,although you can override this option to
increase footage to the full 1080p quality.
Image quality was excellent: during daylight
hours, video was sharp and detailed, making it
easy to identify faces clearly.Atnight, the
camera turns on its IĚ lights. The image gets
abit softer, but quality remains high.
Youcan watch live and even use two-way
talking to have aconversation with anyone
you can see,which could be ahandy wayof
scaring off aburglar.RIGHTAT HOME
What the KC1ι0 lacks is asuiteofmore
advanced features. Forexample,there’s no
facial recognition in the video stream, nor
is there the option to record only people
rather than any motion. Ultimately,that may
not matter,asthe KC1ι0 is asimple but
high-quality camera. Besides, there’s no
guarantee of getting all these features on
more expensive cameras. The Hive View,
forinstance,can tell when there’s a
person in the frame,but it doesn’t have
actual facial recognition.
With arelatively affordable price,a
ɩexible stand and two days of free cloud
storage forclips, TP-Link’s camera is great
value͵ it just needs abit of work on its
motion-detection algorithm.