Genuinely curious as to how these types of giveaways work and what the company gains from them. Is it the additional data you give them to enter the giveaway? Also does anyone own one of these cameras, are they actually worth redeeming in this case?
the catch is that you don’t own that camera, only the manufacturer does. besides requiring an account and a connection to china to be able to use it, they have access to both your network, and to the camera feed. they’ll use the network info to gather info about you, and the camera feed to train their face and gait recognition AIs, possibly also for intelligence
Is it the additional data you give them to enter the giveaway?
Basically. You’re telling TP-Link that you’re a business that’s interested in selling their products. In return, their Sales team now has your information and can
pester youtell you all about the latest TP-Link products.Additionally, they’re putting their products directly in the hands of customers who could become even bigger customers. If you, as a company, decide you like the product, then you’re probably going to buy more of said product.
Finally, TP-Link is being selective about who gets the freebie—they’re not just handing them out willy-nilly. From the fine print:
Offer valid only for SolutionX partners. One Insight S445 (2.8mm) camera per qualified SolutionX partner. Approval is required, and TP-Link reserves the right to verify applications
So there’s probably some sort of “legitimacy threshold” you have to clear in order to get the goodies.
Cisco used to not be that selective.
They used to give out free Meraki APs to everyone just for attending their webinars. The catch with those devices was licensing. You’ve got some limited-time free license, and then you either paid or kept a paperweight.
At least officially. Some of them were later supported by OpenWRT, but newer ones are more locked down.
It could be the price of advertising, but I feel like this is one of those cameras where you need to connect it to your wifi or make an account with them
The catch is that you can’t use a tp link camera as an IP camera and anyone at their office could just tune into your home whenever they wanted.
Yeah you can. Once i set mine up i locked them out of the net and use free ip to monitor
You can absolutely use some TP Link cameras as IP cameras, such as the Tapo range:
Here is a picture of my Dads TP-Link KC401. I borrowed it to prove my point. It requires a Kasa home account. I tried signing up for one to see if it has any sort of RTSP I could hook up to, unfortunately I can’t even sign up for an account. I tried first with a temporary email, then my own domain, then I tried protonmail. It rejected all three. Doesnt seem very privacy friendly to me at all if I need an email provider like Google to even sign up to use the damn thing. I can’t find any sort of documentation online about these cameras having RTSP. In fact what I found was the opposite..
The github page you linked there, while being a great option for people who have already drank the koolaid, is not an ideal solution in any capacity. Per the readme.md
If your camera still works with integration: Block internet access of camera if you are using firmware build 230921 and higher
If your camera no longer works with integration: Block internet access and factory reset camera or Use older firmware than build 230921 and optionally factory reset camera
Meaning, they updated it to prevent you from using it. To use it now you have to hack your way around it and pray it doesn’t accidentally come back online. IP Cam =/= Internet Connected cam. IP Cam means I own the camera, and it doesnt have to phone home to the manufacturer for “updates” that take away functionality.
