The Tapo Hub: TP-Link joins the low-bandwidth, long-range RF club

Leveraging low-power wireless connectivity isn’t proprietary to a single smart-home technology and product supplier, no matter that each company’s implementation of the concept may be.

Back in 2019, when I first conceptually explored, then tore down, and finally implemented personally a Blink outdoor security system (still operational to this very day):

• Blink: Security cameras with a power- and bandwidth-stingy uplink
• Teardown: Security camera network module
• Teardown: Blink XT security camera
• Blink: Security camera system installation and impressions

The aspect of the architecture that intrigued me the most was the camera’s battery-powered nature. How on earth were they spec’d to run for up to two years (far from nearly five in real life) solely on two lithium AA cells while still regularly remaining user-accessible over Wi-Fi?

The answer, as those of you who’ve already read my writeups (and remember them) know, was a two-fold response:

• The entire system wasn’t battery-powered, and
• The communications infrastructure wasn’t solely Wi-Fi

In-between the cameras (back then, I was apparently using quarters for size comparison purposes, not pennies):

and the Internet is a Sync Module:

Multi-spectral stinginess

Requoting my original piece in the series:

A Blink system consists of one or multiple tiny cameras, each connected both directly to a common router or to an access point intermediary (and from there to the Internet) via Wi-Fi, and to a common (and equally diminutive) Sync Module control point (which itself then connects to that same router or access point intermediary via Wi-Fi) via a proprietary “LFR” long-range 900 MHz channel.

The purpose of the Sync Module may be non-intuitive to those of you who (like me) have used standalone cameras before…until you realize that each camera is claimed to be capable of running for up to two years on a single set of two AA lithium cells. Perhaps obviously, this power stinginess precludes continuous video broadcast from each camera, a “constraint” which also neatly preserves both available LAN and WAN bandwidth. Instead, the Android or iOS smartphone or tablet app first communicates with the Sync Module and uses it to initiate subsequent transmission from a network-connected camera (generic web browser access to the cameras is unfortunately not available, although you can also view the cameras’ outputs from either a standalone Echo Show or Spot, or a Kindle Fire tablet in Echo Show mode).

That the battery-powered network nodes (cameras in this case) are battery-based is convenient from a location-flexibility standpoint, not necessitating running wired-power feeds to them, just as the fact that they’re wireless precludes needing to run Cat5 spans to them. And in some cases, it also enables ongoing implementation functionality (at least to a degree) even if premises power goes down.

Discerning degree of dryness

Fast forward to the present. My wife and I recently bought a couple of ionizing humidifiers for the house, one of them “smart” (believe it or not; stay tuned for coverage to come):

The (upstairs) thermostats for our (downstairs) furnaces, one for each horizontal half of the house, supposedly also report residence humidity, but I’ve never believed the data they feed me; they perpetually say that it’s “<15%”. I could have just bought a cheap hygrometer (standalone humidity sensor) for $5 or so; this one’s even solar-rechargeable:

But when I came across one, the T315, part of TP-Link’s Tapo smart home product suite, I knew I had to have it:

It was less than $25 at Amazon. It leveraged Kindle-reminiscent display tech. And I already had several other Tapo devices active in the home. How hard could it be to add one more?

Ingenuity redux

Not hard, it turned out, but not quite as straightforward as I’d initially envisioned. The Tapo T315 is battery-powered, just like those Blink XT cameras. And equally similarly (can you already guess where I’m going here?), just as with TP-Link’s other smart sensors—buttons (doorbells, etc.), door and window contacts, presence, motion, water leak (hold that last thought), etc.—this time, in-between it and my router, there’s therefore a required (drum roll) smart hub!

Since my data payload size was modest in this case, I went with the entry-level Tapo H100, which Amazon also sells for sub-$25:

And I quote (sound familiar?):

The Tapo Hub is the heart of your Tapo smart home, connecting devices like smart sensors, switches and buttons, using an ultra-low power wireless protocol. This technology helps battery-powered devices last up to 10 times longer.

