Through the years, security cameras have become more and more popular among households and there are many brands available in the market. We’ve also used quite a number of different models before having had 4 locations hooked up on the web. Tenda is one of them.
Having had several Tenda routers being used at home and in the office (they’re quite affordable actually), I’ve had good impressions of their product line-up and expected the same from the Tenda CP3 camera.
The Tenda CP3 is your typical security camera for the home or office. It has an almost 360-degree rotational view (355° horizontally and 155° vertically) so you get complete coverage of the area you want to be monitored. It is best to place it in the middle of the room or ceiling or in the corner for the widest stationary field-of-view.
The maximum resolution is 1080p but you can set it lower to 720p or dynamic if your internet connection cannot support it. You can insert a microSD card so video recording can be stored locally on the device or you have the option to subscribe to Cloud storage for remote backup of video footage.
If you’re going to install the device from the ceiling, there’s an option to “invert” the image (Video Flip-over) so the picture will remain in an upright orientation. At night, the automatic “Night Vision” mode allows you to see more clearly and detect movements even if the surrounding is pitch black.
To control the Tenda CP3 uses, simply download the TDSee App in the Google Play Store or iTunes Apps Store. From there, you can configure the security camera, take photos, videos, playback recorded clips and rotate to scan the vicinity. There’s an “intercom” feature so you can talk thru the camera and the person on the other end can also talk back.
While the TDSee app can be secured with a personal login, you still have the ability to actually share a specific camera with a friend via their phone number or email. They’ll be asked to also download the app and then be able to gain limited access to the camera. This is a very useful feature if you want several people to be able to monitor your home or office.
The app also has two types of alarms — motion detection and humanoid detection. The humanoid detection is better if the area you are monitoring has a lot of other movements like pets and insects or if objects such as curtains or plants can be detected because of gusts of wind.
So far, the Tenda CP3 has almost everything that’s expected from a typical security camera. In fact, most of the other pricier cameras I’ve bought and used have close to the same features. The difference is almost negligible.
In hindsight, prices of security cameras have considerably gone down in the last 4 or 5 years that I’ve been regularly buying them. They used to be in the Php3k to Php4k price range before and now you can get them at around Php1k only.
In the past two months that I’ve used the security camera, it has worked for me flawlessly. Connection with the app is fast although sometimes the response to the panning of the camera can have some significant delay (not really sure if it’s the WiFi connection of the device).
You can learn more about the Tenda CP3 or check them out over at Shopee for only Php1,080 (click here 11).
