Most of the work in installing a security camera is the cable: finding an outlet outdoors, drilling through a wall, hiding the wire along a gutter. Blink’s outdoor model skips all of it by running on AA batteries, and the kit with two cameras is far below its usual price at the moment since the two-camera Blink Outdoor 4 system is down from $129 to $44 on Amazon, 65% under its list price. That works out to about $22 per camera, under a limited time deal.
Two Years on AA Batteries, With One Catch
Each camera is powered by two AA lithium batteries, supplied in the box, and Blink puts their life at up to two years. The figure depends on how often the camera wakes up, so a busy street will drain it faster than a quiet back yard, but even half of it means no ladder for a long while. The cameras talk to a small hub called the Sync Module Core, which plugs into an outlet indoors. Two mounting kits are included, and Blink says the whole installation takes minutes. One camera on the front door and one over the garage or the garden gate is the obvious use for a pair.
From the Blink app, you get a live view in 1080p during the day and an infrared image at night, with two-way audio to speak to whoever is standing there. Telling a courier to leave a parcel behind the planter while you are at the office is the kind of thing this is good for. Motion detection works across two zones, and Blink says alerts reach the phone faster as a result. I’d call 1080p sufficient to recognize a face on a doorstep, and I would not count on reading a license plate across the street.
Now for the catch, which concerns recordings. The Sync Module Core in this kit has no local storage. Clips are saved to the cloud through a Blink Subscription Plan, which comes with a 30-day free trial and is then sold separately, and person detection is part of that same plan. Footage can be kept at home instead, with a Sync Module XR and a microSD card or a Sync Module 2 and a USB drive, both extra purchases. As I read the listing, anyone who buys the kit and adds nothing gets live video and motion alerts, without clips to look back at once the trial ends. That should be part of the calculation.
Blink belongs to Amazon, and the cameras work with Alexa. On a compatible device you can ask for a live view from several cameras at once, or arm and disarm the system by voice. The company describes the Outdoor 4 as its most affordable wireless camera so far, and the system can grow: single add-on cameras and kits of three or five are sold on the same page.