Blink Home Security Camera Review

Unboxing and Setup

Blink Packaging

The three cameras we ordered arrived in four boxes. Why four? Because both the Blink Indoor and the Blink Outdoor models require a Sync Module to operate. That module works as a communications hub allowing the cameras to connect to Wi-Fi. It’s something to keep in mind: Blink cameras are some of the most affordable you can buy, but you may need to figure the hub’s cost into your total purchase price.

The Sync Module also adds a couple of steps to the setup process. We had to first connect it to our Wi-Fi. Then, of course, we had to connect the cameras to the hub. The whole process took us less than five minutes, and most of that time was spent finding the best location for the Sync Module. According to the manual, it needs to be within 100 feet from the cameras. Apparently, that doesn’t account for walls. Our cameras only got a signal when they were within the 70- to 80-foot range.

Blink Indoor Equipment

The installation process actually got easier from there. Once we scanned the QR codes on the boxes, complete instructions popped up on our app. We had to give each device a name – we went with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo – and the app synced everything up for us from there.

One advantage to the hub – placing the Wi-Fi burden in the hub means the cameras can essentially be all battery. In fact, both of these cameras provide up to two full years of battery life, well beyond the industry average of three to six months. We had the option to position these cameras virtually anywhere without worrying we’d have to get up and down a ladder every few months.

The only cameras we can recall that had an easier setup were from Wyze Cams. In fact, there’s a lot of commonality between these two brands. As a starting point, if you’re into simple wireless tech, you’ll appreciate both Blink and Wyze. Not only do they resemble each other somewhat in appearance, the cameras also cost less than much of the competition. We’re going back to talking about Blink now, but if you’re interested, you can find more on Wyze in our hands-on Wyze Cam review.

What were we saying? Oh, right – you almost have to be trying to make a mistake setting up Blink cameras. These are simple pieces of equipment to set up. You just pull up the Blink app and it makes all the connections for you.

>>Dig Deeper: Guide to choosing home security cameras

Making Adjustments

Setup was easy enough. Fine-tuning these cameras was more of a challenge. They required more than pairing them with our mobile devices and synching Wi-Fi passwords. We want cameras that let us make adjustments though.

The more control you have over your home security equipment, the easier it is to be sure it’s all going to work the way you need it to. Ultimately, that’s going to keep you safer. Blink cameras offer tons of useful features, and they afford you tons of control over your security. It’s no easy task mastering that control, but once you do, your home will be far more secure from all threats.

Blink App – Video History

First, we made key adjustments to our Blink camera’s motion sensitivity. Obviously, you want your cameras to alert you when they detect movement. There’s a fine line between receiving too many alerts and missing key events, though.

For example, our neighbor’s cat likes to spend her afternoons lounging on our porch. If we don’t set our motion detection low enough, we wind up with a stream of alerts at work. Annoying for sure, but also a security hazard. After a handful of cat alerts, we stop paying attention, and that means we could miss something important.

In addition, we made adjustments to our outdoor camera’s night vision settings. With our outdoor lighting setup, we weren’t getting the kind of resolution and image clarity we needed. We also had choices to make about where to store our footage. All of this took time. By the time we’d finished, though, we knew our Blink cameras inside and out, and we were sure we had maximized our security.

Expert Examined

From Joshua Lee, Active-duty Police Sergeant

“The motion sensors need to be set up correctly or expect to receive too many or not enough alerts. This is exactly what happened to one of my victims of a residential burglary. He received too many alerts, so he adjusted his sensors to be less sensitive. In this case, the burglar crawled on the ground and made his way to the side window where he gained entry to the home.”

Blink Mini – No Stand

Blink Mini Camera: The Full Experience

Blink Mini on Table

The Blink Mini’s most distinctive feature? It’s right there in the name. The Mini is small enough to go virtually anywhere, yet it includes all the security features you need to safeguard your home. Plus, at less than $50, it’s in reach of almost any family’s budget.

We used Blink Minis to keep an eye on our entryways and were especially impressed with their resolution. The Mini employs something called fluid video. In simple terms, the video resolution fluctuates. The camera’s top resolution is 1080p HD – the industry standard – but as Wi-Fi shifts between stronger and weaker signals, the resolution adapts to prevent gaps. Ultimately, the result is smoother video playback.

Motion Sensitivity

On the other hand, we were less than impressed by the Blink Mini’s motion sensitivity settings. All of Blink’s other cameras gave us exceptional control over settings. It was easy to make adjustments and make them quickly using just the Blink app. Not so with Mini.

Blink Mini and Stand

Motion sensitivity is a big deal. You don’t want your security cameras sending you alerts every time a leaf falls or a squirrel happens by. As we note in our Blink Mini camera review, the Mini does let you make adjustments through an app slider. The problem is that slider doesn’t allow for much fine-tuning. When we eliminated the falling leaves, we missed out on some significant events. On the other hand, when we made sure the camera was picking up human movement, we discovered our dog caused alerts every time he came into the room.

