Blink Outdoor (3rd Gen) - wireless, weather-resistant HD security camera, two-year battery life, motion detection, set up in minutes – 3 camera system

When we first purchased cams back in 2017, we compared to Arlo and Ring before we chose Blink. Now we are up to 10 cams, covering every angle of the house. Here are my findings after using them for almost 4 years (and still buying more):PROS:> #1 video quality is excellent. Day time is a bit better than night, but night vision is as good as it gets with cams. POSITION of your cam matters a ton. I started out putting them way high up and quickly realized - if you actually want identifying features - they need to be lower. Otherwise... yeah you see someone walking past, but you cant ID anything, so what is the use.> So inexpensive - so easy to integrate. Anytime we have ANYTHING we need to cover, we just order another cam and it literally takes 5 minutes to get it out of the box, batteries in, and added to existing system.. seriously - 5 minutes.> The app is great. Very intuitive. Our first cams had very few "advanced features" every time i order new cams, they have improved their features. Now you are able to zoom all the way in to very small areas, to capture certain areas and exclude others.. For example - old cams you had to block off large sections of the capture area to avoid the cams picking up movement from trees, but now you can pinpoint one little part of a branch on a tree to exclude if its triggering the cam.> Motion detection is very sensitive - but they have it tweaked just about right. It never misses anything, but if you setup your exclusion zones well - you can get it almost perfect. I dont have a lot of false alarms and I'm running 10 cams. We have one setup to look at the sidewak, and after much tweaking, we can actually exclude the street... but pick up both sidewalks on both sides of the street. You can setup the app to alert you or not alert you.. you can turn sound on or off on alerts. On windy days I do end up just going into the app and turning off all cams that are setup around lots of trees until the storm is over.. but thats like a few times a year.> Super easy playback and control of cams. It's instant - you can control them in any way, very easily. If I am working on a project in the yard, I dont want my cams on for hours, running out of batteries - so I just go into the app and turn them all off. It takes seconds. Likewise - if i hear a noise at night, super easy to open the app and live view any cam so i can look all around the house and see everything happening outside, from every angle.> Extremely easy to move around. We have had them for years - so we move them around occasionally. I even had mice in our crawlspace under the house at one point and just grabbed one of the cams off the side of the house and stuck it down there so I could catch them at night. Theres no commitment with these - no hard wiring so you can mount them anywhere and taking them on and off the mount takes 2 seconds.> No subscription needed to store clips. thats BIG for us. We would not like blink as much if they changed that. We run a lot of cams and it just stays 100% full storage - we can still access a few weeks worth of video, it just deletes oldest. You can download/save any videos.> Lots of mounting options. You have to buy them separately if you want anything special, but I have 3 different types of mounts - one for trees, one around porches that need to be secured so they cant be taken, and then the standard mounts for cams not at risk of being taken. There are camo skins as well - I have on in a tree that you pretty much cant see unless you know its there.> Customer support is super decent. In the winter of 2018, one of my cams took on a green hue to the image when the temp went down to about 10 degrees outside. I emailed customer service explaining the issue and sent a screenshot and within 24 hours they asked me for the SN of the cam, and did a firmware update that fixed it. I was quite happy with that.CONS:> So while the batteries are awesome because the cams are so easy to move around and deal with... i blow through batteries. Fortunately, i just get 20 packs of AA's, but with 10 cams - even though Blink ~says~ batteries can last a year? it totally depends on usage. So we get LOTS of traffic on our front cams because we live in a busy area and have people walking past all day. I change out the batteries on every one of those front cams once a month. Granted - thats many hundreds of video captures and ideally, we should connect those cams to electricity somehow - that is an option with blink, but I dont mind changing batteries. On the cams in the back yard and side paths - I really can go once or twice a year changing those, except for the ones that catch a lot of foot traffic. So the battery usage is totally dependent on traffic. Personally - the cams are a big deal to me, so i dont mind it at all. Benefits totally outweigh the downsides.> The biggest difference between Blink and some other companies is that i see other people with hardwired cams that can catch EVERYTHING in a continuous fashion, for hours. like the surveillance videos you see online where the cam just happened to catch something happening down the street...Blink doesnt work that way. it only captures immediate video clips, triggered by motion activation. It does store all videos.. you can see something weird in your yard and look back through videos to find out what happened - but it isnt 24 hours of continuous video feed.> You can get gaps in your videos. So it can capture 1 minute of video at a time, but then it takes a small break before it starts capturing again, so if something is happening and its videotaping an event - it will record an entire minute of excellent footage - but then it takes a 5 second break before it starts recording again. that doesnt sound like a long time, and for security it's not normally an issue.. the average bad guy is in and out quickly.. but it is annoying that it takes 5 seconds to re-trigger. So.... 2 minutes of continuous video... but in the middle of that 2 minutes.. a 5 second break.OVERALL - Super high video quality... cams you can move around super easily... a very easy app... I love blink and the upsides far outweigh any downsides. I always recommend it to people when they ask. You can cover your entire house at a super affordable price, you dont need to be rich at all.. Our 3 year old cams are still as good as our brand new ones. The peace of mind the cams bring me is priceless. I know every single thing happening everywhere, all the time outside. The affordability made it possible so that nothing can ever surprise us.

