Blink Outdoor with two-year battery life | Wireless HD smart security camera, motion detection, Alexa enabled | 1-Camera System with Sync Module

It's good, very good. Easy to install and setup. No cables and wires. I've put a 8gb memory stick in mine and can reject it and watch videos on the main PC. Very concerned about the time-lapse though. Was expecting a package from Amazon on Tuesday 27 October 2020, heard a van door go and it was within my delivery slots. Switched the camera on and observed the man getting out his van. Suddenly there was a knock on the door? I was still watching him walk to my front door time-lapse was more than 10 seconds. A notification then was made on my iPhone? Amazon really need to get this sorted, not good enough. In this day and age it renders the 'talk to' useless? By time, you've connected to the phone and got the camera on (15 seconds after the event) they've gone... so what's the point?? I've marked it down to 3 stars because of this. My rear garden camera has a time lapse of around a second which beats this hands down. If Amazon can get the time delay sorted it will be a fantastic bit of kit but at the moment perhaps other cameras would be better? UPDATE: 8th December 2020. I obtained another camera about 2 weeks ago and placed this at the rear of the house. Having 2 cameras improved performance greatly. A quick change in settings to activating 'early' motion and time was down to almost 6 seconds from notification to seeing who was at the door. Really pleased now, an extra camera does help! Thoroughly recommend this product and get 2 cameras if you can!

The camera was very easy to set up and I have had no significant issues with the camera or app. The camera views an area around 4x8m. Daytime picture quality is extremely good. Infrared night vision is of lower quality, which is to be expected. The IR intensity can be increased at the expense of battery life if required. I did once find the video feed blurred as a result of dew or mist collecting on the front of the camera lens. I'm not sure the camera can be blamed for this as I don't know how it could be avoided. My camera is triggered very frequently and battery life was about 5-6 months, which I would regard as good. The push-to-fit mount is a little fiddly and requires decent pressure to snap into place. A mounting accessory supplied with the camera allows it to be mounted vertically or horizontally and still be able to get the camera view point you want. If using this adpater, it's far easier to fit it to the camera first, then fit the camera with adapter to the bracket. Overall, and for the price, I would day this is reliable, easy to use and with decent quality. If you are looking for a crystal clear night vision system to view a large car park, then you need to buy a specialist and much more expensive surveillance/CCTV system I can only assume that other negative reviews and problems may be the result of customers who don't have very good technical knowledge or perhaps unrealistic expectations.

I hadn't really looked at Blink cameras, because I wasn't sure about battery-powered units, but this was on a flash offer (-45%) so I thought I would give it a go. Everything needed was in the box - camera, 2 lithium AA batteries and 'receiver' with USB plug and cable, and fitting kit. Really easy to put together and, within minutes of installing the Blink app I now have a new outdoor security camera monitoring my front door and accessible through both my mobile phone and my Alexa Show. So far, so good - the daytime image is great - the night-time image is pretty poor though with the focus completely on the adjacent wall, (see video), leaving the image quality by the front door useless - I have tried using zones, but that just seems to be for movement detection. The recording seems to start 1-2 seconds after movement detection - I need to check the notification settings - apparently if you 'notify immediately' this can cause a lag - we'll see! Picture quality - when I set it up indoors, this looked really promising - I set it on highest quality and the picture quality is great - now it's outdoors, I'm not so sure - it's not as HD as my other camera (Reolink Solar Powered pan-and-tilt). There's also some weird noise like jangling metal, all the time - like there may be some electrical interference - really not sure - I can only upload one video, so decided the night-time one might be better. Needs installing way out of reach - the camera just clips onto the holder, and is really simple to disconnect - I don't know what you can do about that as ideally, I would like to have mounted the camera at head-height. Batteries - I am a little bit sceptical - will two AA lithium batteries really last (up to) 2 years? I'll have to wait and see. All in all, for the money I paid, it's not a bad bit of kit. EDIT - 09/07/2021 - 1. I adjusted the angle of the camera slightly away from the wall and it has improved, but not much - the night vision of this camera is pretty poor, even with IR on full intensity. 2. I changed the settings to notify after initial movement recording and it does seem to pick up a bit sooner - there is still a lag of maybe just under a second between detection and start of video. 3. Zone settings - I have blocked out everything other than the specific area I want to monitor but the movement detection still keeps picking up people/cars in the 'blocked zone' 4. There is an almost constant sound being recorded like somebody jangling a bag of spanners. The Blink Outdoor is a neat little outdoor camera - I won't be adding any more though. It remains to be seen how weather-resistant it is and how long (up to 2 years!?) the batteries last.

I think the camera quality is great, like the app (using a memory stick in the sync module). It captures clips as needed and saves promptly so for my purposes covers the security quite well. Motion is also detected well (can adjust the sensitivity in the app settings). Wi-FI was a bit shaky at first (with a Virgin Hub), but when I got a TP-Link router, seems to be working reliably). I found it very easy to set up as well (just follow the instructions provided) and think it is great value overall. The reason I say about certain expectations is that for the price point, there are slight delays for real time viewing (well the initial loading approx 10 secs) no movements from the camera e.g. tilting. But as the item often goes on sale (£29 with the sync module and camera), would say this is a small compromise Would say in terms of capturing and storing footage for any crimes for example, does the job great and fulfils this purpose. No wires so easy to set up and can cover some awkward spots well. For more real time security, I think it would require a different product, but will also cost considerably more too.