To repeat, though: the Blink Mini costs just $50. You just can’t expect it to come with all the same bells and whistles you’d find in a more expensive camera. Frankly, the fact that it has an adjustable motion sensor at all, given its price and size, is pretty incredible. And OK, you may get the occasional false alarm, but in exchange, you save a few dollars.

Just for comparison, let’s take a look at how the Blink Mini stacks up against its closest competitor, the Wyze Cam v.3. In past reviews, we’ve ranked Wyze a bit higher, but the Blink Mini v.2 has reversed the field.

Self-Monitoring With Mini

First, the bad news: Blink doesn’t offer professional monitoring of any kind. That means you’re on the hook for all monitoring responsibilities. Miss one alert, and that could be the one about the guy in the mask standing at your back door or the fire that’s starting to grow under the pot of noodles you’re boiling in the kitchen. Your job doesn’t end at checking the alert, either. You also have to decide on your own what to do in response to an emergency. If you need help, you’re also going to have to summon that help yourself.

Now the good news: you don’t have to pay a monthly fee with Blink. Once you buy the equipment, you never have to pay another dime. For a lot of us, that’s an attractive feature. Plus, you get a number of tools to help you do your own monitoring, like real-time alerts and the ability to pull up both live and recorded footage anytime. With a USB card, you’ll always know what happened, even when you couldn’t respond in the moment, and you’ll have nice, clear footage to hand over to the police if you need it.

The app makes it easy to switch between live footage and recorded footage, which came in handy when our smoke sensors detected smoke coming from the kitchen. The smoke on the live feed was so dense we couldn’t see what was going on, but after quickly scrolling through the recorded footage, we discovered a clear image of ourselves putting lasagna in a couple of hours before. Needless to say, dinner was ruined. We were able to rush home, though, and prevent a minor emergency from turning into a three-alarm fire.

Wired Installation

The Blink Mini wasn’t quite as easy to install as Blink’s other cameras. That’s because it’s wired. It’s always a bit of a hassle to find the right viewing angle that’s also near an outlet. We’ll say it again, though: you can’t have everything. A battery pack would increase Blink’s size and its price, it’s two most valuable attributes.

Blink Mini with Stand

The bottom line with the Blink Mini is that it doesn’t include all the features of Blink’s other models, but it packs a powerful punch and, thanks to an intuitive app, it’s every bit as convenient as those other models. We think it can make an excellent addition to any system. In fact, it’s cheap enough that you can add multiple minis to your system. After all, the more areas you have eyes on, the safer you’re going to be.

That said, if you’re looking for slick features like activity zones, person detection, and facial recognition, Google Nest Cam review is another great place to look. Sure, the cheapest Nest Cam costs $99, more than twice as much as the Blink Mini, but you’ll get AI-powered features such as those mentioned above. Just something to consider in case the Blink Mini leaves you wanting for more.

Blink Indoor Camera

The Blink Indoor Camera isn’t quite as compact as the Blink Mini, but at less than 3 inches tall, it makes for a discreet addition to any home security setup. And this camera isn’t just wireless. It’s entirely wire-free – no power cords, no communication cords. Set it absolutely anywhere. You can focus on maximizing coverage rather than where the nearest outlet happens to be, and that is only going to improve your overall security.

Video Settings and Motion Detection

We positioned our camera in our central hallway. That’s a location we recommend since it means you can see anyone in your home. As with the Mini, we were particularly impressed with the Indoor Camera’s HD video quality. We had no trouble recognizing our dog lying on the couch where he’s not allowed. Even the little brown spot on his back left leg was clearly visible. Motion detection worked well, too, and in the case the app allowed us to make genuinely fine adjustments to this feature..  Unfortunately, Blink’s night vision capabilities aren’t as sophisticated as competitors like the Arlo camera system. Arlo features full-color night vision which allows you to see what’s going on in greater detail. Of course, while night vision quality is essential in outdoor cameras, it isn’t a deal-breaker when you’re choosing an indoor camera.

Field of View

Blink Indoor’s viewing angle is somewhat narrower than other cameras- just 110 degrees. These days, it’s more common to see cameras that stretch out up to 160 degrees, as noted in our full unpacking of the Arlo Pro 3 cameras.

Blink Indoor Camera

As with resolution, though, a higher number doesn’t always equate to better quality. The truth is there are pros and cons to different size fields. If you’re looking to focus on a specific target – like an entrance or a doorway – Blink’s narrower angel is better suited to capture what you need. Objects appear larger and more detailed in the image. In cameras with wide-angle lenses, objects appear smaller, and you’ll also see some distortions along the edges of the frame during recording.

