Blink Outdoor Camera Review 2023

Our Full Experience with Blink Outdoor

Since it’s a Blink camera, we knew Blink Outdoor would be reliable and effective even before we opened the box. Having the backing of a global e-commerce giant like Amazon3 sure doesn’t hurt, either.

But as far as aesthetics, it’s important to remember that this is a pretty simple camera that’s meant to be discreet. At 2.7 inches tall, it’s the same size as Blink Indoor. We also want to note that Blink Indoor is available only in white, while Outdoor comes in black. You can read more about Blink’s indoor device in our hands-on Blink Indoor review here.

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As far as the picture goes, you’re only going to get a 110-degree diagonal field of vision. That’s not terrible, but you wouldn’t really consider this wide-angle. If you’re trying to cover a broad swath of yard (or driveway, or woods, or whatever), you might consider reading our review of Lorex cameras. Most of those have 160-degree lenses on them, which means you won’t miss the details out at the margins.

As experts, we know that some people want their cameras to look tough and intimidating rather than sleek and stylish. In our view, that can really help with peace of mind, plus it’s a logical way to display security equipment that shows you mean business.

We’ve reviewed lots of cameras that fall into this category. Chief among them is the Ezviz CN3, a bullet-style device that lets intruders know that their dirty deeds aren’t going undetected. While Ezviz4 isn’t the most illustrious brand when it comes to features, it still has a foreboding look that will surely make the crooks think twice. For more stats and insights on the brand, see our full Ezviz review.

So while we wouldn’t exactly call Blink Outdoor intimidating, we do tend to favor cameras that blend into our home’s decor, rather than stand out from it. Blink, with its simple cubic face and only a small plastic stand for mounting, does that in spades.

HD Video

Here’s something that’s important to remember about DIY cameras: they might claim to record in 1080p, but that doesn’t mean they do so all the time.

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Let us explain. Blink Outdoor is built for up to 1080p HD video resolution, but it’s also built to be fluid. As our home Wi-Fi signal tends to fluctuate throughout the day, the camera essentially solves for this by reducing the video quality automatically, and bumping it up again when the network is stronger. This is key for folks with standard Wi-Fi connections, us included.

Of course, this also means the quality suffers, but in our tests, the difference was negligible. It’s far more important for us to have a camera that conforms to our home and sends us prompt motion alerts than a camera that takes flawless pictures.

On cool, clear Ohio afternoons, though, we were happy to watch that bright-yellow school bus pull into the neighborhood and prepare to drop off our kids in full HD. Check out the short video we made of Blink Outdoor…

We’d like to note, though, that the Blink Outdoor doesn’t respond that well to glare. In the video, the top portion was brighter, and so everything in the upper half can of the frame was clear. The lower half portion, however, appeared shadowy, even though there was still enough light.

If you think you might face the same problem – for instance, if the sun sets or rises directly in front of the camera or there are bright street lamps or porch lights in its view, you should consider the Nest Cam (battery). This smart camera from Nest has HDR, which is a great feature for balancing high-contrast frames. You can learn more about it in our Nest Cam (battery) review.

Two-Way Audio

Cameras without two-way audio are becoming more rare as the security industry evolves. Personally, we really like this feature because there’s nothing like using our own “outside voice” to spook potential burglars.

It’s especially helpful for times when you want said burglar to think you’re home … when maybe you’re not. Now, we don’t go around recommending this strategy for every situation, because it can be risky. But in testing this camera’s two-way talk, we did conclude that a simple “May we help you?” could go a long way toward letting the bad guys know they’ve picked the wrong property.

Two-Year Battery Life

Now you might be a little worried about purchasing a wireless outdoor security camera. “Won’t I have to take it down all the time to replace the batteries?” you might ask. And we might answer with laughter.

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Seriously, the Blink Outdoor supposedly lasts an absurd two-years on two AA batteries. The two-year battery life has always been a trademark of Blink. Their first camera, the first-generation Blink indoor camera, gained popularity on a crowdfunding website precisely because of the long-lasting battery life.

That said, there should be a little footnote explaining that the actual battery life depends on a number of factors, such as usage and external weather conditions. For example, the camera goes on standby mode when there’s no movement to conserve power, but it wakes up as soon as it detects motion. The more often it detects movement, the faster the battery will drain.

We monitored the battery level during the first week of our test, which was when we did our motion detection test and streamed the camera a lot. It dropped down to about 90-percent. At the rate we were using it, it would have been out of charge in about three months, which is pretty standard with wire-free cameras.

Speaking of wire-free, the majority of cameras we test that claim to be “wire-free” are powered by a rechargeable battery pack, rather than the disposable AA batteries Blink uses. When we tested a battery-powered Ring Spotlight camera as part of a recent review of Ring cameras, for instance, we did like being able to pop the battery pack right out of the camera’s housing to recharge it without having to take the whole camera down.

Indeed, this is the tradeoff with wire-free devices. Either way, you’re going to have some basic legwork to do. But with Blink, the difference is that the cameras are so lightweight and easy to install, taking the camera down to replace two AA batteries everynow and then really isn’t a hard sell. In fact, it’s something we prefer.

But beyond operation time, we found that adjusting the camera’s settings can have a big impact on battery life, too. For instance, we went into Activity Zones in the Blink Outdoor’s motion settings and grayed out a horizontal line across the midsection of the feed to block out the street. This way, we would stop receiving alerts every time a car passed by our house. Not only did this make our lives generally less annoying, it also kept the battery from running down too fast. A win-win, we like to say.

Night Vision

It couldn’t quite match the clarity of a camera with colorized night vision, but Blink Outdoor’s infrared night vision technology was still strong enough to keep the camera running smoothly in black and white each night of our testing period. Without the colorization or additional lighting built into the camera, though, you’re not going to get a spectacular nighttime picture with the Blink Outdoor. If you do want to see how your yard looks in full color at night, though, we suggest checking out our review of Reolink’s Argus Eco, a functional outdoor camera with dazzling color night vision.

But don’t count Blink out just yet for nighttime viewing. While we can’t say whether our Blink Outdoor picked up every possible activity in our dimly lit yard in the wee hours, it did manage to capture this rotund visitor:

Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Outdoor