We purchased our first Blink Home Security Camera July of 2018. We were going out of the country and wanted to make sure our 18 year old son closed the garage door and locked the house. It did the job and we felt better knowing while on the other side of the world we could monitor our home.The following Summer we were so happy with our indoor system, we decided to purchase 2 outdoor cameras with the 2 way audio, and were so happy with the video and audio quality, we bought another add on outdoor camera, the next month.A year later we found the mini indoor cameras. We have one for a child's bedroom and one for the playroom. The video and audio quality is great.A year after that we bought another 3 outdoor Cameras, again video and audio quality is great.Just before Christmas 2021 Blink came out with the doorbell camera, and we purchased it. One, because it was blink and 1/2 the price of a ring doorbell camera. Two, because the doorbell that came with our new build home was so quiet, we couldn't ever hear the bell ring.In total we now have...3 Indoor battery powered2 Indoor mini corded power6 Outdoor battery powered1 doorbell wired to exciting doorbell.Cameras purchased...July 17th, 2018Blink Indoor Home Security Camera System with Motion Detection, HD Video, 2-Year Battery Life and Cloud Storage Included - 3 Camera Kithttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B018HC6PVA/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_E4N35AJJXM4QAYYN1S03?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1July 15th, 2019Blink XT2 Outdoor/Indoor Smart Security Camera with cloud storage included, 2-way audio, 2-year battery life – 2 camera kithttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MN67BCR/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_2VZV3YZ7F3X4F5WSF9SF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1August 20th, 2019Blink XT2 Outdoor/Indoor Smart Security Camera with cloud storage included, 2-way audio, 2-year battery life – Add-on camera for existing Blink customershttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M8DTHGL/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_7XGZ93G8PTGGNHTNBGEK?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1November 22nd, 2020Blink Mini – Compact indoor plug-in smart security camera, 1080 HD video, night vision, motion detection, two-way audio, Works with Alexa – 2 camerashttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X27VK3D/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_dl_0CVS1GZCPQPJE577M0JV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1August 3, 2021Blink Outdoor - wireless, weather-resistant HD security camera, two-year battery life, motion detection, set up in minutes – 3 camera kithttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B086DKSHQ4/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_dl_9F09K8M142MATNJY1C7P?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1November 29th, 2021Introducing Blink Video Doorbell | Two-way audio, HD video, motion and chime app alerts and Alexa enabled — wired or wire-free (Black)https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SG2MS3V/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_dl_JTH38J37N7ST707FMW4P?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1Blink offers two subscription plans.1 Blink device$3 per month or $30 annuallyUnlimited Blink devices$10 per month or $100 annuallyYou do not have to have a Blink Subscription if you do not choose to, but you won't be able to store videos.With the subscription you are even able to share your videos by text, or email. To neighbors, Friends, Family, and even the police department.Cons/irritationsWhen an outdoor camera faces the sun at any point of the day, the motion detection will go off, until you adjust the motion activity spots in the camera settings. This can take a few days to work out the kinks.Indoor mini cameras the motion activity spots don't always work. Sometimes it will go off when there is motion in the grayed out zones, and sometimes not go off in the non-greyed out zones. This maybe human error on our part. We are looking for a longer cord for the mini's to mount on the wall or ceiling. The are options to rotate the camera view, so that you are able to mount the camera wherever you need.Overall we are happy with our Blink system and hope the company continues to grow and come out with new products.Compared to my parents very very expensive Arlo system, Blink is more reliable, and is more cost-effective. So much so, my parents have ditched the Arlo camera system and have purchased a new Blink system.We highly recommend Blink to anyone who would like to have a home video camera system that works, and won't break the bank.We love that you can start out small and work your way in to as much as you want/need.