Even taking all of this information into account, we found the Blink Indoor field of view a bit lacking. If you want full coverage of a decent-sized room, you’ll need more than one camera. You’ll see what we mean if you scroll down a little further and watch the sample clip from our Blink Indoor. Despite our best effort at placing the camera strategically, it only managed to capture about three quarters of our living room, leaving pretty huge blind spots.

That said, if a wide-angle lens camera sounds appealing to you, take a peek at our Amcrest camera review, where you’ll learn about a pair of solid devices with wider viewing angles, and better night vision, too.

Managing Recordings With Blink Indoor

Blink’s video history produces a highlight reel of each day’s activity. With this history organized into individual frames, you can review everything with a glance. Because who wants to come home after a hard day of work and pour over video footage?

This clip above is an example of Blink’s highlight reel. We see this as another effort on Blink’s part to make their cameras as convenient as possible – and an impressive addition, considering the low price.

And in another nod to Blink’s energy efficiency, the Blink Indoor has a low-power mode to conserve battery life. The only difference in using this mode, in our tests, was about 3-5 seconds of delay from the time motion began to the time the camera began recording. By and large, that’s a negligible delay.

At $79, Blink Indoor is priced competitively, especially when you consider all that’s included in a kit: One Blink Indoor camera, one Blink Sync Module 2, durable mounting hardware, and four long-lasting AA batteries.

Blink Indoor Equipment

It’s a generous package, and with everything Blink has to offer, the camera still handles exceptionally well.

Blink Outdoor Camera

Blink Outdoor – Installed

Turning to Blink’s dedicated outdoor camera, it’s evident immediately that this one was built to be discreet. It only comes in all-black, as opposed to the black-and-white indoor cam. As far as aesthetics, it’s got a sleek finish and takes the same minimalistic cues as Indoor. In fact, you’re talking about the same camera, essentially, as Indoor, only with a tougher (IP65) weather rating.

We should point out that we tested the third generation of the Blink Outdoor. Blink has actually released a fourth generation. However, the differences between the two are largely cosmetic. The newer version features a matte black finish with a slightly more rounded face. It does promise to offer a wider viewing angle than the third generation and person detection, and we’d say those upgrades, though minor, are absolutely worth the $20 extra cost. Keep an eye out for our upcoming review to see why, but we have the Cliffs Notes version a few sections down:

Night Vision With Blink

At the risk of rehashing old grievances, night vision was pretty weak in our hands-on Blink Outdoor camera experience. In an outdoor camera, this is a bit of a letdown.

We wouldn’t say that the Blink Outdoor can’t see anything at night; it’s a matter of perspective. In night vision mode, for instance, we had no trouble seeing the cat walking on our front lawn. Identifying which one of our many neighborhood cats it was proved a bit more difficult. The question to ask yourself is whether or not you need the fine details.

You’ll find better night vision in one of the Ezviz cameras we reviewed recently, but generally, a camera with exceptional night vision needs some integrated lighting feature to do its best work. (Visit our Reolink Argus 3 Pro review for a really stellar night vision experience.)

On that note, Blink does offer other options. The Blink Floodlight Cam (Wired) includes, as you could probably guess, two powerful floodlights. These add a whole new dimension to live footage and recordings. Otherwise, this camera offers most of the same features as the Blink Outdoor. Note, however, that it is wired and needs to be connected directly to a junction box in order to work.

Blink also recently introduced a solar panel mount that works with all of its outdoor models. For the most part, you can set up solar power and get worry-free video monitoring. No need to locate an outdoor outlet and no need to change batteries. Just more evidence of how forward-thinking Blink is.

Smart Home Limitations

Since it’s an Amazon brand, Blink doesn’t integrate quite as seamlessly with Google Home devices, so you won’t be able to say, “OK Google, show me my patio” and similar voice commands to control the cameras.

Blink Mini on Alexa

Amazon Alexa users, on the other hand, should be pretty delighted. If you’re taking an impromptu trip out of state in the near future, you can use the Alexa app to check the temperature in your home (via a Nest thermostat) and, at the same time, peek into the Blink Indoor camera to make sure the dog sitter has shown up. Actions like this are a quick, efficient way to get peace of mind when you can’t be home.

Of course, you’ve got plenty of other choices if you’re looking for cameras that do integrate with multiple platforms in addition to Alexa, like Google Home, IFTTT, and Samsung SmartThings. In our latest review of Reolink’s cameras, integrations were a bit easier thanks to a smart home tab in their mobile app. This way, almost every camera Reolink makes (and there are many) can be fed into a smart home ecosystem with little fuss and plenty of cross-platform functionality to boot.

