Amazon's new Blink cameras can run for up to four years
Well, as long as you splurge on the extended battery packs.
It wasn't that long ago that Amazon fleshed out its line-up of home security cameras with the $35 Blink Mini, but apparently four-ish months without a new release was just too much. To end that smart home gadget drought, the e-commerce giant recently revealed a pair of new Blink cameras: The $80 Blink Indoor and the $100 Blink Outdoor. (Take a wild guess at where they're supposed to go.)
As you've probably guessed, the latter is the hardier of the two models -- it's water-resistant and is rated to work in environments as cold as -4°F to 113°F. No matter which version of the camera strikes your fancy, though, you'll be able to see a 1080p stream of everything happening within a 110° field of view.
There are a few helpful tricks to make note of here: For one, if you've placed one of these Blink cameras in high-traffic areas, you can designate them as such in the companion app so your phone doesn't drown in motion detection notifications. Since this is Amazon we’re talking about, you’ll get full control over settings and routines through Alexa. And you now have your choice of video storage options, too: You can pay $3/month per camera (or $10/month for unlimited cameras) to save videos to Amazon's cloud, or use USB flash drives and the included Blink Sync Modules to keep all that footage local.
Like most prior Blink models, both the Indoor and Outdoor run on two AA batteries, which Amazon says is enough to power them for a full two years. If that still somehow isn't enough, Amazon has confirmed it will start selling an extended battery pack for Blink cameras that house four AA batteries instead of the usual two, which should work out to four years of total runtime. That might be overkill for some (especially since the extended battery packs are $30 each), but the extra longevity could come in handy for people who have placed their Blinks well out of the way.
