I vote for this as well. My wants and needs for a good outdoor cam: 1080p, runs on batteries and lasts at least a year (better 2!), can run from external power (low priority) as an option (either PoE, solar panel + external battery?), has cloud storage options (free for 7-14 days, paid for longer) but most of all, some sort of system that keeps the camera footage if internet is down. Also, it’s of course gotta have the bells and whistles of the indoor cameras. I don’t much care for motion tracking, but definitely motion detection, adjustable clip length (because this can save big on batteries), re-detection interval (again, a battery saver), ir intensity (battery saver), stuff like that. I don’t care how heavy the camera is. I don’t care if it has to use more batteries. I just want something super affordable that works well.
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I own Blink XTs and they work very well, but the system is a little odd. The cameras must be “armed” to start their activity and you can’t just arm one camera, they’re armed by the module they are attached to. Each module will take up to 10 cameras. For me this was a bit wacky because I set all the cameras up but only put one up, lol. So I would only arm it when we left. I put the others up now so it’s no big deal. A lot of customers complain that they don’t get good battery life, but I guess it’s difficult for them to grasp the fact that if you have 40000 clips over a few months, that’s a big drain - the cameras are rated at ~40000 clips total in HD, there’s an Enhanced setting that cuts this down but gives a really clear, fluid image (if your wifi is strong). I find this extremely generous, but then again, I also have 3 indoor cameras watching the outside through my window recording 24/7 (my Wyzecams!), so I can be thrifty when it comes to the Blink.
The Blink for me serve as “oh $hit’s getting real” cameras. One is in my driveway viewing the vehicles and some of my front yard (because I’ve had 1 too many instances where I’ve found poop in my lawn and I’m over it). This one gets the most action because it’s barely seeing a part of the road, though cars don’t trigger it too much. One is viewing the box where internet and the box where power comes into my home (because I’ve seen way too many movies where the thief cuts the power and the internet to the home) and though I have a security system, you can never be too safe and I have to feel like I’m protecting my son and wife the smart way. Finally I have one that’s watching my back yard. I have a fence but thieves don’t care about those, especially the 6 foot, vinyl ones they can jump over. I’m planning to get 1 more when it’s on sale to cover the other side of my front yard, purely for neighbors and their filthy non-cleanup ways.
The app is well thought out when it comes to saving juice. There’s a setting to change clip length, whether to end the clip when motion stops, etc. There are some glaring issues though. The system goes down if your net does (as all non-SD card cams do). Some people claim the clips still record somehow and upload to the server when the connection starts working again. The Blink team has remained mum on the subject. My wifi doesn’t go out often enough so I don’t have a chance to test this. There’s also no extra storage, no SD card, nothing on the module. The team has promised that a storage option would be added to the sync module since the Kickstarter (before Amazon bought the company) but this hasn’t been realized as of now/yet. There also haven’t been many big changes to the app in a long time. The Blink team has been almost completely mia since December for some reason. That’s why I’m actually looking around again. The big hitter with battery cams (outdoor and indoor) right now is Netgear with Arlo Pro 2. That is a GREAT system, it’s also unnecessarily expensive imho. If Blink can do it at the prices they are, so can Netgear.
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I think Wyze would be extremely disruptive (as it somewhat is already), if you could create an outdoor camera which could compete with Blink and Netgear. Considering the powerhouse of a camera that the Wyzecams already are, I’m no engineer, but I imagine swapping the case and rejiggering the power input would be easy. The more delicate, complex part would be thoughtful options in the app to make it so that people don’t kill their battery too quickly.
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DO IT!!!