Kasa Smart KC420WS Outdoor Wired Security Camera

Brandon castillo

October 11, 2026

Super slow

They need to fix their cameras slow playback sometimes it takes 30 minutes to watch a video recorded. It’s so slow even with the cloud subscription it’s super slow to load an old video. It’s not consistent either. Sometimes it load fast then it has a stroke mid way and stops. Super inconvenient. You don’t have to pay which is good it’s stored on a memory card which is nice but it’s super slow it’s horrible . And it’s not even so clear faces are blurred from afar and forget about listen plates being read it’s just pretty horrible. Even trying to turn off the camera and watching the videos nope it’s just slow. Be prepared to wait 30 minutes to watch a clip you need.

Best camera of its type ever owned

In my opinion these cameras are the best buy and best performing of the lot. I've owned several other brands over the years that didn't deliver. These are easy to setup, have exceptional picture quality and are impressively reliable. I have 6 of them in use, some for over 3 years with no issues. They all record flawlessly with the use of quality 256gb micro SD cards.

Easy to install and use

The cameras work great, great clarity, easy app interface and best of all no DVR to deal with.

A security cam with cataracts after 2 years

After 2 years this camera is looking like it has cataracts. The screen isn't dirty or fogged up, but it's become more & more hazy. At it's worst when afternoon sun is shining at it. I am replacing it soon. I still give it 2 stars cause it does still work and it's still viewable at certain times of day.

10/10

We have 8+ other cameras with this brand and this is by far our best one. We love all of them. Easy setup and the lens is amazing. Definitely ordering more.

Buena calidad de imagen

Son buenas cámaras, dan una calidad de imagen buena a pesar de su tamaño.

Water damage…

I have five of these cameras and for the price they’re great. I just had my first one die from water damage, I think the water got in through the speaker. I’m gonna put tape on there to hopefully seal it off. It says there’s a two year warranty. I’ll have to see how I can Submit a claim.

0:09

Kasa Cams Are Near Useless

We purchased a large number of these cameras over the years. I loved them and they did well, but Kasa has done something to make them incredibly slow now.

They have the option for you to use your own recording or pay for their cloud network.

If you use your own memory card they are almost impossible to use now. Kasa has been deliberately making them slower using your own storage so you are forced to buy into their cloud. I don’t like it when companies do this and it takes away from what is an excellent product.

I had a break-in at my commercial property and it has been near impossible to bring up the recordings and try to figure out what was going on. The cameras are near useless now.

Before anyone says it’s my network. It’s not. I have these cameras at multiple properties and the issue is with Kasa and they made them all slow and impossible to use. Pics attached of the recordings and how I can’t get any critical footage because of what they are doing.

All my networks at all locations are mesh networks and really fast with everything else. It’s dirty as to what Kasa is doing. I will not buy any more of their products.

Cassanova

February 20, 2025

Good cheap monitor but…

Positive: Affordable and easy to install and operate. Works great as a monitor and the alerts are without much lag. Good image quality and option to choose 720, 1080, or 2K.

Negative: You can either record 24/7 or not at all. You should be able to record during motion detection only but this product does not. You can only take screen shots but not choose to record/stop at any time.

There is no way to charge it, it’s wall power only, has to be plugged in to work and the cable is usb to cube which also makes it bulkier than it needs to be and less flexible on where you might want it plugged. The build quality/material is a very cheap plastic, probably the worst off any camera I’ve owned.

Convenient - sometimes doesn’t connect.

I mounted this camera above my garage door, drilling a small hole through the exterior wall into the garage and then threading the included power wire to an interior outlet. It easily connected to my Kass app and produced a very clear picture. I’ve had it up for over a year now and have not experienced any major problems. Occasionally the app will not load the camera’s picture, but i’m thinking that this is the fault of my wifi or the app - not the camera. It comes with the opportunity to record video 24/7 (for a fee) but I just use it to see who’s in my driveway (see attached photo).

