RBoy…
Do you have any guarantees surrounding privacy related to exposing blink camera to SmartThings? Seems like a great solution but this is basically a 3rd party camera integration and Blink did not approve this despite your comment in the intro paragraph. You might want to remove that language as it makes it appear that you and Blink worked on this together and that Blink stands behind it and any privacy concerns.
I know this is a long thread, but check post 1047:
AND
Yes we did 
, lots and lots of long nights and weekends.
Simple question more Blink related than device handler.
If you power camera via USB, and power is removed will it switch to the internal batteries?
Pondering taking a weatherproof backup battery pack, (like they sell for charging phones) hook it to camera as power. Then get something like the solar panel they sell for the Ring camera’s to power the power bank.
Have to order it all or something like it to test yet. Wondering if it would give you alot of streaming video time. Then leave internal batteries for backup.
With the intention of camera being under a porch covering and having solar available.
I’ve actually tried to power them via external battery pack without success. I’m guessing they don’t draw enough power to keep the battery pack in “charging” mode. The answer to your question is yes. When the external battery pack turned off, they went back to being powered by the internal batteries.
Blinks says this is what happens. I tried removing the USB power during live view and it did not flinch so it seems so. It is really hard to tell for sure because out of 22 cameras, the lowest battery is 96% and I’ve had them for months. Granted, the five with USB power get the most use and those of mine on battery very little.
Lithium AA batteries have a shelf life of 20 years so I suspect your Lithium Ion charger or solar panels will go out first.[quote=“TN_Oldman, post:1095, topic:40535”]
Wondering if it would give you alot of streaming video time
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Just be aware that Blink nags every 30 seconds and times out at five minutes during live streaming. They do this so you don’t drain your battery and I think to make sure more than one user does not monopolize the feed. So you won’t be able to Chromecast it to a TV if that is what you are thinking. I’ve asked them to change this if powered.
Let us know your set up if you get it working.
@beckwith , @Ren34
Thanks for the replies and information.
Yeah I was thinking of the modification to enable streaming longer if needed. I am sure under “normal” use I wouldn’t need the extra juice. Specifically being able to watch front and back of house.
Maybe time to rethink my ideas. More reading and attempted understanding.
I have actually used Chromecast when on vacation in a hotel room. Just as if I had a DVR for the Blink setup. It works great. And Yes, it does time out every 5 minutes. so I had to click on the camera to keep watching my family when they were watching my house.
How do you use the Chromecast with Blink?
You have to cast your phone instead of just the app. The disadvantage is you can’t do anything else while casting. But since they are only 10 second videos or 30 second nags, it is probably moot.
I don’t see it as a Blink limitation since Nest cam (owned by Google) also doesn’t support casting in the app.
Hi
Just got my first Blink today, and bought and installed the very good DH and SmartApp from RBoy.
Extreme many features and integrations. So many that I’m not sure how to configure it right for my needs, so hope you can help out a bit.
I want the motion sensor to work all the time (when home to turn on lights, when away to detect threats).
When I’m home I dont want the camera to record every time I walk by, and I specially dont want the Blink App on my phone to push a notification about the motion.
In the Blink SmartApp, under “Arm/Disarm cameras for specific SHM”, and have “Armed” the camera in all 3 SHM modes (Away, Stay and Disarmed).
In the “Switch Interface Arms/disarms” System instead of camera", I have left it “disabled” as default.
Still after this the Blink app give me a push notification every time I walk by the camera.
Hi I am new to smarthings
I want to understand the 4 camera limitation on the hub I am looking to avoid paying subscription fees.
I know with the Blink cameras you can add 10 per module does this count as one instance on the hub
then Can I add 2 arlo cameras for outdoors, a skybell doorbell and a Kuna would these all work on the one hub of smarthings
Thanks for your help
I don’t think SmartThings is even close to implementing their camera “feature” yet.
Regardless, I suspect what they want to do is for local IP cameras, not cloud based such as the cameras you list.
Does anyone have more or an official answer?
I believe those for native integration with SHM. Blink integration has no limit on how many cameras you can have in ST. Each sync module supports 10 and you can have more than one sync modules attached to your account. The SmartApp detects all sync modules and automatically sets them all up so you’ve got in essence unlimited cameras per account. However Blink cameras do not work with SHM (ST hasn’t released those API’s yet).
Under Motion detection action turn off push notifications.
See the first post FAQ’s on how to improve the response time of the notifications, it is ties to the video recording length.
Are the options in the SmartApp to complicated or too many?
so if I am understanding this correctly you can have 4 Samsung smartcams, 4 or more arlos, 1 sky bell and 1 kuna and the smarthub would handle all these
Got my Android Nougat today and was pleased to see the Blink app supports multi-screen but bummed out that SmartThings does not.
Kuna does not have a SmartThings interface as far as I know.
This is awesome! Will make my Amazon Dot 2.0 even more useful.
