[jyl]

I have a bunch of Blinks. They are very good for what they are designed to be. An inexpensive, moderate picture quality, completely wireless security camera that captures movement.

The outdoor camera has night vision, the indoor camera does not, only about $10 price difference. Both have a visible illuminator which gives a much better nighttime image than the infrared. The cameras run about 6 months on a pair of lithium AAs, more if rarely triggered. They are not meant to let you watch your birdfeeder or babysitter live all day, they only capture short clips. The maximum distance between camera and control module is limited, about 50-70’ in my experience if there are wood walls between. You can receive alerts and view clips or trigger a 60 live view from anywhere you have a smartphone. Everything is recorded on the cloud. They won’t let you read a license plate at 100’ or anything like that. They are easy to conceal, if you want to mount behind a picture with a little hole for the lens, or something like that. There is a blue LED lit when recording but you can turn that off on the outside camera, or simply tape it over. They are easy to set up, pretty reliable, no need to run wires, a basic but convenient and inexpensive option.

I have a set inside my house and garage, a set outside that watches the porch and entrances to house and yard and are colocated with motion lights, and a couple in the office. Each set (multiple cameras linked to one control module) has its own arm/disarm schedule. When we’re away, I set them to be armed 24/7 and wherever someone steps on my porch or comes onto my driveway I get an alert, then can watch the clip and/or check live view. When we’re home, I set them to be armed at night (for the office, weekend too). My son is at home this college term so I’ve had to adjust the schedule for his night owl habits.

I am slightly concerned that Amazon doesn’t seem to be emphasizing them, not impossible to see them dropped eventually, but that’s the same for all this cloud / IOT stuff - none of it is guaranteed to be functioning in 5 years, so I wouldn’t spend more than a few hundred $.