@Solla-topee

1. On the Tapo app>Camera Settings page>Detection & Alerts>Activity Notifications, please describe your notification settings. And please help check what detection you have selected on the Detection & Alerts page.

2. On the Tapo app>Home page>Message icon, can you see the notifications for all detected events?

Yes, but it misses many events. If I enable the alarm, the alarm maybe goes off 10 times, but for example I will get only 3 notifications, so 7 noticiations are missing.

3. If the camera is connected to an NVR/NAS, please disconnect it from the NVR/NAS and then check if the notification feature will work fine.

It's not connected to either an NVR or a NAS.

4. How long have you waited between the first and second motion events and then no notification for the second motion event?

I made a short video, you can watch it here.

Thanks

  @Solla-topee Well spotted. I had time auto-update disabled which caused the incorrect time. I have already corrected that, but of course that makes no difference to this problem because the problem was also happening on my other Android device that had time and date auto-update turned on.

I have just been doing more testing. I have tested with two Andrdoid phones, and ensured every possible setting that might prevent notifications getting through was configured to be as permissive as possible. I have also tested both using my Wi-Fi and mobile data (this didn't make any difference). I have tested with three cameras: two Tapo C110 and one Tapo C210. The notification problem happened with all phones, both Wi-Fi and data, and with all three cameras.

Here is a video of my test. I move around in front of the camera, which causes the camera alarm to be triggered fairly reliably (albeit with a small delay some times), but notifications are only arrive once every 60 seconds approximately (I actually measure the time in the video).

I disconnected the fiber optic cable from the back of my router and the notifications didn't work at all, which means the notifications service relies on TP-LINK's servers.

Interestingly, when a notification arrives, it arrives to both of my phones at exactly the same time, so it seems either (a) the cameras are deliberately waiting 60 seconds between notifications, or (b) TP-LINK servers are deliberately waiting 60 seconds between notifications. Either way this seems deliberate, otherwise why would it take 60 seconds always and not some times 60, some times 15, some times 35, etc?

I think this is a server side problem. I think TP-LINK deliberately limits the frequency of notifications to 1 every 60 seconds to reduce server traffic and therefore costs. I have no idea if this will get worse over time, as it's possible TP-LINK might decide to increase this time to 120 seconds to save more money.

In the following screen capture, you can see the last notification was received at 21:34, but the notification message says motion was detected 14 minutes earlier at 21:20. This means the camera sent out the notification, but TP-LINK's server didn't push it until 14 minutes later, so it does seem it is the server that's limiting the number of notifications:

Luckily, after a period of inactivity the first notification is usually pushed immediately, so at least an intrusion would not go unnoticed, but ideally this needs to be more transparent and more configurable. Users should be able to know the value of, and adjust, the frequency of notifications. I have one camera pointed at a door that I would like to get notifications at least once every 20 seconds. However, I have another camera pointed at my cat door and I only need notifications once every 5 minutes because some times my cat likes to sit around the door and that triggers motion notifications that are not necessary.

  @Solla-topee Thank you for confirming. It really helps to understand how the product works behind the scenes. The default 1 minute interval is probably adequate when the goal of using the camera is to detect intrusions, since the first motion is always triggeres a notification. Some users will welcome a slightly shorter interval (I think maybe 30 seconds should be ok) but this has to be assessed by TP-Link/Tapo as it would increase bandwith usage and server load. On the other hand, being able to set longer intervals (e.g. up to 5 minutes) could be very useful for users who use the camera to monitor less critical events such as a pet cat entering a property.