Smart home giant TP-Link is expanding its ecosystem of products with its first smart home camera designed to work outside. The company has unveiled two new products in the Kasa Cam Outdoor Security Camera and the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug 2-Outlets. The new outdoor cam hews closely to the company’s Kasa Cam KC120 Smart Cam, which launched last September.
The new security camera allows users to safely and securely monitor the exterior of their homes and businesses, while the new smart Wi-Fi plug is the first in the Kasa ecosystem to provide an additional smart plug outlet for dual use from a single socket. The Kasa Cam Outdoor Camera is expected to cost $140 while the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug will run $40
“Kasa Smart has become a dependable smart home brand with a growing portfolio of quality products, providing a variety of app-enabled solutions that give you remote control of your home from anywhere,” said David Li, CEO of TP-Link Research America Corp, in a press release. “The addition of a weatherproof security camera and a dual-outlet smart plug brings our customers even greater flexibility and ease in how they monitor their homes and control their devices.”
We haven’t laid hands on the new camera yet but the initial specs are promising. The Kasa outdoor camera is a weather-resistant security camera with a night-vision range of 30 feet, plus the ability to zoom in on a subject. Sharp 1080 streaming video is augmented by a two-way audio module that can fire off a built-in siren to deter intruders or simply allow the user to use the two-way speaker to talk to a delivery person if they’re not at home or simply late running to the door.
The Kam also adds some unique features to its security platform. Users can control all the basic functions through the free Kasa Smart App, but power users can also tweak their security setup by setting Activity Zones that identify an area where motion should be detected while ignoring irrelevant motions like moving tree branches or flying insects. Users can also set their own Motion Duration Detection to either track or ignore fast micro-second event motions like bugs or flying debris on a windy day.
Once the video is recorded, it’s stored in the Kasa Smart Cloud and can be viewed for free in the Kasa Smart app for two days, for up to three cameras. For businesses and users with unique needs, Kasa does offer 14-day and 30-day subscription plans for those who need more than two days to view or analyze security footage. The video should also be available in real time, lag free, when both the phone and camera are connected to a Wi-Fi network. In addition to their smartphones or tablets, video is also available via any Amazon Alexa- or Google Assistant-supported display, including Fire TV and Google Chromecast.
The new KASA outdoor cam and Wi-Fi smart plug are part of the Kasa smart home family, which also includes Wi-Fi bulbs, Wi-Fi switches, indoor cameras, routers, and range extenders. While some devices can operate independently, all of TP-Link’s smart home devices are controllable via the free Kasa Smart App or with voice control through Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integrations.
