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- Two cameras
- Local microSD file storage
- Solar powered
- No noise detection
- Need the Tapo Hub for facial recognition
Some security cameras offer wide panoramic views, while others offer narrow zoomed-in views for maximum detail. Is it too much to ask to have both? Not according to Tapo, which has combined both types of camera in the new Tapo C645D.
That, however, is not the end of the C645D’s talents. Its telephoto camera is also mounted on a pan and tilt mechanism that can swivel and tilt. And on top of that, it can automatically track moving targets.
What do you get for the money?
Despite the plethora of features, the price is surprisingly reasonable. The Tapo C645D has an RRP of £170, but at the time of writing, it’s on offer for £130. At that price, its closest rival is the Eufy Solocam S340 – a camera at around the same price that also offers wide-angle and and zoom lenses, plus a solar panel for keeping the battery topped up.
Here, your money gets you two cameras, both of which employ the same f/1.6-aperture lens with a 2K (2,304 x 1,296) 1/2.8in CMOS sensor. Each of these is housed in its own black and white box, and they’re stacked neatly on top of each other.
The larger of these houses the fixed, wide-angle camera and a pair of LEDs; it has a focal length of 2.53mm and a 165° diagonal field of view. The smaller box just below it houses a telephoto lens with a 6mm focal length and a 65.5° diagonal field of view. A pan-tilt motor allows this camera to spin through 360 degrees and tilt downwards by 90 degrees and it’s accompanied by an arrangement of four LEDs.
In the box
Physically, the C645D consists of four distinct parts. In addition to the main double-camera unit and the solar panel, you get two brackets – one for screwing into the wall and another that joins this to the solar panel via a ball-and-socket joint – plus a load of screws and wall plugs for installation.
Most users will likely keep everything as a single unit for ease and convenience. But if you want to position the solar panel where it’s likely to get more sun, you can separate the two and mount them in different places. Tapo bundles a 3-meter USB-C cable, so you have plenty of leeway here.
Weather resistance
Tapo advertises the C645D as being IP65-resistant to water and dust, as well as able to function in temperatures ranging from -20°C to 45°C. That should be more than adequate to survive the best or worst weather the UK can summon up, although the lack of an IP66 rating would suggest it’s best not to point a pressure washer directly at it.
What ingress vulnerability the C645D does have is probably down to the USB-C plug that connects the solar panel to the camera body, and the rubber plug that covers the MicroSD card slot. I don’t doubt that both are watertight in most conditions, but I can imagine a high-pressure water jet may challenge them.
How easy is it to set up?
Setting the C645D up shouldn’t cause problems for even the most technophobic or clueless DIY’er. The mounts are very easy to install and, once the various wall brackets are in place, it’s simply a case of sliding the camera housing on until it goes “click”, then attaching the solar panel and connecting it to the camera via USB.
The entire camera assembly can be manually rotated through 240 degrees, while the wide-angle camera module has a further 20 degrees of elevation adjustment inside its external housing. That gives you plenty of viewing adjustment even before you start playing with the motorised pan-tilt camera.
With the hardware set up, you simply download the Tapo app and follow the simple instructions to add the system and start your free 30-day trial of Tapo’s cloud storage service – though it’s important to note that you don’t have to continue paying for this to use the camera as it has a microSD card slot for recording video clips to locally.
At the time of writing, Tapo’s website says the C645D only supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. That’s wrong: it also supports 5GHz signals, which is good news as it gives you options if you’re having trouble with wireless congestion.
Companion app
Tapo’s app is one of the best of its type. The layout is intuitive, and all the functions are thoughtfully positioned, with those you are likely to use often front and centre and those you are only likely to want to fiddle with infrequently tucked away out of sight and mind, but still easy enough to find when the need arises.
The camera controls are particularly well executed. On the main camera page, snapshots from both cameras appear stacked one above the other, and this is the default view once you click through to the live feed as well.
But it’s simple to take a closer look at either camera if you want, and you can control pan-tilt camera from here, as well as instruct it to capture a panoramic photo or patrol between preselected points. The on-screen movement of the pan-tilt camera is a little jerky, but that’s not a major issue.
While many camera makers don’t bother with widgets, Tapo offers no fewer than 12 (for Android phones). The most useful of these displays the last image captured by a specific camera, and opens up a live feed when you tap it.