Smart home challenges aside, Blink Outdoor redeems itself in other areas, exhibiting the same strengths that made me a fan of the brand in the first place: Fluid video resolution at up to 1080p; seamless two-way talk; customizable motion detection; and that easy installation Blink is famous for.

A Note on Blink and Pet Monitoring

Before pivoting into pricing and storage options on Blink, we think it’s worth pointing out that these cameras are not ideal as pet monitors. While they’re pretty sensitive to most types of motion out of the box, in our tests, none of the Blink cameras were triggered by the family dog, as wiggly and rambunctious as he is. It could be that more fine-tuning in the app is needed to remedy this, but it could also be that this $80 camera just isn’t strong in this way, and that’s totally okay.

Blink Sync Module

Fortunately, there’s a camera or two out there that handles this much better. As noted when we tested and reviewed YI’s Home 3 camera, the camera seemed to enjoy sending entertaining recordings of said pup in all sorts of precarious positions – no app tinkering needed. Keep in mind, too, this camera costs $20, so there isn’t much tinkering to be done, anyway.

Who knows, maybe the dog ate jumping beans that day. But it’s just something you might pick up from time to time when comparing home security companies. Motion sensors sometimes work in mysterious ways.

Blink Day Vision

Now that you have a pretty good understanding of the Blink outdoor 3, let us give you a brief preview of their newest iteration, the Blink Outdoor 4.

Blink Outdoor 4

The Blink Outdoor 4

Overall, the Blink Outdoor 4 is pretty similar to its predecessor. It offers the same 1080p resolution and about the same field of vision. It does differ; however, in three pretty substantial ways:

• Better video quality
• Better motion detection
• Addition of person detection

The differences aren’t night and day, but they are enough that you’re going to notice an enhancement from the 3 to the 4. We certainly did.

One note on that last piece, though. To take advantage of the Blink Outdoor 4’s motion detection capabilities, you’re going to need to sign up for a subscription. It only costs $3 per month though, and we have more details below.

Snapshot of Blink’s Pricing

When comparing pricing in security cameras, we always like to start with a disclaimer: You do get what you pay for, so choose wisely. Blink is far from the cheapest camera brand you’ll find out there, as the industry is brimming with low-cost cameras these days. Some folks might bristle at paying $100 for a Blink camera, but keep in mind that this is a solid battery-powered camera, the likes of which usually isn’t available for under $100.

Of course, you could always go with the Blink Mini if you’d rather save on equipment costs – for $35, Mini is an all-around good camera.

Below is a snapshot of pricing for Blink cameras, keeping in mind that the cameras also come in 2-, 3-, and 5-pack systems, if you choose. Feel free to check out our Blink Camera pricing page for more info, and while you’re at it, head over to the latest rundown of Blink Prime Day deals and discounts.

Blink’s Latest Pricing Overview:

Video Storage Options

Blink Sync Module

Since Blink has discontinued their free cloud storage option, you’re now left with two options to store video history with Blink: A basic plan, for $3 per month, and a premium option for $10 per month.

These costs are pretty well aligned with Blink’s close competitors. Swann’s $5-per-month plan, for example, offers basic storage but not too many of the extras Blink includes in their subscriptions. With everything you’ll get in an affordable Blink system, we don’t think paying $3 per month to store videos (or $30 for the whole year) is stretching it.

Here’s a breakdown of Blink’s storage costs, keeping in mind that you also have the option to attach a hard drive to your Blink sync module to store video on your own:

Blink Cloud Storage Plans

Expert Examined

From Joshua Lee, Active-duty Police Sergeant

“Any time law enforcement can access the video in real-time or as close to real-time, the better. I remember a domestic violence call where the witness was watching the assault as it was happening and was able to give us an accurate description, explain what was happening, and guide officers to the right area. When the suspect heard our sirens, he ran away and hid in a neighbor’s trashcan. Since the witness watched the entire thing, he told us exactly where we needed to go.”

Our Final Verdict on Blink Cameras

Blink Mini (left) and Blink Indoor (right) Cameras

With Blink, you’re promised a hassle-free experience, and you’ll get one. Indeed, these cameras are nothing if not consistent. For folks who don’t feel comfortable around security equipment or just don’t have the time to learn and interact with technology, Blink is a consistent leader. It certainly belongs in our roundup of the best cheap security cameras.

To summarize, here’s what we think Blink’s strengths and weaknesses are.

Strengths:

• Hassle-free setup
• Long-lasting battery life
• Fluid video quality that adjusts automatically to provide smooth live view
• Affordable cloud options
• Affordable equipment
• Intuitive app

Weaknesses:

• Basic features (no smart detection for most models)
• Only decent video quality
• Poor night vision
• The need for a Sync Module (except the Blink Mini)

Now it’s your turn to decide. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Will Blink work in your home setup?

FAQs about Blink Cameras