How To Install Blink Camera System
Since Amazon bought Blink, they've continually expanded their home security camera offerings. In this review, nosotros dug into the Glimmer Outdoor camera. From its phenomenal battery life to its live-streaming limits, we've got all the details on the good and the bad of the new Blink outdoor camera.
Blink Outdoor features
| Video quality | Up to 1080p HD |
| Field of view | 110 degrees |
| Nighttime vision type | Infrared LED |
| Connectivity | 2.4 GHz Wi-FI |
| Audio | Two-way audio |
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First Impressions
When nosotros first got our hands on the Blink Outdoor photographic camera, we noticed it was definitely sleeker and nicer to expect at than the Glimmer XT2. Still, it maintained actually strong weatherproofing for safe outdoor use. The Glimmer Outdoor camera's IP rating (how protected it is against liquids or solids) is 65. That means it'southward protected from all directions from h2o (similar rain) and is dust-tight, which is a expert affair since we take a bad habit of forgetting to lookout man where nosotros point the garden hose sometimes when watering the plants. The temperature rating is negative 4 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, so some areas with extremely high temperatures, similar LA or Arizona may find the Blink Outdoor camera to exist not well suited for them.
We as well noticed that the Sync Module that Blink cameras use to connect to the Internet and store footage has been upgraded to a Sync Module 2. The new Sync Module 2 supports upwardly to 10 cameras and offers local storage for our Glimmer Outdoor to store its footage on straight. Nosotros loved being able to automatically shop the data for all our Blink cameras on one memory carte du jour, making it actually like shooting fish in a barrel to give the footage to law enforcement similar that time someone ran over our mailbox and didn't stop to leave a notation. Rude!
Plan Alee: To modify the batteries on the Blink Outdoor photographic camera, we had to have information technology off the mounting base and remove the back of the photographic camera, so be sure to mount information technology somewhere that's hands attainable in order to change the batteries.
What's in the Box
So what came in the Blink outdoor camera kit? It came with everything nosotros needed to get started except for a screwdriver and a flash bulldoze, which included:
- Blink Outdoor camera
- Mounting hardware
- Sync Module 2
- Camera tool
- USB cable
- Ability adapter
- Four AA Energizer batteries
Strengths and Weaknesses
Let'due south get right into it. The Blink Outdoor camera is more of what we expected from Glimmer. It seemed to accept information technology all: sleek styling that didn't immediately scream "security photographic camera" with its rounded square look, an like shooting fish in a barrel installation process, a strong app, and a solid performance overall. Only, it wasn't perfect, so we'll embrace the cons, also.
Potent Points
- Two-way sound: Most security cameras have two-way sound now, but it's nevertheless really of import. With the Blink Outdoor, we could communicate in existent-time with delivery personnel or repair workers directly through the camera's speakers and microphone. It also immune u.s.a. to alert intruders that we see them. Sometimes a "can I help y'all?" in a business firm voice is all information technology takes to convince potential troublemakers to leave apace, as nosotros found in multiple instances.
- Two-year battery life: That'south correct, the Blink Outdoor should terminal for up to an entire two years from two footling AA batteries. Of form, the video-utilise blueprint and the quality of the AA batteries can affect actual operation fourth dimension, and since the camera merely came out, we oasis't been able to verify the ii-year battery life, but we'll report back in a couple of years!
- Solid video operation: We appreciated the Glimmer Outdoor's articulate, 1080p Hd video, although its field of view was a lilliputian more than narrow than we needed at only 110 degrees diagonally; while we could see our stoop, we couldn't run into what was happening on our unabridged sidewalk. And while the photographic camera couldn't zoom in optically, nosotros zoomed in directly on the Glimmer Home app four times to take hold of those smaller details, like an exotic bird landing on our recycling trash can i Tuesday morning. At present, if merely the camera could tell us what kind of bird information technology was, we'd be psyched!
- Move detection sensitivity: We kept getting alerts when there were particularly potent gusts of air current, which was annoying and unnecessary. But wait; once we looked deeper into the Glimmer Dwelling app, nosotros found that we could adjust the move detectors' sensitivity so we could avoid these types of alerts, which worked well. Since the camera lacks person detection, this was a decent way to make our notifications matter more, although nosotros still wish the camera could tell people apart from moving inanimate objects or animals.
- Privacy zones: When it comes to smart home security, privacy has been a huge consequence across the manufacture, and Blink is no exception; merely final year, Tenable Inc found seven different vulnerabilities in the Blink XT2 camera1 that could lead to the camera's footage being viewed remotely. The idea of someone looking out our front window along with our outdoor cameras truly creeps us out, but Blink has addressed this consequence with the new outdoor photographic camera in the grade of privacy zones. Basically, privacy zones let us depict areas we want the photographic camera to black out and so it won't be shown on our live stream. For example, when we had the camera installed in our lawn, we blacked out our neighbor'south lawn so that we wouldn't be spying on them. Merely our m was visible, which also helped to cut downward on our notifications. It was a win win!
- Local storage: Every bit we already mentioned, our footage automatically backed up on our Sync Module 2, which was squeamish, although we had to buy the flash drive ourselves.
