[DEPRECATED] Blink Camera Device Handler with Motion Sensor, Live Video Streaming, Integration with SmartThings/SHM, Temperature, Signals and Push Notifications

Just a quick question, don’t have the blinks yet. So the blink only records when its armed and movement is detected right? Considering the 5 hour battery for continuous video.

Yes see the blink website FAQ’s for details. Under normal circumstance it’s almost 4,000 recordings of 5 seconds each. That’s a lot and it lasts about a year. See the first post.

I’m not sure if it’s Blink system or my sync module but lately, I can’t seem to access any of my cameras with my Blink app, and same with the app 5.0.0… it would time out if I try to take a picture and same with trying to view the camera. I still get push notifications to ST and also notifications via app, … i can view the videos recorded but not live view or thumbnail capture.

I tried emailing Blink yesterday but no response yet.

Reboot your sync module or your WiFi is giving trouble (camera can’t connect to wifi)

Thanks, so just unplug and replug in again?

Yeah but most likely it’s your Wifi, see the 1st post FAQ’s onhow to improve Wifi performance or maybe the camera is just too far.

One of the camera is almost right above the sync module, didn’t work. And I have one that’s near the router but same issues. I did move my ST hub closer to the router, I wonder if that effected the wifi at all… For the router though, unfortunately, I have an OnHub and there’s no option to change the beacon interval :frowning:

I am also getting forced close or I am getting “there was a problem retrieving the livestream url” The words in my battery tile are also cut off and I have a blank tile to the left of the refresh tile…was that temp? I don’t remember.

Somehow I’m stuck at version 3.8 according to the smart app. I believe i screwed up and tried to upgrade from 3.8 to 4 something without deleting everything first but I still had 3.8 functionality. When you announced 5.0 I deleted everything and started from scratch but still showing 3.8 and don’t seem to see the added functionality of 5.0. Hmmmm.

Hi Rboy, can you explain the motion detection again? It seems that I can’t use the motion detection without arming the Blink camera too. I have motion detection turned on, but Blink camera is disarmed, and I get no motion detection in ST. If I turn on System (or arm Blink), then of course if works, but will record video. I thought there was a way to use motion detection without having to record video. But if that’s the case, what’s the point of having separate motion detection and arming camera/system options?

Also, seems like live video is a little flakey… trying to watch live video in the ST device, sometimes I see live video, unless I try to make it full screen, then I get an error. Actually, now it can’t seem to even detect camera (Camera cannot be found error), but Blink app connects just fine…

On latest version of device and app (5.01).

Thanks.

See Post 1 and like I said (read the post again) this is a new release from ST, you may need to click on connect multiple times before ST can establish the connection. Please read the release notes and Post 1. Also with some iOS ST Apps full screen may give trouble, but it seems to work fine with Android ST App full screen.

Sorry, was just providing feedback, I understand it’s Beta…

Regarding the motion detection, I did read post 1, and still confused. I’m still not sure whether you can use a Blink camera’s motion detection standalone in ST, or whether you’re just enabling motion detection on the camera, when it gets armed. For example, if I setup an action that turns on lights when motion is detected on Blink camera, the lights don’t go on unless the camera/system is armed first, even though I have motion detection turned on. So it looks like motion detection is just for when the camera is armed, is that right; it’s not a motion sensor that is on all the time (like a stand-alone z-wave motion sensor for example)?

The FAQ on this doesn’t make it clearer:

“I’m not seeing motion detection events reported from the Camera to ST.
Make sure that Motion Alerts are enabled and Motion Detection is enabled.
Open your Blink Camera Manager and hit Done, this should force the ST app to setup a new connection with the Blink servers and reset the motion notification connection.”

Thanks.

That is correct, motion detection is turned on when the camera is armed (the camera only monitors for motion when it’s armed). So when it’s armed, it’s motion sensor is enabled. When it’s not armed, it’s just a regular standalone camera.

I will also update the FAQ’s, thanks.

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Report it to ST support, the UI with the new Android 2.1.2/2.1.3 is pretty messed up. Some users have reported with the new ST Android App, killing and reopening helps with the UI issues.

I use the motion with Blink. I created a custom command in rule machine that sets the record length to 1 second when we are home. I also do any motion alerts with rule machine. This allows me to control who gets notified with motion events.

When we leave we set the recording length back to the max.

When they let us set the recording length to zero, then it will be better.

We now have motion sensors to turn lights on and off.

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I have updated my app and device handler. When I bring up the camera and click on the live view the android app crashes. I have the latest android app.

Here is an image of my live logging for the device:

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I hit the view a few more times and killed the running app. I now get video some of the time. I know this is BETA. I just wanted to share what I have seen so it helps others and @RBoy with development.

The iPhone works more consistently. I could not get the live view to fail. I don’t know why the Android is less stable.

Thank you smartthings and @RBoy for the great work!

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409 means your sync module is busy with something else, try again after a few seconds.
EDIT: You can try version 5.0.2 - it will retry once more if the server is busy to activate live view.

Thank you @RBoy! I will try the new version.

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