I saw an article before about a guy who reverse engineered the app and figured out default camera’s admin password so probably possible but I think not worth the effort.

what I did was

1. Installing the app
2. Create a hotspot that provides no internet.
3. Connect to that hotspot so now my phone has no internet
4. Open tapo app and setup the camera
5. Allow the camera to connect to the internetless hotspot to finish the setup and enable rtsp
6. Uninstsll the app

I use tapo cameras that I connect through ethernet cable to an old laptop.

The camera itself never sees the internet.

I use “motion” for motion detection and recording