Blink camera mini review

Blink doorbell camera in Stouchi mount

I wanted an inexpensive doorbell camera that I could pull up on my phone in real time, that was motion activated for saving clips, and that didn't require a monthly subscription. I more or less found it when Amazon put the Blink camera on sale. My setup:

• Blink Video Doorbell + Sync Module 2 ($48)
• Blink USB flash drive for local video storage with the Blink Sync Module 2 ($15 for the 64GB module; a touch overpriced (name brand units are like $10) but worth it to me for plug-and-play simplicity)
• Blink Doorbell Mount No Drill, Stouchi Anti Theft ($13)

They say it has a 2 year battery life but mine were dead-dead after 7 months (confirmed with the handy battery tester in this handy organizer). But I live on a hallway with a fair amount of traffic, so the motion sensor was getting triggered like all the time. <Shrug> Swapped in apair of EBL 1.5V rechargeables, see how long those last. (A similar set of 1.5Vs are still kicking ass in my Kevo.)

Without a subscription, the Blink still stores clips to the USB drive hanging off the Sync module. I can connect to the doorbell remotely over OpenVPN. It does what I need (which isn't all that much). The quality is fine. It works. Not much else to say.