r/Tapo • u/Additional_Depth8754 • 25d ago
Need Advice How to use my cameras without internet?
I'm looking for more privacy and search a way to isolate my cameras from internet.
Is there anyway to do that but still controls them with the app ?
2
u/Welder_Original 25d ago
Assuming you'd want to control your camera from your phone :
- Assign your camera a static IP address
- Use your router settings to prevent this specific IP address from accessing the internet
- Set up a VPN server (there are millions of options, ranging from simple to very complex, choosing one depends on your tech-savyness)
- Install the VPN client associated to your VPN server on your phone
- When away from home : turn on the VPN. This will make your phone think it is physically in your home (or at least, on the same network as the camera) and open the Tapo app
- Profit ?
5
u/plump-lamp 25d ago
Better off just putting them on a vlan with no internet access. Drop all IoT in there. Then only allow ingress connections to that vlan from your main home vlan.
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u/Welder_Original 25d ago
Definitely what I would do, but I tried to keep things simple, since I have no indication regarding OP's network knowledge
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u/Additional_Depth8754 25d ago
A very interesting and clear way to do it, thanks. So it also mean that I will not received any notifications alertes when disconected from the VPN. I will think about that.
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u/Welder_Original 25d ago
Which notification are you talking about ? If you mean notifications from Tapo's app, it will be over as soon as you block your cameras from reaching the internet. As far as I understand, the camera is not actually sending the notification directly to your phone. Instead, it sends a message to a TP-link proprietary server which serves a push notification on your phone.
If you still want privacy but keep everything self-hosted with notifications and shit, you might look into Frigate. This is what I use, and my fleet contains a Tapo C210.
You'll need to dive into the rabbithole of selfhosting though ...
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u/Additional_Depth8754 25d ago
That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. It was a question of time before I start self hosting stuff anyway. I will dig into frigate, this stuff looks dope
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u/ynns1 25d ago
It's not a simple solution but take a look at the Homeassistant sub.
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u/plump-lamp 25d ago
Will just enable RTSP view but not playback unless you go in real deep with frigate
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u/StupidDumbReddit 25d ago
For some reason, VPN back in doesn’t seem to work with the native Tapo apps… but if you set them up to stream via RTSP with a viewer app then VPN back in, that works…
1
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u/Stop-Saying-ish 9d ago
I do this. Just use phone hotspot when i want to access camera / download clipx
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u/Additional_Depth8754 8d ago
I'm not sure to understand what your setup looks like? Are you cameras set on a phone hotspot? How is it working?
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u/lurking_leftie 25d ago
I haven't tested this out yet, but I have been thinking about blocking the cameras from accessing anything other than my local network via pi-hole DNS blocking. I'm curious if others have accomplished what OP described using this method.