Joining TP-Link's family of smart home devices, the $139.99 Kasa Cam Outdoor KC200 ($139.99) is a reasonably priced weatherproof 1080p security camera that connects directly to your home Wi-Fi and records motion and sound events.
It offers free and fee-based cloud storage for recorded video and delivers sharp day and night HD video in our tests.
It also supports Alexa and Google voice commands.
It doesn't directly interact with other smart home devices or offer any IFTTT triggers like the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor and the Netgear Arlo Pro 2, but it costs significantly less.
Design and Features
The KC200 is a white puck-shaped camera that measures 2.9 inches in diameter and 3.4 inches thick.
The back part of the enclosure is slightly curved and attaches to a round magnetic mount that lets you adjust the camera angle.
The camera's IP65 rating protects it from the elements.
The KC200 offers motion and sound detection, supports dual-band Wi-Fi, has a microphone and speaker for two-way audio, a built-in 80dB siren, and a light sensor.
A 10-foot USB power cable is hardwired to the camera and there's a small reset button at the rear of the enclosure.
The camera captures 1080p video at 30fps and has a 130-degree field of view and an 8x digital zoom.
It uses 12 infrared LEDs to provide up to 30 feet of black-and-white night vision and there's a tiny status LED on the face of the camera that blinks orange and green during setup, red when the camera has lost connectivity, and is solid green when the camera is online and in good working order.
Inside the box are an AC-to-USB power adapter, a quick start guide, and mounting screws and anchors.
The Kasa mobile app (available for Android and iOS) is used to control the entire line of Kasa products.
The app opens to a Devices screen that lists all installed Kasa gadgets, as well as those that work with Kasa, such as Nest thermostats, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant devices, and Zigbee and Z-Wave devices that are connected to the SR20 hub.
Along the bottom of the screen are five buttons labeled Devices, Cameras, Scenes, Smart Actions, and Activity.
The Devices button takes you back to the opening screen and the Camera button takes you to a Camera page where you can access all installed cameras.
Tap a camera to launch a live stream you can view in full-screen mode by turning your phone sideways.
Below the video panel are speaker mute, two-way audio, and manual record buttons.
At the very bottom of the screen is a Schedule button that you can use to turn the camera on or off at specific times of the day.
In the upper right corner is a Device Settings button to manually turn the camera on and off, rename it, and create up to four activity zones to limit motion triggers to specific areas in the camera's field of view.
Use Privacy and Sensitivity to tweak motion and sound sensitivity levels and to have the camera record video only, sound and video, or no recording at all.
Other camera settings include Video Quality (Good, Better, Best), Video Rotation, Night Vision (On, Off, Auto), and Siren (disable, enable, duration, and volume).
The Activity button opens a screen that displays a history of all triggered events with thumbnails of recorded clips.
Tap any thumbnail to view the video, download it, or delete it.
At the top of this screen, in the right corner, is a gear icon that takes you to Notification Settings where you can enable/disable sound and motion notifications and add notifications for other smart devices.
The Scenes button navigates to a screen with three presets (Good Morning, Good Night, Movie Night) that will turn various devices on and off and dim lights if they are installed, and the Smart Actions button is used for setting up automations with the SR20 hub.
The RC200 doesn't directly interact with other smart home devices such as lights and door locks, including Kasa devices.
Although Kasa does have its own IFTTT channel, the camera will not trigger other IFTTT devices.
You can connect the Kasa app to your Nest account to trigger other Kasa devices using Nest's Home/Away feature, but the camera doesn't react to Nest triggers.
However, it does support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands that let you view live video on compatible displays.
You get 1GB of cloud storage for two days of recorded video (up to three cameras) for free, but if you need more you can subscribe to one of the Kasa Care plans.
The Plus plan ($4 per month or $40 per year) gets you 14GB of storage for the past 14 days of video per camera, and the Premium plan ($7 per month or $70 per year) gets you 30GB of storage for 30 days worth of video per camera.
Installation and Performance
To configure the Kasa Cam, I downloaded the mobile app, created an account, and tapped the plus icon in the upper right corner of the Devices screen.
Next, I selected Kasa Cam Outdoor and followed the on-screen instructions to plug the camera in while inside my home.
I tapped Next and verified that the LED was blinking orange and green, then went to my phone's Wi-Fi settings and connected to the camera.
Once connected, I chose my home Wi-Fi SSID and entered my Wi-Fi password to add the camera to my network.
After doing this, I was able to use the on-screen directions to physically install the camera outside, which is basically nothing more than finding a good spot where you can connect to a power outlet and using the included mounting screws to attach the magnetic base to a surface.
I connected the camera to a covered GFCI outlet and was done.
The KC200 delivered very good 1080p video in my tests.
Daytime video quality was sharp, with rich colors and no obvious barreling or pin-cushioning.
Black-and-white night video was also sharp and well lit out to 30 feet.
The camera's motion and sound detection worked perfectly.
I loved that I was able to adjust sound detection to avoid alerts from my neighbor's constantly barking dog and keep motion triggers to a minimum by defining a tight activity zone.
Alerts arrived quickly and recorded video was just as sharp as the live feed.
I had no trouble using Alexa voice commands to view live video on my TV using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, and two-way audio was clean and loud.
The KC200's 80dB siren is moderately loud and will likely scare off unwanted intruders, but it's not as piercing as the 110dB siren embedded in the Ring Spotlight Cam and Floodlight Cam devices.
Conclusions
The TP-Link's Kasa Cam Outdoor KC200 does a reliable job of monitoring activity outside of your home.
It delivered sharp day and night video in our tests, and its motion and sound detection features worked flawlessly, as did Alexa voice commands.
The camera is a snap to install and manage using the Kasa mobile app, but it doesn't interact with other Kasa or third-party smart devices, nor will it trigger IFTTT-enabled devices.
If interoperability is a must-have, consider the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor.
It's a 4K HDR camera that offers face recognition, time-lapse recording, and intelligent sound alerts, and it works with plenty of other smart devices.
That said, it's also $200 more expensive than the KC200.
If you don't have an outdoor outlet close by, consider a wireless camera like the Netgear Arlo Pro 2.
It's a bit cheaper than the Nest Cam and is also packed with features, and it runs on rechargeable batteries and requires no wiring whatsoever.
TP-Link Kasa Cam Outdoor KC200
The Bottom Line
The TP-Link Kasa Cam Outdoor is a reasonably priced outdoor security camera that offers crisp video, free cloud storage, and support for multiple voice platforms.