PGR

October 2, 2024

Great security camera

The camera was easy to set up. I would recommend an SD card so you don’t have to pay a cloud service subscription. Both these pictures were video images that you can still shot off of. Adjustable motion, sensitivity, and the ability to detect a person versus say an animal or vehicle motion. I’m very happy at the price point for these cameras.

Customer

September 24, 2024

Works great, I don't get the subscription

Update 2: in use for over a year each and both are still working flawlessly.

Update, I now have 2 and loving them both.

My only complaint is the cord is a bit short.

I'm reworking my extension situation but the camera itself is still working well.

I personally don't prefer using the light at night since it attracts bugs. I just use infrared, shown in the video. But, the light option does work too.

I haven't had any problems using it without a subscription (using the optional SD card port). Once I convert more of my cameras over to kasa, I may consider it. It's currently $3 a month per camera or $10 a month for all cameras.

0:07

LOVE it!!

We've had a couple Kasa cameras in the house (to spy on pets) for a couple years, so when we wanted one for outdoors, we went with Kasa to keep it simple. For only $40, I could not be happier!! We have a water feature in our front yard, we see deer frequently, but there have been babies and we thought we might catch a glimpse of them with a camera near the fountain. We had NO IDEA we had so much wildlife activity in our yard!! Honestly took me an hour to decide which video I would upload since it only let me do one. The Wi-Fi works great even though it is about 100 feet from the house - and two levels from the router which is in the basement. The picture is great! I don't have the light come on at night since I thought it would scare the animals, but the night black and white is clear as well! I wanted to show the racoon family with all the babies at night...but you'll have to trust me...super cute!! I'm so happy with this purchase! I do subscribe to the cloud, which I feel is totally worth it at $30 a year. Took about 15 minutes to set up - so super easy there too! I've had the Kasa app for so long, I'm not sure how long that took to set up the first time, but adding the additional camera was a breeze.

1:11

USB power supply on an "outdoor camera"

Setting is up is well and easy enough. I don't use night vision setting, but I do like the different settings. It works well...until it rains.

My main concern is the USB power supply because i bought it for being an outside camera, but depending on which direction it rains, the USB port can get water in it and temporarily disable the camera. And the device, nor app, notifies you when a camera shuts off so at first, it would be out for days after a storm before I realized it was out.

The rice trick is dangerous because the grains can get stuck in the USB port so i used a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol.

Another concern is window glare, if you use it in a window with blinds or curtains, intense sunlight can cause the curtains to reflect on the window and obscuring the camera's view. The same thing happens at night when I turn on the light in my room.

If you find a good spot, you can watch your family come and go, safely keep an eye on things while you're away, and even watch animals visit your plants

Worth every penny

The cost was minimal, but you do need to buy micro sd cards for each camera for 24/7 recording, again minimal cost. They came the same day, were packaged well. Activation was very easy, installation was simple. I installed 4 cameras and purchased the subscription for up to 10 cameras for $100. A year. If there is an outlet near, it’s a 10 minute job to install. You can have the cameras alert you for movement or not. And play back the movement video. I am extremely happy with the cameras

San Diego !

August 4, 2024

DOES NOT WORK with Google Home on iPhone OR home.nest.com

If you're thinking about connecting this camera to your NEST app to view video all in one place...the answer is NO.

Really freaking bummed that it is SO DIFFICULT to get straight answers about what these things will and will not work with.

Can you connect it to your Google Home app on your iPhone? Yes. Can you SEE the video stream? NO.

Seriously. How is it helpful to connect to Google Home app on iPhone but not see the video?

Can you connect it to your Nest app on your iPhone? NO. Even if you have it connected to your Google Home app? Still NO.

If you want to view the video - you HAVE to use the Kasa app. If you want to record video, or be able to check recent video from another location you will have to pay for the Kasa subscription (Kasa Care). Or use a SD card and go physically take it out of the camera? argh.

Kasa Care costs $30 a year for 1 device and goes up each device. So, if you're already paying $80 a year for your Nest subscription, this is not the answer for you.