The company also sells more advanced (but still economical) hubs that further comprehend battery-powered Tapo security cameras (including, I’m assuming, transitioning them to Wi-Fi for active broadcast streaming, and also supporting local recording storage); the mid-range microSD card-based H200 and high-end H500, the latter shipping with 16 GBytes of eMMC flash memory and (believe it or not) further expandable via an optional 2.5” SATA HDD or SSD.

Here’s the packaging for the Tapo H100 smart hub, which I needed to activate first:

And here’s what was inside, as usual accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for size comparison purposes, along with a sliver of literature which I didn’t bother photographing:

Nitty-gritty details:

Right-side configuration and reset switch:

After plugging it in to a power strip-housed AC outlet, setup was multi-step but straightforward:

Success!

Desert, jungle, or somewhere in-between?

Now for the Tapo T315 hygrometer. Packaging first, again:

Setup, including connection to the now-active hub several rooms over, was once again easy:

And there we are! Sub-15% humidity…pfft…

Water, water, (hopefully not) every where…

Feeling pretty good about myself, I decided to push my luck once more. When the plumber replaced our geriatric (but thankfully not yet leaking) water heater downstairs in the furnace room a few years ago, he threw in a standalone leak detection sensor (a valuable albeit often overlooked addition to any residence) to reside on the floor next to it:

Note, however, this bit in the operating instructions:

Replacing the battery: Replace the battery if the alarm has operated for an extended period of time, or if the battery expiration date is approaching. You may want to mark the battery expiration date on a piece of tape and attach it to the alarm when you install the battery.

Let’s be real. I know myself well enough to realize that once I set it, I’m going to forget it. I was admittedly surprised to learn, after replacing it (more accurately, moving it; it now sits below the whole-house water filter enclosure in a different room) that unlike my carbon monoxide detectors at their end-of-life dates, it didn’t at least chirp when its battery was getting low. That said, we’d only hear the sound if we were there at the time, and assuming it was loud enough to capture our attention. And further to that point, more generally, if we were away when a leak started, we’d be blissfully ignorant of what was going on…at least at first, until we returned home, that is.

Enter the $19.99 (on Amazon as I write this) TP-Link Tapo T300 Smart Water Leak Sensor:

Once again, box shots first:

Followed by what’s inside (minus, again, the also-provided piece of paperwork):

Yank the blue plastic strip to activate the factory-installed and user-replaceable two-battery connection:

Thereby auto-transitioning the sensor to setup mode:

Go through the brain-dead simple setup steps:

And voilà:

Dissections, etc., to come

My mixed Kasa-plus-Tapo smart home topology is functionally rock-solid so far, including the hub-based portion. Buh-bye, Belkin Wemo…and maybe, someday, Blink, too. To be clear, Blink and TP-Link’s disparate ecosystems, coupled with the latter’s comparatively greater product type diversity, would be the sole long-term replacement motivation (specifically, mothballing my Blink cameras and replacing them with TP-Link equivalents).

My Blink gear also continues to work just fine, including no evidence whatsoever of any functionally degrading interference between its and TP-Link’s respective ultra-low power wireless links. That all said, I’ll undoubtedly further expand my TP-Link-sourced stuff in the future; stay tuned for more hands-on coverage. Speaking of which, I’ve also got a redundant Tapo H100 smart hub and T300 smart water leak sensor, both sitting on the shelf, queued up for teardown, along with a display-less sibling of the T315 hygrometer, the Tapo T310 Smart Temperature and Humidity Sensor ($17.99 at Amazon):

I hope you’re looking forward to those analyses as well. Until then, let me know what you think in the comments!

—Brian Dipert is the Principal at Sierra Media and a former technical editor at EDN Magazine, where he still regularly contributes as a freelancer.

Related Content

• Blink: Security cameras with a power- and bandwidth-stingy uplink
• Teardown: Security camera network module
• Teardown: Blink XT security camera
• Blink: Security camera system installation and impressions

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