And Tapo also makes it easy to add bespoke automations to the app. For example, although there’s no option to manually trigger the C645D’s alarm, you can delve into the Smart Actions menu, create a shortcut for exactly what you want – which sound, how long, what colour lights – and then pin that to the top of the app Home page for instant access.
What does it do well?
Image quality from the two cameras is impressively sharp and colourful in daylight and no less impressive at night, whether in colour mode or in black and white from the infra-red lamps.
Like all the Tapo cameras I’ve tested the C645D can stream colour video, even in very low-light conditions. Unless you live far removed from any form of street lighting, you may never have to suffer monochrome, infrared-lit images. Helpfully, quite a few settings like video brightness, night view mode and privacy zones can be set independently for each camera. And even at the maximum digital 10.8x magnification, image quality is good, especially from the pan-tilt camera.
The pan-tilt camera’s tracking was near faultless, quickly zooming in on any source of movement and keeping it in the centre of the screen as it moved about. The way the C645D lets you simultaneously look at a wide field and a zoomed-in image of what’s afoot is strangely hypnotic.
The system only tripped up once during testing when it tracked the dog and me across the yard until the dog stopped. The pan-tilt camera then stayed focused on the dog as I walked out of shot, which seemed a little counterintuitive.
As usual, I also tested the C645D’s reaction times to motion events and commands from the Tapo app and found it to be quick and responsive, delivering similar performance to the other Tapo cameras I’ve tested, like the C460 and C120.
With no less than six multicolour LED spotlights, two on the wide-angle camera housing, four on the pan-tilt, the C645D makes for an excellent outdoor floodlight. What makes it even better is that four of the spotlights are always pointed directly at the source of any movement by virtue of being built into the face of the pan-tilt camera.
Audio quality is great, with noise-cancellation microphones keeping things nice and clear, even in blustery conditions, while the alarm siren emitted an ear-piercing 91.5dBA screech with the volume turned up to the maximum.
And Tapo deserves praise for not insisting that its customers chain themselves to an ongoing subscription to get the best from its product. All your recordings can be stored on a microSD card, and you get free access to all the camera’s detection settings for pets, people and vehicles, as well as 24/7 image capture. Other than cloud storage, the only other thing that a subscription brings to the table is rich (i.e. with images) notifications.
Critically, battery life is pretty good, too. Given the solar panel’s relatively small size, I wondered whether it would be sufficient to keep the 10,000mAh battery charged, given that it has two cameras and a bank of LEDs to power.
As it turned out, even in a murky Lancashire March and in a suboptimal position, the panel managed to maintain the 65% battery level I charged it to despite the heavy use I subjected the unit to during testing. Once the sun came out, the battery charged to 100% in short order.
What could it do better?
The only major feature missing from the C645D is noise detection. Strangely, the cheapest Tapo camera I’ve tested, the C120, does support noise detection, while the two more expensive ones do not.
And it would be nice to have a smoother frame rate. The best I could get from the C645D was15fps, regardless of whether the camera was recording in 2K or 720p. Neither the Reolink Altas nor the Tapo C460 can do better, but 20fps or better would be preferable.
And when it comes to support for IoT ecosystems, that’s mixed. There’s support for Google Home, Alexa and Samsung’s SmartThings, but fans of Apple’s Smart Home/HomeKit will be out of luck. There’s also no support for the RTSP or ONVIF camera standards, although that’s not uncommon with domestic security gear like this.
Should you buy it?
You can’t go wrong with the Tapo C645D. It’s easy to set up and use, supremely versatile, loaded to the gunwales with features and very good value. That you can take full advantage of all its features without paying Tapo any more money is the cherry on an already quite scrumptious cake.
The tricky thing is, the C645D’s main rival – the Eufy Solocam S340 – does a very similar job for around the same amount of money. For my money, the Tapo’s wider angle primary camera, dual-band Wi-Fi and more flexible smart features makes it marginally the better pick, but the Eufy Solocam S340 has built in storage and a slightly sharper main camera.
Which you choose, depends on your preferences and needs, and whether you already own other Tapo and Eufy kit. However, if you’re starting out on your smart security journey, the Tapo C645D is the camera to choose.
