Amazon’s Blink Outdoor 4 and Blink Mini 2 cameras are a decent alternative for those on a budget who don’t need lots of frills with their smart home security cameras.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Reasonably affordable | Some features (predictably) locked behind a subscription paywall |
| Sync module allows for local USB storage | Alexa only, though this isn’t surprising |
| Long claimed battery life on the Blink Outdoor 4 camera | Could overheat in Australian summers |
Score: 3.5/5
 |
Buy The Blink Outdoor 4! | Buy On Amazon |
 |
Buy The Blink Mini 2! | Buy On Amazon |
Amazon’s mostly-doorbell company Ring is rather well known in Australia as a smart home security solution, but rather like certain Jedi families… there is another.
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That’s Blink, a more budget-friendly alternative to Ring that launched recently in Australia with a range of indoor and outdoor security cameras.
The hook here is the lower price point, making the two cameras tested here, the Blink Outdoor 4 and the Blink Mini 2 rather like the “supermarket” brand Ring alternatives, though Amazon Australia representatives were rather keen to state that they’re actually from different technology groups with slightly different focus points.
Still, we’re getting just these cameras and not the Blink Video Doorbell here as yet, and that doesn’t entirely feel coincidental. Still, while there are a few rough corners, for those on a budget the Blink Cameras – especially when they’re being discounted – could be a very good smart home security option.
Also read:
Wyze Cam v3 Pro and Wyze Cam Pan Australian Review
Ethical disclaimer: Blink… well, Amazon, essentially… gave me the cameras used for testing in this review. As always, that gets them a review, nothing else, but I do feel that ethical transparency is important and shouldn’t be buried at the bottom of articles or ignored outright. Now, on with the review.
In this review
Design
Performance
Battery
Conclusion
Design
The $99 Blink Mini 2 is a small (51x51x40mm, 65g) smart home security camera designed primarily for indoor use, though you can buy a kit with a weatherproof mount if you wanted to place it outside separately if that’s part of your needs.
The Blink Mini 2 won’t track the movements of the stars (too far away), but it can be angled to suit your particular localised tracking needs.
It’s quite compact with its own inbuilt stand that does allow for a degree of axis tilting as needed, but you’ll need to place it within a reasonable distance of a plug socket, because it absolutely does not have its own integrated batteries.
That’s the remit of the $149 Blink Outdoor 4, which, as the name suggests is Blink’s outdoor camera solution. Of the two cameras Blink has launched in Australia, it’s got the more interesting design, even though it’s basically just a nondescript 70 x 70 x 41mm 141g box. If you prefer your security solutions to be on the more obvious side, the black colour of the Blink Outdoor 4 does blend in a lot in outdoor situations. Of course, some users might prefer that approach.
What’s interesting about the Blink Outdoor 4’s design is that unlike a lot of other competing outdoor smart cameras, it doesn’t use an embedded rechargeable battery.
Instead, you get two lithium Energizer AA batteries in the box with the camera, with the rather bold claim that they’ll last for up to two years before needing replacing.
They’re held in place with a simple back panel screw, making them easy enough to install or replace as needed. If batteries aren’t your style and there’s power within a reasonable distance, you can purchase a weather-resistant USB power adaptor that can be purchased separately.
There is a third part to the Blink ecosystem, and it’s one that comes bundled with the Blink Outdoor 4 but not the Blink Mini 2. That’s the Blink Sync Module 2, a small box that plugs into a socket and has fancy blinkenlights on it.
It’s not flashing just for the sake of it, however, because the Sync Module 2 is required for the Outdoor Camera 4 – which is why it’s bundled – but also it allows you to control multiple Blink cameras from the one Blink app, as well as supporting local storage via a USB flash drive or USB-connected hard drive.
The Blink Outdoor 4 Camera is rated at IP65 for water and dust ingress, which should see it through nearly every weather condition… except one.
Blink’s official temperature range for the Blink Cameras – either the Blink Mini 2 or the Blink Outdoor 4 – is from -20°C to 45°C.
There’s not too much risk of -20°C in Australia until the next ice age rolls around, but there’s plenty of places that can kick it north of that 45°C in the extremes of summer. Placing the Blink Outdoor 4 in a more shaded position might be wise if you do live in those parts of this vast sun-scorched land.
Performance
Like every other smart security camera, installation of the Blink Outdoor 4 and Blink Mini 2 revolves around a smartphone app (iOS or Android), specifically the Blink App. Setup isn’t much more than scanning the QR codes on each camera, plugging them in (where needed) and naming them, and all of this is nice and easy to do, if a touch bare-bones.
That’s the nature however of the more budget-centric style of the Blink ecosystem; if you want frills, Amazon would rather sell you a Ring system.
Pointing the Blink Mini 2 down here will restrict what it can see — unless you need to track the floor for some reason.
While I am someone who publishes online, I’m also a private individual, so I won’t be putting up any stills of the action that the Blink Mini 2 and Blink Outdoor 4 have captured during my review period, and hopefully that’s understandable. I will say that the general video and audio quality is fine, but not exceptional, topping out at 1080p for video and just 640×360 for still shots.
