Tapo C720 Floodlight Review - Also known as Tapo TC55

About

The Tapo C720 (The Tapo TC55 is the exact same thing) is a combination floodlight and Tapo security camera. It is designed for mounting to an electrical box or replacing an existing floodlight. Connection requires connecting bare wires and it does not plug directly into an outlet.

Review

Installation

The installation process of this floodlight is quite easy. Easier than other floodlights even. Tapo provides a special mount that you screw in and attach the wires to first. This can be done without any wire nuts and avoids needing to hold the entire floodlight while connecting!

Once the mount is screwed into your electrical box and the wires connected, you just push the floodlight on top of it and screw it down. I do with the floodlight "snapped" onto the mount a little better though as I had to fiddle to get it positioned correctly.

Overall this process took just a couple of minutes to remove an old floodlight and install this one.

The Good

In the Tapo app this floodlight has good configuration options for brightness and what types of events and what areas should trigger the floodlight.

The PIR sensor has 3 detection zones (left, center, right) that can be enabled/disabled and an overall sensitivity to adjust.

The camera can also be used to set custom detection areas and you can select which types of motion on the video should trigger the light as well. Anything from none, to all motion, to specific objects like people or dogs. You also get this full control over which events trigger notifications in the app.

The camera and lights are very adjustable (physically) and can be pointed in many more directions than some other floodlights.

The camera has a quite wide field of view. They claim 150 degrees and who am I to disagree, I traveled the world and the seven seas... Sorry I got off topic there. A floodlight cam generally needs a good field of view and a high resolution (2K) to take advantage of that, so this delivers there.

The Tapo app is pretty good, and I will review the app and other common Tapo camera features separately and link that here. In short, cameras generally connect quickly and the app is way more reliable than the Wyze app. In addition Tapo wired cameras support RTSP so you can use your favorite NVR instead of Tapo if desired.

The Okay

The camera quality is good, but not amazing. This is a bit of a nit-pick for the price-range, but motion can sometimes have artifacts visible in the recordings. The video resolution of 2560x1440 is great and pretty sharp. If you find yours not to be sharp, be sure to check the Video Quality settings as sometimes Tapo defaults to a lower resolution by default for some strange. You paid for 2K quality, why would you want less?

The special/convenient mount Tapo provides can cause issues with some mounting configurations that other floodlights do not. The mounting bracket itself is not sealed or water resistant and can leave gaps for water to get into the electrical box. The floodlight itself that attaches to the bracket is waterproof and has gaskets, but you may need to caulk around the bracket to avoid water intrusion. Most of these issues could have been prevented if the back of the mounting bracket also had a gasket.

The design of the mount can also causes the floodlight to not be as secure in some situations because it uses a single central screw. There are screw positions available along the sides to further secure it or anchor it directly into a wall, but my electrical boxes are mounted at an angle so I can only use the central screw to mount it. 

If you have a flush, well mounted electrical box then the mounting hardware is a breeze and should work flawlessly, but in other situations it works, just not as well as traditional hardware.

The Bad

The floodlight is either on or off. There is no setting to leave the light on low and then raise the brightness when an object is detected.

Because the PIR sensor is on the bottom of the camera, adjusting the camera position adjusts the PIR detection area as well. If I turn the camera 90 degrees left to look along a wall, the PIR can no longer see along the wall to the right. This may or may not be an issue for you, and  I have not seen any camera floodlight cameras that allow the PIR sensor to point somewhere other than where the camera is pointed.

You can not daisy chain another camera off of this floodlight. This was a neat feature of the Wyze floodlight (The only neat feature of it). If you need other cameras in the area, your options are to run them to another outlet, tap them straight into the same electrical box and potentially lose some waterproofing, or use a battery/solar style camera.

The camera reset button is exposed for anyone to press. Oddly enough it's mounted on a screwed in cover to protect any SD card you may have inserted, but I don't understand why they didn't leave the button under that safety cover too.

Decision 👍

Floodlight cameras can be a bit expensive. When this floodlight goes on sale it's definitely worth the purchase. It also works much better than the floodlight cameras I have tried from Wyze.

If you're looking for a floodlight/camera combo, this is a great choice and better than others I have tried. If you just need a standard floodlight with PIR sensor, I would stick with a traditional floodlight.

The Rest

My Purchase Price: This was a gift, but sells between $100 - $150

Tapo C720 product link: https://amzn.to/4j1Ndd6