Side note: The cam itself is fine. If I was starting all over - I might actually choose it over the Google hardware, but I'm not going to start over and I'm not going pay for both services.

Is this Kasa's fault. Also no, however - it'd be really nice to have clear info.

Helpful and patient with me.

0:19

Mike

February 18, 2024

I wish

I have a12 of these cameras…only 9 still work because squirrels eat the wire. I wish the cameras had a modular connection at the camera so that it was a little easier when this happens. as it is once the chord is chewed the camera is done. I am now running the wires through a little piece of conduit which is also a pain given the camera has to be mounted then you feed the wire through the conduit.

they are really good general purpose cameras and the kasa care plan is easy and priced competitively.

Buy with fast SD card 128GB for 24hr recording

Love the quality, works under coldest weather, got three cameras already, none went bad. My wifi is slow to navigate through recordings and possibly the camera is not too fast to respond while recording non stop. I switched to lower res and did not feel I lost anything. In the recordings it does identify people versus other motion. Motion in the street triggers the alerts regardless if the zones are set but I am not bothered.

Giovanni Soberanis

January 13, 2024

Excellent

Excellent, meets all the requirements, I feel safe at home

0:14

Muy buena cámara

Compre esta cámara hace unos meses y no la había instalado y por fin la conecte en mi patio y es exelente

0:22

Great Camera

I wanted to add cameras to my existing setup but the model I had isn't available anymore. I chose Kasa because the name is good and the interface is seamless. These are super easy to set up and use the same mounting holes as my old ones. These are sleek with no antennas sticking out. They connect to power via USB with an included brick. The plug is not rated for outdoor use so you need a weatherproof cover. I ran the wire through my existing hole but had to cut a notch in the base to feed the wire. That would be a great upgrade.

Pros: easy setup, attractive, good interface

Cons: plug is not rated for outdoor use, no notch to run the wire through the base, no high speed playback feature (that I can find).

No subscriptions, but the plug sucks!

I refuse to pay monthly fees to store my personal video (I am a techie and know how stuff gets hacked) and selected this camera. The camera overall is a great value. The app is intuitive and easy to setup. I purchased the Eufy camera and returned it for this one, and for my use it is superior. There are many reviews that give in depth pro/con of the app and user interface, but I saw none with the two pet peeves I have with this camera. First, the plug which is not waterproof- what were they thinking? This is an exterior camera and I went to plug it into my exterior 'in use' outlet (it has a cover that allows you to have a plug plugged in all the time and has a spot the electrical cord to be protected). Well, this plug is to 'deep' in order for the cover to protect it. So what are you suppose to use? I ended up having to return 2 of the 3 cameras because I couldn't install them because the plugs would be exposed to the elements. Second, I updated my router. Though the wifi name didn't change, I still had to take the camera down to reset it - no ability to update the wifi in the app. Besides those two issues, this is a solid camera and I would recommend it especially for those of us out there who refuse to pay monthly subscription services for stuff that we already own.

Amazing quality!

We had security cameras from a different brand outside. After getting some Kasa monitor style cameras for inside the house to keep an eye on our epileptic dog, we decided it was silly to pay for two subscriptions. We cancelled the other subscription and bought some outdoor Kasa cameras to replace them, and wow - what an upgrade!

The video quality is infinitely better, and I love that it's got a wider view. The notification options are more customizable, and I love that I can get notifications when a person is detected rather than just having movement notifications (not ideal when the wind causes shadows to move all day long). The AI for person detection isn't perfect though. There have been some times when it's flagged our dogs as people, and even got triggered by a squirrel recently!

The app is easy to use, and I like that I can record certain sections of the recordings to my phone or can just use the "share link" option to send recording clips to friends and family. The subscription is a must though, otherwise you have to get the SD card out any time you want to pull recording footage.

These cameras are so nice that we replaced all our old ones, even though it was a bit pricey to do. Totally worth it!

Great Images

This camera has good-quality of images. Very easy to install. It will do still images also. Very easy to share with friends and family.

