The person will still be walking thru the door. But it seems there is a lag between when flipping on the motion, to then start the recording.
Is there any other method out there to get this recording a short clip on contact sensor?
ActionTiles currently does not provide a feature to display a snapshot captured by Blink camera(s).
Please add your Votes to the feature request Topic on our ActionTiles Feedback Forum.
http://support.actiontiles.com/topics/1933-blink-camera-integration-feature-request/
A Blink camâs recording can only be triggered by its own motion sensor. Thereâs prob always gonna be some lag from when your contact sensor opens to when the cameraâs motion sensor arms, then the cam has to detect the motion and start recording (i.e. more lag).
Thereâs definitely lag in there. The closest Iâve come to making this scenario work is to have a door sensor on the side gate being opened trigger the camera to arm (which is prob 50â away at the back end of the side yard) then SOMETIMES Iâll get a recording of someone walking down the side yard. Honestly Iâve had better (albeit not good) results with having the gate opening trigger 5 stills from the blink camera. Thereâs just too much lag in the system for any of this to work well, imoâŠ
To be fair, it only takes a few seconds to travel 50â⊠thatâs asking a lot of a system thatâs using wireless to send and receive commands through a hub from devices that have to be woken up firstâŠ
I rely on mode changes to arm and disarm cameras, then just leave them armed for the duration (night, away, whatever) and pick up whatever comes throughâŠ
Exactly what I do now and they work fantastic like this. Agree too much going on with the delays. Just let the Blinkâs do what they do. Being able to arm/disarm them from smartthings however is what this integration does best IMHO.
1 Like
Blink cameras are low power sleepy devices to conserve battery and take time to wake up, connect to WiFi and respond to a configuration command. You should expect each command to take about 2-5 seconds to complete depending on your camera signal levels.
The best use cases are arming/disarming based on conditions (e.g. mode, day/night, people arriving/leaving) which arenât timing sensitive and also changing the recording length time based on conditions. e.g. during the day you want to use it a motion sensor so set the recording length to 1 second and at night it becomes a security device so set it to 60 seconds - all of which can be done through the Blink Camera manager SmartApp.
1 Like
Being kinda new to smartthings where do I download this code for the api part? thanks
Anybody that has experince with the Blink XT and Blink cameras I have a quick question.
I think I have decided to go with Blink over Arlo as it will meet my needs better. My question is XT much better than the original Blink? My plan was to have two outdoor cameras which will be Blink XT no matter what. For indoor I prefer the white look so that it does not stand out as much. So I can get the white covers for the XTs.
For 5 XTs on amazon it is $500 + $25 for 3 white covers.
But currently on the Blink site I can get to combo kits of 1 Blink XT, Sync Module, 2 Blink for about $250 each.
So for $500 + $10 shipping I get 2 XT, 4 regular, and 2 sync module (even though I only need one).
The additional camera would just go on my second floor and would not really be for security monitoring. What would you guys recommend?
Getting 5 XT or 2 XT and 4 originals?
The only differences I can really tell is XT has the IR Night mode, and the future possibility of 1080p.
Would the 1080p really make a big difference? I have never had a security camera so not sure how it would affect it.
Thanks.
1 Like
This was my Solar powered Blink experiment which works by the way.
1 Like
I am new Blink cameraâs.
From where did you buy the solar unit and what are the advantages of continuous power supply to blink cameraâs? continuous recording I am assuming?
Lol. This was my personal project. If you are a DIY, you can get one from Amazon or Ebay.
It needs to output: 5V @ 1AMP.
1 Like
To me, the most useful features of the XT over the original model is the weatherproofing and IR LEDs for low light recording rather than the white light LED.
The 1080p recording would be nice, if they would just push a firmware update for it so that it actually works. But for many uses itâs probably not crucial. One situation that comes immediately to mind is that 1080p might be make it easier to actually identify an individual if the camera records some kind of criminal activity and you want to turn the footage over to law enforcement.
Blink cameras can be powered by a standard 5V USB charger if you place it somewhere that is accessible to an ac outlet, but that still wonât allow for continuous recording. Blink cameras can record up to 60 second clips, but only when the cameraâs motion sensor is triggered. And thereâs a limit to what theyâll store in their cloud before older clips start getting automatically deleted (there is no other option for clip storage). Frequent recording will take a toll on the battery though, so an external power source (whether mains or solar power) can still be useful.
1 Like
I went with the 2 XT outdoor and 4 Indoor deal and it was only $508 with shipping. Is there any need for other motion sensors when I have the blink cameras?
Because I had planned to put up some motion detectors that have the pet immunity so my cats donât trigger them to trigger the alarm as well as turn on the night mode when there has been no motion detected for 30 minutes.
Is the Blink motion very reliable? Will it be able to be used to check for no motion over a period? Is setting them up to not trigger with my Cats easy and reliable?
My Blink indoor triggers on the slightest movement by my beagle, even from a distance of 18-20 feet. So, you will definitely need pet-immune motion detector to arm/disarm, unless you want a lot of video of your pets.
Thanks David. Did you try adjusting the sensitivity on yours? I read that you can change it to not trigger, but have not seen any verified reports of how this works from actual users.
I have sucessfully configured them with my large cat. Senativity 3 is usually fine for most of my interior cameras. I had to drop the sensativity on one and exlude it from SHM because every once in a while she was triggering alerts when getting up from basking in the sun on the back of the couch to go feed. This could be magnified by her coat color being black. This area is also covered by a pet immune motion detector. Senativity set to 1 will still trigger an alert when I walk through the room.
Thanks for the feed back Ricci. I am sure it will take a while but I will probably set up both for now and play with them to see. It is nice when you have fewer devices, but it wonât kill me to have the additional motion sensor if the will perform better and be easier to set up for the cats. I am only going to use 2 of them for the main are of my home as it is.
Hi,
I currently have some core pistons setup to take photo snaps on certain blink cameras when the vibration sensor is triggered on the main entrance door i.e. Postman, folk leaving the house.
Is it possible to capture video recordings under SmartThings using core rather than just photo snaps?
I tried running the capture task for a given blink camera upon some trigger action but did appear to do anything.
Any advice on this would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Hung
They will only record video on motion when armed. There is a delay, but best chance of getting video after a event is using a piston to arm the camera when the vibration is sensed on the sensor. Once armed, the camera will catch video upon motion. It will probably be of the posman leaving Then you would have to turn the camera motion off after x amount of time.