Tapo MagCam 2K+ C425 Owner Reports Battery Failure Outdoors

This camera has failed within the first year of use and TP-Link support has so far been unwilling to issue an RMA for return and repair of the device - so this is a scathing review of TP-Link’s support. But first, let me tell you what I like about this camera and it’ s ecosystem:- 1) The video presentation is admirable, and night vision with the infrared sensors active in “colour” mode is really, really good. One can pick up all the details of the target area very well. 2) I like the ability to view and review recorded event clips even when away from my home network. So while I travel out of town, I can still get notifications of activities on my front lawn and driveway - this feature is a winner for TP-Link. 3) On the Tapo camera app I can set notifications for detection events in real-time and this has been very helpful, especially when online orders are delivered. 4) The camera can be mounted outdoors in a flexible number of ways – I use a universal mount that screws into the back of the camera and can be secured to keep it in place (I have attached a couple of photos on my setup). That way I have full view of my driveway, front lawn and porch. 5) I can use local storage with the camera (I started off with a 512 GB SD card) so that I can use the app to download recorded events. 6) The angle or field of view of this camera is great!! I even had to go into the settings and reduce the trigger areas to much smaller ones so as not to get spurious events that are not of interest. In fact I only allow for detection of persons and pets! 7) I invest heavily in other TP-Link gear like routers and OC300 HW controller so connection to my home network was not an issue at setup. The instructions were straightforward. Now for the issues I have faced:- A) The camera at delivery had recording issues wherein the video clips could net be viewed. Shortly afterwards the company issued a firmware upgrade that fixed that. So I have a 512GB SD card where the first two or so months of recordings cannot be played! B) The camera touts a 180-day battery service time, but from early June 2024 when it was deployed, to the end of September 2024, I had to take it down and charge it two times (never allowed the battery to go below 25% ,nor to charge it above 92%). C) Yes I have followed the tips to reduce activity and extend battery life to no avail. In fact I switched from the Samsun EVO+ 512 GB SD card to a Lexar E-Series 256GB Micro SD Card. That made no difference to the battery draw down with this camera, the belief being that halving the memory would have strongly influenced the discharge rate! D) To get on a ladder to take down the camera to recharge this often is downer with this camera. E) Last THU 4/18/2025, the camera kept issuing “Camera OFF” followed by “Camera ON” audible messages repeatedly as you stood under it. I noticed that the app was displaying the camera as offline – no connection. So it was taken down and charged, but during the charge process the app still had no access to the camera even though it was available to my home network. So I estimated when it was fully charged (turned out that it went to 99% charge) and re-installed it to it’s location. By MON 4/21/2025 (3 days later) the battery had dropped to a whopping low 20% - at this point I placed it in “privacy mode” so as to cut the camera monitoring activity. TP-Link support:- I) I opened a ticket with TP-Link support and their first question was what weather condition was at my place – “summer” or “winter”. I corrected that it was “spring”. This is an outdoor camera for heavens sakes! The specs are operating temperature: -20°C ~ 45°C (-4°F ~ 113°F), and the weather does not fall outside that range in NJ, US. II) They then sent an email with my incident number and requested status charts which I provided. Their next email response was that we should do more troubleshooting to identify what is causing the quick battery discharge???? What did not happen to discharge the battery in two(2) to three (3) months over an eleven (11) month period, and now happens in 3 days is a settings issue? What I need is an RMA with prepaid shipping label to return the device so that they can verify for themselves that the battery has failed in this device. They were over zealous in their hyping of the specs on this camera and now are unwilling to stand behind their product in my opinion. Buyers beware – this camera will fail on you in the first year of deployment if used outdoors like I have!