Blink support discontinued!

So… what are our wireless alternatives that play nicely with SmartThings?

The only ones I know are the Arlo, and the Arlo Pro 2 - although not available in the UK yet, I’ve been keeping tabs on the Arlo Pro 2 and they also seem to have teething problems with image quality etc… They’re also bloody expensive!

It seems finding a wireless, waterproof, SmartThings compatible camera just simply does not exist!

Just turned on IFTTT and can share the following experience.

  1. Blink: Turned on motion detection for all cameras I want to be active when I’m away and then disarmed the system via the master switch at the bottom of the app.

  2. Smart-Things: Added new Simulated Switch; Made switch go on and off using same routines as I was using for Blink.

  3. IFTTT: Two new rules - If Simulated Switch goes on, Arm Blink - and vice-versa for Disarm.

Tested by manually flipping the simulated switch. IFTTT arms/disarms Blink within a couple of seconds both ways.

So it does work (in the UK at least) … not ideal, and can’t do it camera by camera (so some of mine will be bricks for now, unless I do a 2nd sync modules).

Hopefully this is only temporary…!

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Could there be a Blink home automation hub in the future?

When you say “Master Switch” do you mean the one in the Blink App as it does that without IFTTT

How did you add simulated switch to ST as I dont understand that bit IFTTT doesnt work for me

I do not know; but the wording sounds more like a Google versus Amazon type of declaration than a specific interface one. But, since they give us no information who the heck knows.

When you say “Master Switch” do you mean the one in the Blink App as it does that without IFTTT

In the Blink App, bottom right, there’s an “Arm/Disarm” slider control. That’s the only thing that IFTTT can poke it seems.

How did you add simulated switch to ST as I dont understand that bit IFTTT doesnt work for me

This should help:

Thanks for update , got virtual switch in place but its the IFTTT bit I dont qute get…sorry

When you said Two new rules ? how did you create those ? I am looking at the applets and cants see how ? confused .com

just tested my motion activated piston… it did not trigger…

go to your name in the top right of the IFTTT webpage and select new applet from the drop down. The click on the big IF in the middle of the screen. From there it will walk you through selecting your trigger (which would be your simulated switch turning on or off in SMARTTHINGS). Next select the big THEN and tell it to arm or disarm your system (IN BLINK).

You will need two new applets; one for ARM and one for DISARM.

Also, all this does is turn on or off your whole blink system; so you need to make sure that your motion detectors are set to ON for each camera when the system is on/armed.

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Brilliant , thank you for explaining , woks well for me , will now build into routines and that more or less solves my problems with it for now … still not happy with Blink thou .

Once again thank you to all for the help

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No idea–The rumors I’ve seen is that they’re looking for a partner to help them become officially HomeKit-compatible. But just rumors, and for now, battery operated cameras can’t qualify. So who knows?

For all those who used RBoys code or just want to arm and disarm Blink via ST below is how to do it , collated from the above contributions (thank you all)

Step 1- In the Blink App: Turn on motion detection for all cameras you want to be active when I’m away and then disarmed the system via the master switch at the bottom of the app.

Step 2 - Smart-Things: Added new Simulated Switch - see below on how to create virtual switch in SmartThing IDE

Step 3 - In IFTTT ( if you dont have an account you will need to sign up for one and connect to SmartThings . Create two new rules - One to arm and one to disarm Blink , see instructions below for that.

Step 4 - In Smarthings App under your Smart App , find IFTTT and ensure you select the virtual switch for IFTTT to use, otherwise in IFTTT when you get to select which switch to use , it will be blank

Step 4- test manually in ST app , if it works then update routines as required

To create a Virtual Switch in SmartThings via IDE

Login to the IDE @ https://graph.api.smartthings.com/
Click “My Devices"
Click the “New Device” Button
Enter a “Name” for the device, this can be whatever you want.
Enter a “Label” for the device, this is optional and can be whatever you want.
Enter a “Device Network Id” This can be anything you want. I recommend short and sweet but it cannot duplicate other device ID’s. Lets say it was a virtual switch for your living room lights, maybe call it LRVD01
"Zigbee” Id should be left blank
Select a “Type” from the dropdown, this should be Simulated Switch
"Version" should be published
"Location" should be your hub location, probably “Home”
“Hub” should be your hub name.
“Group” you won’t be able to select when creating, but these are Groups you’ve created in the Things page in the SmartThings app.
Click Create
Now you have a Virtual On/Off Switch in Things on your Smart
Things App. You can use this Virtual Device

How to Create Rules in IFTTT

Once logged in go to your name in the top right of the IFTTT webpage and select new applet from the drop down.
Then click on the big IF + in the middle of the screen.
From there it will walk you through selecting your trigger (which would be your simulated switch turning on or off in SMARTTHINGS). So in search bar type SmartThings and click on Smarthing icon, select switched on or Off ( you need to create two rules , one for on and one for off)

Next select the switch , remember you need to have enabled this in the IFTTT Smart App in the Smart Tings App first , click Create Trigger

Next select the big + THEN and type in Blink in the search bar … remember if in UK select Blink Europe , select the arm or disarm action
Select your system which will be something like Home , and click Create Action , check details and finish

Repeat for second rule (arm or disarm )

You will need two new applets; one for ARM and one for DISARM.

All this does is turn on or off your whole blink system; so you need to make sure that your motion detectors are set to ON for each camera when the system is on/armed

Hope this helps a little

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correct link should be https://account.smartthings.com

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Ah now as I have other Samsung accounts the

https://account.smartthings.com doesn/t work for me , where as the

https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ works fine

But whichever works then use it !!

Their IFTTT integration is TERRIBLE - so many gapiing holes and missed options that it isn’t funny. Why don’t they have an activity which states “Push button when blink camera detects motion”? If they did that, I think you could still integrate them into SHM using webcore and simulated contact or motion sensors. That would almost - almost - appease me.

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Before @RBoy’s app I used Tasker, Autonotification and Sharptools to activate a simulated motion sensor to use with ST automations. Guess I will be dusting that off.

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I believe access to Blink’s API via that method was stopped for good the last time Blink cut ST integration.

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I remember now why I stopped using IFTTT. I found its geolocation feature to be garbage…but based on the above comments I’ll give it another shot.

Interesting. I just did something similar for Wyzecam.

I have a webcore piston that activated/deactivated SHM via geopresence and did a bunch of other things too. I added a simulated switch called “Arm/Disarm Blink” and am going to tie that to arming/disarming Blink via IFTTT based on on/off status. Next, I’ll have my piston switch the Arm/Disarm button on/off when I leave/enter my geofence. Hopefully that will get me close to what I had for now until I decide on new cameras.

I HATE IFTTT.