When it comes to home security, I want 24/7 monitoring, open protocols, and local storage. I also want an easy to use app, customizable notifications, and no mandatory subscriptions.

For this reason I chose Tapo by TP-Link. I’m a privacy minded person, and I don’t want my schedule, location, or footage being hoovered up by big data aggregators.

Tapo cameras met all of my needs, and since they support open protocols like RSTP and Onvif, I can view, record, and control my cameras using open source or 3rd party software, without streaming my cameras to the open internet or through Tapo’s app. Even though it’s a bit outside of my comfort zone, I think I could figure out how to set up a relay server to give myself mobile / remote access directly from a server that I control.

TP link claims that all of the feeds are private by default and state that no one can view them without the account’s login credentials, but you do have to trust them. When you record locally, footage you watch while connected to the same network is mostly private as far as I can tell. TP link may get some meta data, like time stamps, and I think the detection alerts, are also sent to TP link, but the footage itself likely isn’t. Footage you don’t watch on the app, and instead watch from 3rd party software is also not sent to TP link.

The best part of the TP link system is that all of these incredible features, 2k image quality, night vision, continuous recording and privacy, don’t require a subscription. On top of that, TP link’s cameras are dirt cheap. When I purchased mine the C120 was on sale for $25 a pop. You’ll need more than you think and you also need to buy an SD card for each camera if you want to record locally, but the last time I bought a camera system I spent about $1000 dollars for cameras, hubs, and extra batteries.

Overall if you’re looking for a new system, I think TP-Link is the way to go.