EDIT - regarding battery life ive now had this for about 8 months and have gotten a low battery warning - so batteries dont last the advertised 2 years. That being said it is in a location with high activity and i have the recording settings high so that will have contributed to the shorter battery life. Had this for about 4 months now and its great. Bought it as it was one of the few cameras that i could find that allowed you to save and view clips without a subscription. It came with a months free subscription (so i used that initially) but now have it set up with a USB stick attached to the sync module with clips saved locally - and definitely prefer this way. Took me a minute to work out how to access the local stored clips in the app - but once i did it is very simple. Only downside is viewing clips saved locally (rather than on the cloud) takes a bit longer - but still its not too long. Camera quality is really good and so is the night time mode. Good field of view on the camera. App is really simple to use. Cant comment on battery life as only had for 4 months - though I have the recordings set to max quality and duration so expecting it to be less than advertised. You do get a few false motion alerts and accessing the recordings can bit a bit hit and miss sometimes (most of the time no problems) but for the price i really can't fault it (i got 1 camera with sync module for £50). Would definitely recommend.

I purchased this camera (singe camera system) as a means to monitor the wildlife in my garden, however I have since tested it for security as well. Here is my breakdown of the pros and cons (if you can’t be bothered to read on, in a nutshell my recommendation is this; these are absolute garbage and there are much better options out there so please look elsewhere): Pros • The majority of packaging was relatively plastic free (main plastic packaging was a peel off cover on the front of the camera). • Very easy to set up. • Not bad for monitoring wildlife close up (I mainly used it in a hedgehog house. But a trail camera is better). Cons • Cameras can be very slow to pick things up unless moving very slowly. Even my hedgehog on a slow snail finding stroll can be off the frame by the time the camera has started filming. Picking up a moving car is a no go, and even the postal worker was at my door by the time filming started. • My cameras have crashed a few times already and required the back removing to pop a battery out and back in again. • The footage is sometimes very stuttered and not smooth. • Night vision is absolutely abysmal unless the subject is about 8 inches away from the camera. • Day vision is equally awful, in fact the camera looks foggy or dark at times. • Trying to use it as a security device on my car/driveway was pointless. With the IR on low it was a sea of black, whilst set on medium/high all I got was glare. • Motion detection only seems to work in quite close range to the camera (even when set to high sensitivity). • You need to give Amazon even more money for this thing to be truly useful. Without it you are forced to pull out the memory stick and put it in a computer to get at your footage (I think Prime customers should at least have one camera free of subscription). • External power is via a micro USB and not the modern standard of USB type C. • Batteries do not last long. About a month is all you will get unless it rarely captures any footage. • On the subject of batteries you have to buy the same expensive ones that it comes with. Rechargeable ones or others on the market do not work without a constant low battery warning being displayed. Nice deal you have with Energiser there Blink! • The camera casing scratches really easily. Literally after putting it in my trouser pocket and walking to the end of my garden meant that it was scratched to bits. • The camera and its mount are very cheap plastic and not overly strong. • Limited range of movement on the included mount. • Easily disconnected from the mount and stolen in a matter of about 1 second (unless high out of reach, which then means the footage will be awful). • Quite limited range away from your Wi-Fi and the base unit. • Expensive for what you get (unless on sale). • Audio quality is atrocious. There is basically a strange squelching sound constantly like it is inside someone’s chest next to their heart. If it is not doing this then it is making an ear piercing sound like an alarm/horror scream going off when played back. • When you raise anything but positive feedback to customer support they promptly ignore you and offer zero help or support. • My first camera lasted a couple of months before Blink replaced it telling me it had an internal hardware fault. The second one lasted a week before the image was so foggy it looks like the camera has cataracts. • Once out of the free trial subscription period you are completely unable to send video files, via messaging apps like iMessage or WhatsApp, unless you pay Blink a monthly subscription fee. • No thumbnail image of videos unless you pay Blink yet more cash for a monthly subscription (Tapo don’t charge extra for this).

I agree with many of the more critical reviews about this camera. The marketing promises a lot, but it ends up lacking in many of those promises. As of the date of this review, I suspect that Amazon are aware of this and will eventually sort them out. I sent mine back within a few days because the range on the camera WiFi was not sufficient (they say you need 3 bars of signal), it wouldn't connect to my echo show, the support team (bless 'em) didn't know what to recommend apart from reinstalling the Skill, and I really struggled with the layout, functionality and jargon used in the app. I know this is because I have certain preconceived ideas about how it should work, but again if I like some others are expecting the live stream to be continuous, why not have that baked in?? Ultimately, Blink are trying to walk on water with this device and I can understand why, running power and signal cables to CCTV cameras is a pain in the butt (but) if you want a more professional setup, I think that's what you'll have to buy. The 2 year battery life, I find hard to believe. I suspect the caveat is that it probably could if you pointed it at a brick wall with no movement. Another 'could do better' aspect is its physical security. It uses a simple friction connector to hold it in place - think of a cork in a bottle! A simple pull and someone could easily and very quickly run off with it. To prevent this it would have to be mounted quite high up. It doesn't have proper pan, tilt and zoom functionality (ptz) it has pinch and zoom but it's not the same as a proper ptz camera. It has a wide angle of view, no panning though. It has some good points, like its size and better than expected robustness, however it's failings in its current state outweigh it's plus points. It needs a lot more development and I think the app needs a complete rework in terms of layout and usability. I think 3 stars is a fair rating. Improvement required? Yes Should you buy one? Maybe, if you lower your expectations Is it worth £99? Yes, and you can pay in installments (this is why I think Amazon know it needs work) Would I recommend it to a friend? No, my friends are techys. They'd get frustrated with it. I'd have to tell them to take the marketing with 'a pinch of salt' Will it get better? I'm positive that it will How would I describe this in one sentence? "Its a round peg that fits into a square hole" I hope this review helps you make a decision. 😊

Brilliant and only £2 per month