PyTapo
Python library for communication with Tapo Cameras.
Used inside Home Assistant Integration HomeAssistant-Tapo-Control.
Pre-Requirements
- Python3.13
- PIP modules installed
Install:
python3 -m pip install pytapo
Usage examples:
Initiate library:
from pytapo import Tapo
user = "" # user you set in Advanced Settings -> Camera Account
password = "" # password you set in Advanced Settings -> Camera Account
host = "" # ip of the camera, example: 192.168.1.52
tapo = Tapo(host, user, password)
print(tapo.getBasicInfo())
Authentication
Depending on your camera model and firmware version, the authentication method varies.
Normally you should be able to authenticate using the "camera account" created via the Tapo App (Settings > Advanced settings > Camera account).
In case of a similar stack trace:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/user/Projects/pytapo/pytapo/__init__.py", line 41, in __init__
self.basicInfo = self.getBasicInfo()
File "/home/user/Projects/pytapo/pytapo/__init__.py", line 232, in getBasicInfo
return self.performRequest(
File "/home/user/Projects/pytapo/pytapo/__init__.py", line 95, in performRequest
self.ensureAuthenticated()
File "/home/user/Projects/pytapo/pytapo/__init__.py", line 61, in ensureAuthenticated
return self.refreshStok()
File "/home/user/Projects/pytapo/pytapo/__init__.py", line 80, in refreshStok
raise Exception("Invalid authentication data")
Exception: Invalid authentication data
Attempt to authenticate using admin as user and your TP-Link cloud account password as password.
Downloading Recordings
Integration supports downloading recordings saved on camera's SD card.
See example script. You need to call it with following ENV values:
HOST: IP Address of your cameraPASSWORD_CLOUD: Tapo cloud account password, it is required to access the recordings, everything is still localOUTPUT: Directory where you wish to save all the recordingsDATE: Date for which to download recordings in format of YYYYMMDD, for example 20230221.
You also need to have ffmpeg installed as that is used for converting the streams to watchable file.
Performance notes
Recordings are downloaded through the camera's encrypted streaming protocol (/stream). The camera does not expose the raw MP4 files directly, so a true "file copy" is not possible; the stream is AES-decrypted and the resulting MPEG-TS data is remuxed into an MP4 container by ffmpeg (the video track is copied as-is, the audio track is re-encoded to AAC).
You can tune the download behavior with the following Downloader parameters:
window_size: Affects throughput and stability. Higher values usually download faster but can cause some cameras to stop responding. Common values are50(stable) or200(default).progressInterval: Minimum time in seconds between progress updates (default1.0). Increasing this value reduces CPU overhead because the library no longer runs anffprobesubprocess on every chunk just to report progress. UseprogressInterval=0to restore the previous per-chunk behavior.stall_timeout: Seconds to wait for data before treating the stream as stalled and retrying (default120).
Contributions:
Contributions to pytapo are welcomed.
By creating a PR you acknowledge and agree that you are not breaking any TOS, law and/or have a permission to provide and share the code changes.
Owner of this repository is not legally responsible for any PRs or code changes to this project created by 3rd parties.
When you make a new change to the code base, make sure to have 100% unit test coverage, see below for more information about tests.
Test instructions
Set the following environment variables:
PYTAPO_USER - user you set in Advanced Settings -> Camera Account
PYTAPO_PASSWORD - password you set in Advanced Settings -> Camera Account
PYTAPO_IP - ip of the camera, example: 192.168.1.52
Install pre-commit and tox from pip.
Run pre-commit install and pre-commit install -t pre-push.
Then run tox to run all the tests.
Linters are ran on every commit.
Tests are ran on push.
Your camera may do all the actions supported by this library, including, but not limited to, move, change privacy mode and reboot while tests are running. Camera does not format SD card during tests.
After the tests are done, your camera should be in the initial state.
Thank you
- Dale Pavey from NCC Group for the initial research on the Tapo C200
- likaci and his github repository for the research on the Mercury camera on which tapo is based
- Tim Zhang for additional research for Mercury camera on his github repository
- Gábor Szabados for doing research and gathering all the information above in Home Assistant Community forum
- Davide Depau for additional research of the cameras and work on pytapo library
- Alex X for his incredible work on go2rtc library, and its code for Tapo stream communication which was rewritten to python in order to implement stream-related features of this library
FAQ
See https://github.com/JurajNyiri/HomeAssistant-Tapo-Control?tab=readme-ov-file#troubleshooting--faq
Disclaimer
Pytapo is an unofficial module for achieving interoperability with Tapo cameras.
Author is in no way affiliated with Tp-Link or Tapo.
All the api requests used within the library are available and published on the internet (examples linked above) and this module is purely just a wrapper around those https requests.
Author does not guarantee functionality of this library and is not responsible for any damage.
All product names, trademarks and registered trademarks in this repository, are property of their respective owners.
1 maintainer
Release files for pytapo 3.4.19
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| pytapo-3.4.19.tar.gz | 61.8 kB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pytapo-3.4.19-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 128.0 kB
Release files / pytapo-3.4.19.tar.gz
| Download URL | pytapo-3.4.19.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 61.8 kB |
| Tags | Source |
|
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Release files / pytapo-3.4.19-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | pytapo-3.4.19-py3-none-any.whl |
|---|---|
| Size | 66.3 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
|
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twine/6.0.1 CPython/3.10.15
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