@Solla-topee 

Thanks for your reply. I'm in unfamiliar territory here. In setting up the EC70 I never saw any instructions for connecting to the cloud. I know how to view the router settings, but I really don't know anything about what they all do. We have a home network with 3 computers and my wife and I work from home. I want to be careful not to mess things up and disrupt our work. Regarding turning off or lowering the firewall, do you mean to do so before setting up the camera, then change it back after it's connected? The firewall is already set to LOW security, and I don't want to disable it completely.

Regarding changing WAN DNS to 8.8.8.8, I don't see a WAN DNS setting. We use a COX Panaramic gateway. I have settings for primary DNS, secondary DNS, gateway address, subnet mask, DHCP start and end ranges, and WAN IP address. Is it the gateway address that gets changed to 8.8.8.8? And will changing it mess up anything else? 

I've never had to get "into the weeds" in such settings just to add a TP-Link device, or for anything else. I just set up the gateway and carry on. The rest is above my pay grade. I just want to add a security camera. Why is this Kasa device so difficult to set up for an average home user?

Thanks for any specific directions you can help me with.

@Solla-topee 

It gets worse! I now see COX does not allow me to change the primary DNS. They want everything going through their server. Regarding the firewall, there are custom security settings to: BLOCK:

http (TCP port 80, 443)

ICMP
Multicast
Peer-to-peer applications
IDENT (port 113) 

and to Disable entire firewall

Other than disabling the entire firewall, I don't know anything about blocking the other things or if they are even relevant. If you have any other suggestions, I would really appreciate your advice. Thanks.
 

@Solla-topee 

After my last message, it occurred to me that it might help to reboot the gateway, though the camera install instructions never mentioned doing so. After rebooting, the camera has usually been connecting to my app while in remote locations, though not 100% of the time. By connecting I mean live streaming to my phone app when I'm outside of my home and out of range of my home wifi. In the home, the live stream opens on the phone in about 3-5 seconds--maybe that's normal, though 5 seconds seems a long time in this digital age! Out of my home in remote locations, the live stream usually starts in about 6-8 seconds--again, longer than I would like for a security camera--and occasionally it takes longer or sometimes won't connect without closing and reopening the Kasa app or turning the cameral off and back on. 

I also set up port forwarding specifically for the EC70, and that seemed to speed up the streaming times above by 1-4 seconds inconsistently. I'm still testing the effects of these changes I've made. Note that COX, my provider, advised against putting the camera in a DMZ, but recommended the port forwarding instead. It's not clear to me how risky it is to forward the port.

         "Try to unblock 433 port and see if that helps" 

As I said the last message, there is an option to block port 433, therefore, it must be that the port is already unblocked.

       "If you pull down to fresh Live view page, or quit and reopen kasa app at that time, does that work for you?"

I see no pull down to refresh the live view page in my app.

I would like to see improved performance, but I am happy I have been able to get it to work as well as I have. If there is anything your senior techs can suggest to improve performance, I would like to hear it. Here is the additional information you requested:

1.       Brand and model of the Router: PANORAMIC CGM4140COM

2.       For ' but away from the house they either never connect or, rarely, connect but after several minutes' do you mean when phone is on mobile data or non- home wifi, live view page is inaccessible? Does this particularly happen when phone is on certain outside WiFi / using mobile data of certain SIM card company? Who is the ISP of that Wi-Fi or mobile data? 
I MEAN WHEN I'M ANYWHERE OUT OF THE HOME WHERE THE CAMERA IS LOCATED IN MY HOME WIFI. DOES NOT MATTER IF I'M CONNECTED TO WIFI IN THE OTHER LOCATION OR NOT (BUT IT'S SUPPOSEDLY NOT REQUIRED TO BE IN WIFI TO CONNECT "ANYWHERE")

If you pull down to fresh Live view page, or quit and reopen kasa app at that time, does that work for you? 
MY CAMERA APP DOES NOT HAVE A PULL DOWN TO REFRESH FEATURE

3.      APP version: 2.33.2, BUILD 934

4.      Brand and model of the phone, OS version of the phone.
IPHONE X, IOS 14.6

5.      MAC address of the camera (Kasa app- Device settings page)
00:31:92:E9:D5:2F
 

Thank you.