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

I’m Coming in late here, so you may have already found a solution, but I thought I’d mention a couple of options. :sunglasses:

It’s definitely possible to place a Camera indoors and record activity outdoors, but there are usually four factors involved.

  1. PIR motion sensors cannot detect through glass. Some cameras use PIR (passive infrared) for their motion detection, some use other technologies, Some use a mix. If everything else works great but motion isn’t detected, keep reading. :running_man:

  2. glare from the glass causes the picture to distort. The usual fix for this is to put the camera lens right against the glass, although you may be able to find a “sweet spot” that is even farther back than you originally intended. It’s just a matter of finding the right distance and angle so that light isn’t bouncing back into the lens. Unfortunately, what works at one time of day may not work at another. This is why the best approach is usually to put the lens right against the window. Also most people find that the room in which the camera is in has to be dark or they just don’t get good results. This is something you’ll just have to experiment with. :sun_with_face::sunglasses:

  3. glare from the camera’s own “night vision” infrared emitters. Since infrared won’t pass through the glass, The IR emitter will generally cause horrible glare when pointed out the window, it’s just that the human won’t see it. So you’ll need a camera which allows you to turn off "night vision.":last_quarter_moon_with_face::sunglasses:

  4. obstacles which the human brain ignores but the camera won’t. These are typically mesh screens. Our brains just filter these out as “noise” but the camera sees them and you typically lose details from anything beyond the screen. The only solution to this is to remove the screen, at least in the section that the camera will shoot through. :goal_net:

Now back to that motion detection issue. The usual solution for mains power cameras is to turn off the camera’s own motion sensor altogether and set the camera to record continuously and then to use filtering software to cause it to not save/report the images you don’t really want. :movie_camera: :computer: :film_strip:

If you have a nestcam, you can use nest aware for this. For any other kind of camera, you can use Camio or a similar app. Most of these cost $10 per month per camera.

The problem when trying to do this with blink or any other battery operated camera is that it will kill the batteries very quickly. But since you’re positioning the camera indoors where it’s probably easier to change batteries, this might be worth it to you to get the results you want.

You’re also going to need something to turn outdoor lights on so the camera does have enough light to record. Those don’t have to be networked, though. They could just be regular nonnetworked motion detector yard lights. :flashlight:

If you put all this together and you want a simple off-the-shelf solution you’ll probably have the most success with a nestcam combined with the nest aware feature. But you will be paying an extra $10 a month per camera for the nest aware service.

It might be possible to do with the blink cameras if you can turn off their night vision feature. But you will definitely have to have the camera pressed right against the window to reduce incoming glare. And if you don’t want to run the camera continuously, you’ll need something else to trigger recording, you can’t rely on the blink’s own motion detection in this set up. Plus you have to have lights come on outdoors, which may not meet your requirements. The least expensive way would probably be to have nonnetworked motion sensitive lights and then a networked lux sensor that would be triggered by the light coming on and would in turn trigger the camera to start recording. That solves the false alarm problem caused by most networked motion sensors used outdoors.

Here are a couple of articles:

http://www.securitygem.com/home-security-cameras-can-record-through-windows/

5 Likes