Tapo HybridCam Duo C246D Boasts Two Cameras in One Body, No Subscriptions Required

Indoor / outdoor security cameras often leave you with a tough decision – go high and you’ll miss out on what’s happening right by the house, or go low and everything beyond the driveway is out of view. Tapo just threw up its hands and decided to give people the best of both worlds – the HybridCam Duo C246D, priced at $49.99 after redeeming the on-page coupon (was $69.99), offers both views at once from a single sleek dome.

One lens stays put, giving you a 125-degree view that takes in the whole front yard from corner to corner. The other lens is free to spin around and tilt up and down, with a 360-degree arc and 152 degrees of up-and-down movement. Both record in 2K, both see full color at night when the built-in lights kick on, and both send their feed to the Tapo app on your phone – no need for a second account or any monthly fees to get them to play nice together.

Getting it up and running takes about 5 minutes, all you need to do is hook it up to the weatherproof barrel jack using the included 3 meter cable, download the Tapo app, scan the QR code and connect to your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi – that’s it, you’re good to go. The camera shows up as a single tile on the app, but if you tap it you get a great side by side view with the wide-angle view that never moves and the pan-tilt view following whatever you tell it to follow.


Motion detection is triggered on the fixed lens first, so if someone walks into view, the other lens snaps around to keep them in frame until they leave. You can tap any spot on the wide feed and the second lens will instantly zoom in to that spot, giving you a super-sharp view with its 6mm telephoto glass. You can even read license plates from across a two-car driveway.

Night time performance uses infrared to give you the usual black-and-white glow up to 30 feet, but if you switch to color mode, the two spotlights will light up the whole front porch with usable light without overpowering the sensor. And if you turn on smart mode, the camera takes care of the rest – infrared when nothing’s moving, and color as soon as someone steps into view.


Storage options are pretty basic – meaning you can just pop in a micro SD card of up to 512GB and save those clips right on the device. No microSD card, though? Well then you get to tap into Tapo Care’s online storage which comes with a 30-day free trial – and after that its just a few bucks a month to keep going. And one of the best parts: person, vehicle, pet and baby cry detection – all still work just fine without needing a cloud plan – which to be honest is kinda refreshing in this day and age.


Speak for yourself, but the build quality appears to be very good for the price. The plastic exterior has an IP65 classification, indicating that it may withstand light rain and dust without issue. And the operational temperature range is very broad, ranging from a frigid minus 4 to an eyebrow-raising 122 degrees Fahrenheit, so you should be fine in most locations. The mounting gear includes a bracket, a useful template label to level things, and all of the hardware you’ll need to secure it to the wall or ceiling. And, as a bonus, if you stick it upside down, you can flip the image with a fast swipe in the app.



This camera also has a built-in speaker and microphone for two-way audio communication, with sound quality clear enough to pick out voices – and when activated, the integrated siren can reach up to a hearty 100 decibels. Plus, with a simple voice command, Alexa and Google Assistant will display the stream on any smart screen you have sitting about.