Nothing that you’re going to shoot a Hollywood epic with (though maybe an arty student film…) but adequate enough to show you the movements of people coming and going, which is what most of us want out of a security camera.
If you’re after smart home integration, the Blink system works with Amazon Alexa – nobody’s shocked there, this is an Amazon product – but not Google Home or Apple HomeKit if that’s important to you.
There is another slight catch here, though it’s not an entirely surprising one. The Blink system is smart enough to handle not only general motion but specific person detection, but the latter sits behind a subscription paywall. That’s a very common play in this particular technology niche.
In Australia, a Blink subscription will run you $4.95/month for one device or $15/month for an unlimited number of Blink cameras, with slight discounts if you opt for annual billing in both cases.
As always, it’s worth considering what that gets you. Apart from person detection, you also get the option for up to 90 minutes of continuous video viewing – just 5 minutes without a subscription – and cloud backup of your recordings for up to 60 days.
The pricier subscription – technically “Blink Plus” – also allows for snoozing cameras for up to 24 hours on command as well as a discount on other Blink purchases.
Putting a googly eye on the Blink Outdoor 4 isn’t mandatory — but it is fun.
Where this gets interesting in the budget space is that where most cameras would essentially push you into a subscription otherwise your usage is seriously constrained, the fact that the Blink Sync Module 2 allows for local USB storage means that a lot of users will be able to get by with just that as their storage/capture option.
I’ve not really hit too many situations where I’d want to watch any smart camera for more than a minute or so, so the lure of 90 minutes doesn’t feel worth it to me. Hiding snoozing cameras behind a paywall is a weird call to me, though.
Tip: Want to “snooze” a Blink camera without paying for a subscription? Turn it towards a wall for as long as you don’t want any motion alerts, or pull the battery/power cable. Problem solved!
Snooze mode: Ultra budget edition, no subscription required.
Battery
The Blink Mini 2 is only mains-powered, so its battery life isn’t relevant here, but I do have some observations about the Blink Outdoor 4’s battery life. Not because I’ve secretly had this camera for two years and can assert that the claims about its battery life are going to bear fruit, but more around how the Blink app actually shows that battery status.
For just about any other outdoor or battery powered camera, you might expect to get a battery percentage figure to help you track when the power was running low. The Blink app doesn’t do that for the Blink Outdoor 4. Instead, right now – and bear in mind this is only a few weeks into testing it out – it simply tells me that the battery life is “OK”.
It’s also worth noting that Blink recommends not using rechargeable batteries in the Blink Outdoor 4.
So far, the earth hasn’t tilted off its axis just because I put rechargeable batteries in the Blink Outdoor 4. Maybe that will happen later.
They can’t stop you doing so – and at least a quick test with the recently tested Laser Chargecore rechargeable batteries showed the same “OK” setting.
Is “OK” actually OK?
I’m not a huge fan of not being assured as to when the batteries in the Blink Outdoor 4 might actually conk out, and it does rather bring to the forefront that the inclusion of higher end non-rechargeable batteries in the box does somewhat hide the fact that you’re almost assured to get worse battery life out of cheaper AA batteries.
You know.. the type that someone buying security cameras on a tight budget might opt for out of financial necessity.
I can appreciate that fully measuring battery capacity on these batteries isn’t always a precise science, but a little more detail here would be more reassuring than simply “OK”.
Blink Outdoor 4/Blink Mini 2:
Alex’s Verdict
If the Blink system didn’t have the Sync Module 2’s capability for local recording, it would be a somewhat harder sell, I think. There’s plenty of competition in this lower-tier smart camera space that absolutely relies on subscriptions.
By allowing buyers to just record locally, Blink – and by extension Amazon – gives a nice degree of power back to buyers, though you are still relying on those servers remaining up and running because it still feeds to the Blink cloud first before heading to your USB drive.
Blink’s commitment here is that it’ll provide security updates for at least four years from the last time they sell these devices, and it’s fair to assume that would mean servers would stay up for at least that long too, which is decent.
Blink Outdoor 4/Blink Mini 2:
Pricing and availability
Officially the Blink Mini 2 sells for $99, while the Blink Outdoor 4 costs $149.95 in Australia.
But let’s be honest here, these are Amazon in-house products, and just like Kindles and Echo devices, sales are not uncommon; at the time of writing this review they were substantially cheaper, so if you’re keen, I’d look to pick one up that way and save a few more dollars again.
|
Buy The Blink Outdoor 4! | Buy On Amazon |
|
Buy The Blink Mini 2! | Buy On Amazon |
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As the owner of a Blink 3 and a Blink 4, I can say that when the battery is about about to die, the battery status changes from OK to low (or something indicating replacement is needed. I don’t remember exactly what.) I will also note that in cold temperatures, e.g., regularly freezing and below, even lithium batteries only last a couple months.