- Alexa integration: Given that Amazon owns Blink, it was no surprise to see that, like the residue of the Glimmer cameras, the Blink Outdoor worked with Alexa. Nosotros used our voices to testify our cameras' footage on our Burn down TV or Repeat Bear witness smart displays, arm and disarm our photographic camera, ask when our latest motion alerts were, and more. Glimmer has some of the most all-encompassing Alexa commands we've seen from a security camera, then the Glimmer Outdoor is a great choice for those already in the Amazon ecosystem. And if you're interested in condign part of that ecosystem, our Repeat Show review and our Repeat Dot with Clock review are great places to starting time.
Weak Points
- Continue button: The Blink Outdoor photographic camera can simply alive stream for v minutes at a time before starting a new stream, not to mention that we had to tap a "continue" button every 30 seconds even within that brusk, five infinitesimal timeframe. While this feature did aid with our camera'southward battery life, information technology was pretty annoying, especially when we were trying to picket how the squirrel is getting into the bird feeder that was supposed to be squirrel-proof.
- Disappointing night vision: While we're fans of infrared dark vision in general, the Glimmer Outdoor simply had a single infrared sensor, so rather than seeing the familiar faces of our visiting friends and family unit, we only saw white glowing blobs. Later, we ended up adjusting the camera's setup to improve the night vision slightly, but this tin exist tricky and was definitely non ideal by any means.
- Narrow field of view: With no pan or tilt feature once it'due south set in identify, the Blink Outdoor'southward 110 caste field of view isn't great; unremarkably we like our cameras to have fields of view of at least 120 degrees. Simply, the mount was flexible then good old trial and error let united states observe the best location for our camera to make up for its limits.
- No free cloud storage: Some pitiful news is that, although Blink's previous cameras had some free cloud storage, that'll be over by 2021, unless your Blink business relationship was made before Apr 15, 2020.2 Similar us, y'all'll need to pay for deject storage, but fortunately it'due south not that expensive. We could become away with paying $10 a calendar month for sixty days of footage, which was generous.
| Free | Bones | Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video recording | No | Yes | Yes |
| Days of rolling video storage | No | 60 | 60 |
| Video sharing | No | Yes | Aye |
| Number of cameras supported | n/a | i | Unlimited |
| x percent off Glimmer devices on Amazon | No | No | Yeah |
| Length of Warranty in Years | i | ane | Length of subscription |
| Monthly Price | $0 | $iii | $x |
| Yearly Price | $0 | $30 | $100 |
| Savings with Yearly Price | $0 | $half dozen | $20 |
- Short distance to router: Our camera had to be no more than 100 anxiety away from our router in order to connect to the Wi-Fi. This was fine for our brownstone, but may not work for larger homes.
Overall, the Blink Outdoor camera is a solid performer with the IR night vision existence its biggest weakness. But the daytime video is then crisp that we're considering just adding some nighttime lighting in the yard to get that quality solar day and night. Compared to other Glimmer offerings, similar the Blink XT2, the Glimmer Outdoor camera kit starts in the same cost range. Plus, the new Sync Module ii and its support of up to 10 cameras paired with the powerful control app made setting up an entire home security camera network easy.
Setting Up the Blink Outdoor
Set upwards with the Glimmer Outdoor camera was pretty piece of cake, but we nonetheless had to take our time and not skip whatever steps.
- We already had our Glimmer Dwelling app downloaded, just if yous don't, that'south the showtime step you'll take.
- We grabbed the Sync Module ii, plugged it in, and got it continued to our Wi-Fi.
- We scanned the QR code on the photographic camera using the Blink app, which continued the photographic camera, app and Sync Module two.
- Side by side, we used the camera tool that came in the package to accept the back off of the Glimmer Outdoor camera. It was really elementary to pop the instance backing off. Once the back was off, we installed the two AA batteries and put the back, well, dorsum on.
- Adjacent, we mounted the Blink Outdoor camera base, remembering to stay within our 100-pes Wi-Fi range.
- Finally, nosotros snapped the camera onto its mount and adapted the angle for optimal viewing.
Working With the Blink Home App
We establish the Blink Home app to be pretty powerful and easy to use. It included intuitive controls that didn't require u.s.a. to go excavation for an teaching manual, thankfully, laying out privacy zones, motion sensitivity, clip length, notifications, movement recording, sound, and night vision controls.
Our biggest issue was the demand to proceed tapping the screen every thirty seconds while live streaming. While it makes sense for saving battery, information technology was particularly annoying when nosotros were trying to converse with a friend who was in our backyard when nosotros weren't home. On the other hand, our favorite feature was managing and sharing recorded clips, which was really easy and fun.
Video Review
Prefer watching a demonstration of the Blink Outdoor camera? Accept a expect at our video review below.
Annotation: For more video reviews and informative videos, subscribe to our Youtube aqueduct then you can stay upward to date on the latest in home security.
The Bottom Line
Overall, the Blink Outdoor photographic camera is a solid outdoor security camera and priced pretty affordably at $99.99. We really liked the local storage selection on the new Sync Module 2, especially with Blink going to a paid subscription model for cloud storage in 2021. Plus, the powerful Blink Home app really let united states easily customize what alerts the system sent and how the camera functioned. See how much you tin save past buying cameras in bulk on our Blink pricing page. Or, if you lot're looking for a camera with excellent dark vision or a wider field of view than 110 degrees, nosotros recommend reading near the best wireless security cameras.
Source: https://www.security.org/security-cameras/blink/review/
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