BlinkAdd-On Sync Module 2

This is a general review of Blink camera system and Sync module itself.After researching the available products, ring, wyze, etc. I selected Blink system for setting up my video perimeter. It had all the right features at a very affordable overall price.When you purchase their cameras they give a month of cloud service so you can try things out. Their cloud pricing is also very affordable and competitive.At the same time, Blink offers this thing called a Sync module in case you don't want to pay for cloud subscription. Initially I couldn't find documentation of how / what this thing does so what I'm writing here is based on experimentation.At a high level, Sync module offers a subset of feature of the cloud and is basically designed to do one thing: Record and store videos when a camera detects motion. Other features such as periodic taking pictures and storing is not not supported.Here's how things work with Blink app. It organizes the various cameras (outdoor, mini, doorbell, etc.) into what they call a "System". A "System" is pretty much a way to group things together. A group of cameras have the same on/off schedule, can be armed/disarmed at the same time, show up on the app on the same page, etc. Most importantly, a group of cameras share a single Sync module.For example, let's say you want to use blink to monitor two separate physical locations. If you are using the cloud, you can create a single group and add all the cameras to it even though they are located apart. But, if you don't want to use the cloud and instead use a sync module, you'll need to create two "Systems", each with its own Sync Module.Once you decide how to group your cameras, adding them to the account / app is easy. First, you add the Sync Module, then each individual camera. The process is very quick. I've done it a dozen times already and it's gone without a problem every time.Once created, you can arm the group for motion detection and recording. Every time motion is detected, the camera saves the video footage to the Sync Module. Once saved, you can look at saved video clips from the app, just like you'd if you had the cloud subscription.I've been very happy with the functionality of the Syn Module. I've recommended it to a bunch of other people and can say that so far, I know about 5 households that bought the Sync Module + a bunch of cameras and been using them with success.I've attached a few pictures of the app to show what you'll see if you setup a group and some of the adjustments available for an individual camera.-------------------------------------------------------The only problem i've had so far is one of the Sync Modules I purchased had a really strange issue. Everything worked except that it wouldn't actually record video to the USB. Camera would detect motion, send a notification, but no recorded video would show up. I did all the troubleshooting steps, called their support a few times, and unfortunately it wasn't solved. Also, there are no troubleshooting indicators available to figure out what was going on. Things either work or don't. I wish they provided some logs or other indicators to the user.At the end, I returned the thing, bought a new one, and it worked. So my conclusion is that specific Sync Module had an issue (hardware / software / who knows).

I received a blink 4 outdoor camera for my birthday. I was all excited and realized very quickly that I needed a sync module for it to work. I'm not really all that tech savvy. So for me to get it up and going is saying a lot. It's fairly simple to do. The night vision itself is fantastic. Black and white but that's all good. It doesn't go off with bugs but does pick up the neighborhood cats. I've had no issues with the sync module itself which is what I'm doing the review on. I plug it in and that's all I've done. I have two blink 4 cameras for my front yard and back yard and both are connected to the one sync module. The only negative I can say is that you cannot see both live views at the same time. It's one or the other. I can bring the blink app on my phone and see both cameras but only one can be viewed at a time. There's also a bit of a lag. Maybe 5 to 10 seconds on each camera. I'm sure a psychotic serial killer cannot possibly hack me up in tiny pieces in that time frame so I feel relatively safe. I do like if there's a person or movement it can decipher the difference. The phone will alert me if there's movement and at any time I can see live views. The plans were a bit confusing to me. You do get a trial for each camera which is nice. But after that you have to figure out which plan you want. Otherwise if you don't pay for it you only get very limited servicethat for me isn't going to work or give me the peace of mind I need which is why I wanted a system in the first place. Overall, I think it's worth it. It's great for what you get and not too expensive. I don't need a professional to install it and don't need to put a bunch of wires and holes in my house. It's easy to use as long as you have wifi. No real issues with it. Definitely recommend.

Works great, easy to hook up

Started with a handful of Blink minis to watch over 2 houses. Worked great after power outages and kinda give an early indicator that you lost power or internet at that location. All these were indoors only so next step to get some outdoor solar powered unit that is now on sale! This require getting this little gizmo and it happens to be the latest and greatest with usb storage support without the subscription... Yay!!! It was pretty easy setting it up. Got a 128 GB thumb to clear out. It prompted a reformat to be recognized. It imprint to one camera only on setup. To add the other cameras, you have to delete and reinstall then add to the group... Had to go through and customize my settings for each of the cameras again. Armed the cameras and got videos!!! Life's good!!! Guess we can add the doorbell once it goes on sale... wink wink...Addenum after some trials and tribulations:Unit is very weak with signal compared to the cameras, Will glitch out even when 10' from the router, went offline after it was set up. Reset is a pain. After many failed attempts, Just plugged it into the USB port at the router... videos starts coming in much more consistently.Had to reformat the USB a few times, just shows drive not formatted for no reason. Seems to be more stable now but was worrisome earlier on.Units need all to be on the same LAN, will not work well with repeaters or at different location... weird is video monitoring works even at different locations but will not save if its on a different LAN. So need to buy different one if outside the range of the router and hop on a different LAN.