0:37

On the Fence, Glad I Did

I almost didn't buy these because other reviewers said that you need to take the cameras down, pull out the SD card and upload images/videos to a PC if you wanted to save them. After I installed them, I was surprised to see that I have the option to record recordings and take pictures of recordings right from the app and save them onto my smartphone. I have other Kasa devices in the house but do not have a subscription to the cloud service. Picture quality is good, cars going more than 20mph are a blur but it's easy to see people's faces. The lights are decent at night, they light up our front porch and walkway, and the microphones pick up our neighbor playing poker in his garage 80ft away.

Better than blink

We originally had net view, the memory card would never format and we couldn’t see past recordings, then we replaced it with blink outdoor cameras. They worked great with live views and saved videos and the best part about blink was the span in which the lens captured was awesome, more coverage area, however it never recorded anything of significance. I saw bugs and spiders but when someone pulled up it wouldn’t record. Crazy! Plus always having to replace the batteries got to be expensive. Meh.

We purchased 2 of these to replace the blink outdoor cameras and while the coverage area isn’t as good as blink, they record everything, we don’t pay for the cloud we use the 128gb microchip and it works super good. These cameras detect motion, sound and even a person and will distinguish between each one on my notifications, which helps weed out having to search through all the recordings. The best thing about these cameras is that it also continuously records so if you want to see a certain time frame without any notifications you can just scan through the time blocks.

We have also started using these to replace our indoor cameras and they’re amazing too. All in all great cameras, definitely worth the money to us.

Worst Camera from Kasa

I have all the Kasa’s products from the Kasa inside cameras, Kasa tp-link wifi mesh, the wifi extenders, the wifi switches and plugs which are all controlled by Alexa. I never had an issue with any of them until I bought these 2 Kasa outdoor 24/7 cameras. The worst cameras ever, the spotlights do not work, the recording stops, skips or it won’t record at all. It will state all of a sudden that you have to configure the the micro SD card for no reason. The so called alarm is so low no one can hear it. Worse of all was Kasa’s Customer Service. They kept requesting the same information in the emails and they never called me to resolve all these problems.

Returning and on its way back for a full refund. How disappointing! Don’t buy these!!! You can get the inside cameras but not the these outside ones. Waste of my time and frustrating as they played me asking the same info over and over and promising that someone will contact me soon. They never did.

April 20, 2022 update

So I received an email from TP-link CS and they stated they will be working on the cameras issues. I can honestly say that as a customer it was gratifying to finally get an answer from the company. Because they are working on this particular outdoor cameras issues I went ahead and purchased other ones.

Poorly designed SD slot

I had very good experience with Kasa Cam KC200, which is unfortunately not available anymore. This camera requires an SD card, which took me a few more days to wait. The initial startup of the machine looks very promising. The packaging was great, the machine looks very sleek and mounting instructions were supplied. I was very happy and excited. When my SD cards arrived, I begin to setup. The slot to the SD card requires a small X screw driver and they are extremely difficult to unscrew by hand. After multiple attempts, one screw worn out. Fine, I thought I can always glue it back in, you won’t need to access the SD card after installation anyways. After inserting the SD card, the camera won’t power up anymore. But that’s alright, I bought 3!

I tried the 2nd camera, the screw gave me the same trouble. I gave up.

One star for packaging, one star for the smooth delivery, and one star for the Kasa software. I hope manufacture can make an SD slot that is easier to access without screws.

Review from Day 1 (will update)

Pros:

- great camera quality

- night time video is super crisp as well

- cheap subscription ($30 a year for 30 day video storage)

- super easy set up

- super wide angle

- custom activity zones to automatically turn the light on at night is really convenient

Cons:

- app feels a bit buggy

- built in speaker is not very loud (Ring floodlight across the street is way louder)

- lights are bright enough to give great images at night but I'm not sure if it'll be enough to deter anyone

Overall thoughts:

- great for my small driveway

- camera is significantly better than I expected at this price point (59.99 at time of purchase)

- hopefully they will improve the Kasa app over time

- the power cable was plenty long for me, but may pose an issue depending on where you hope to install the camera