Security camera questions

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do I need a subscription? I see you technically don’t need one, but you need it if you want to save video?

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Blink has a sync module that stores clips locally and does not require a subscription. Unsurprisingly they don't really advertise it.

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Can I get that feature with blink mini and no subscription?

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I think so with the sync module.

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should I get the same system for all cameras?

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I would

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Does it make sense to have ring on door but blink inside, or Vice versa?

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I think it's a bit clumsy using different apps for different cameras.


I have no experience with any Blink stuff and some experience with Ring doorbells. Personally I would go with something else, and I will always recommend 24/7 recording outdoors. Battery powered cameras miss way too much and night vision is usually very lacking.

To expand a bit on why battery powered cameras are a no-go for me (at least outdoors):

To conserve power, they are generally triggered by PIR (passive infrared) sensors that are tuned to the human body at relatively short range. They won't trigger on animals, they usually won't trigger on vehicles, and they won't trigger on humans beyond probably 20 feet or so. Also, since they don't trigger until the person is already visible, and since it takes a few seconds to fire up the camera, they miss the beginning of events. Further, some have a cooldown period which means once recording stops for one event, it may not trigger again for a few minutes. In other words, they miss a lot.

If they do happen to trigger a lot of recordings, then you will be spending a lot of time recharging them or changing batteries. This is a bigger pain in the arse than it may seem. Adding a solar panel can help here, but they're a bit of an eyesore usually and don't really help with the first set of problems. They also add cost.

They use wifi which can be flaky. Onboard storage can remedy this, but we are adding cost again.

Night vision typically requires infrared lighting. Adequate IR lighting can consume more power than the camera itself, thus battery powered ones are typically lacking in IR power.


For these reasons I always recommend running cat6 wherever possible. Unless you have a friend who would do it for a case of beer (and you might), it will cost more upfront but it will save money and a lot of time in the long run.

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My Blink triggers on the neighbors cat in my yard 394586945786943864590 time per day

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Battery or plug-in?

If battery, you should probably lower the sensitivity. My problem with PIR motion sensitivity, though, is that when you tune the sensitivity you have a choice to make: lower the sensitivity to reduce false alerts and preserve battery life, but miss humans that are too far away, or leave the sensitivity high to detect far away humans but get many false alerts due to animals or what-have-you and reduce battery life.

Try Lorex