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

I have a night/day sensitivity as well as incorporating the AccuWeather plugin into webCoRE to drop the sensitivity even more when the wind gusts pick up. Not perfect, but less false detections.

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Interesting, will have to play with it a liitle more and try it out. Never thought about adding in windspeed too!

Smart! Hmm…I need to do more with the weather!

Yes, I have this issue as well. RBoy says “not my code”, but I can change the name of other devices and put them in rooms without any issues. My guess is that there is, indeed, something wrong with RBoy’s Blink device handler code.

I had the same probkem, had to remove all 10 blink cameras, delete the smart app and reinstall.

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Search the forum and you’ll see this is an age old issue randomly plaguing the ST mobile app and platform. Apps and devices have no role to play in it as these are ST mobile app features. Report it to ST support so they can investigate and fix it.

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Right that’s what I thought but anyways for now I just removed all cameras and the deleted the smartapp. I might try to add them back to ST see if it does anything if not report it to ST support

Granted, but why do the battery level and temperature quit showing? That wouldn’t seem to be a ST issue and occurs at the same time as the Unexpected Error issues when renaming and adding to a room. You also get an Unexpected Error when trying to save a temperature offset. That seems specific to this device.

In the meantime, I was able to circumvent the renaming issue by changing the device handler code to not pre-pend "Blink " to the camera name. So now ST uses the same name as Blink does. Was there a reason that you put “Blink” in front of the camera name? Will my change cause any problems? If not, I suggest putting this change in your official version (just my humble opinion).

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About the battery/temp, can’t replicate it here (20+ cameras working fine on iOS/Android) or heard about it from anyone else. Either your Blink account isnt’ reporting it to ST (you can verify this easily by looking at the IDE Live Logging when you hit refresh and see what shows up from the Blink Camera Manager, I believe Maddie from support mentioned the same to you, feel free to email us the logs to analyze) or it’s a bug with the ST phone app (Android phones are known to have rendering issues with tile numbers, see Mobile BETA forum/release posts, if so please report it to ST support). What mobile phone and version of the ST mobile app are you using?

If there’s an issue with the device naming structure or characters please report it to ST support so they can fix it, it isn’t an app issue. The prefix Blink was added to the name by design as feedback from users to keep the cameras together in the “Things” page of the mobile app. There are folks who have 30+ cameras in use using this SmartApp.

Modifying the code is prohibited under the terms of the agreement with Blink (see first post) and we cannot condone any changes. Having said that, your feedback is taken but it sounds like a ST mobile app issue which needs to be addressed by ST.

EDIT: If the mobile app is having trouble renaming the devices you can also use the IDE under My Devices to changes the name. That should work around any mobile app issues. However if the platform has a problem with the naming scheme that may also give an error but atleast you will know what’s causing the issue, the platform or the mobile app.

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Thanks for continuing to look into this. I was able to change the device name via the IDE - thanks for that tip. I am using an iPhone with version 2.4.0 of the ST app. My ST Hub is v2 using firmware version 000.017.00012. Blink version is 2.9.41, build 2150.

Here’s what I get in ST Live Logging when I click on the Sensor Update button:

1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:14 PM: error Unable to call parent actions, error: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method round() on null object
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:13 PM: trace Calling parent action: updateCameraSensorStatus with parameters: null
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:12 PM: trace Adding unprocessed actions back to queue: [[time:1498165742468, retryCount:1, parameters:null, delay:10000, function:updateCameraSensorStatus]]
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:12 PM: trace Waiting 0 seconds to process deferred action updateCameraSensorStatus
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:05 PM: trace Adding unprocessed actions back to queue: [[time:1498165742468, retryCount:1, delay:10000, parameters:null, function:updateCameraSensorStatus]]
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:05 PM: trace Waiting 7 seconds to process deferred action updateCameraSensorStatus
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:05 PM: error Unable to call parent actions, error: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method round() on null object
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:04 PM: trace Calling parent action: updateCameraSensorStatus with parameters: null
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:03 PM: trace Adding unprocessed actions back to queue: [[time:1498165733259, retryCount:1, delay:10000, parameters:null, function:updateCameraSensorStatus], [time:1498165742468, retryCount:1, parameters:null, delay:10000, function:updateCameraSensorStatus]]
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:03 PM: trace Waiting 0 seconds to process deferred action updateCameraSensorStatus
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:03 PM: trace Waiting 0 seconds to process deferred action updateCameraSensorStatus
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:02 PM: trace Request to force camera sensors update sent successfully: true
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:02 PM: trace Adding unprocessed actions back to queue: [[time:1498165733259, retryCount:1, parameters:null, delay:10000, function:updateCameraSensorStatus], [function:updateCameraSensorStatus, time:1498165742468, delay:10000, parameters:null, retryCount:1]]
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:02 PM: trace Deferred loopback called with delay 10 seconds and function updateCameraSensorStatus, parameters null, overwrite false, retryCount 1
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:02 PM: trace Waiting 1 seconds to process deferred action updateCameraSensorStatus
1f11117d-23c0-445a-9dae-0293533d1b3b 5:09:01 PM: trace Force sensor update called

Please eMail the logs to us, it’s difficult to see this on the forum. I would also highly recommend that you do a clean install (delete all cameras and uninstall the SmartApp and reinstall it, looks like some of your parameters may be corrupted.

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Hay @RBoy,

Did you read this squed article by THEWIRECUTTER site promoting Arlo?

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wireless-outdoor-home-security-camera/

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Yeah pretty aggressive marketing. Looks like they’re looking for the official Blink XT review, waiting to see that.

@steveura and @idioffo89 thanks for the logs. Will release an update later today to patch the issues of missing data from the server causing the problem about the temperature and battery.

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##blink Camera Manager - Version 05.08.01

  • Fix for Temperature and Battery updates not working for some users due to server patches

##blink Device Handler - Version 05.04.01

  • < no change >

Refer to previous release notes for updates to device handler:

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Its now working. Thanks again for your help

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Thanks @RBoy. Got it updated and it is working.

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So just got my Blink cams, out of curiosity, does anyone have any technical details on what the Sync Module actually does?

Has anyone done a tear down to find out what’s inside and what communication is being handled between the cameras and the Sync Module?

I would like to know as well…

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So yeah, I looked at the FCC ID for the sync module and it lists a 900MHz and a 2.4GHz frequency. The 2.4GHz is obviously WiFi and while the 900MHz could be Z-Wave, like @beckwith said, it’s probably proprietary especially with some of the documentation on the FCC site being permanently confidential.

Indeed it seems that the sync module handles all of the “command and control”, that covers the settings, battery info, temperature, PIR sensor activity and to wake the camera, at which point once the camera starts streaming, be it a photo or video, the camera uses its own WiFi connection directly through your router to send the stream data to the Blink cloud.