Blink Add-On Sync Module 2

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 service that 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.

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).

Wanted to keep my Blink doorcam alerts locally rather that on Blinks subscription based cloud. Going from a module one and the trial period was not straightforward. Basically had to delete my current setup and start over. Time will tell how it works out. So far, Blink products function well.

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.

I have a blink doorbell cam and when I installed it and hooked it up to the blink app it mentioned the Blink sync module 2. So I went on amazon and did some research on it and couldn’t really see what it did. I also read a lot of reviews that mentioned that you didn’t need it and some other reviews that said that they had trouble installing it. But, I ultimately decided to buy it and see what it did even though I planned on keeping the cloud storage here is what I have learned. If you have a blink camera that doesn’t plug in it is a good idea to get this and the cloud storage. The blink sync module 2 takes the video from the blink camera’s that don’t plug in and uploads them to your cloud storage for them. The cloud storage plus plan is about 10.60 a month with taxes and all included as of the writing of this review. And you can use the blink module 2 with just a usb drive but know that if someone breaks into your home and takes the usb drive with them when they leave you will have no photo’s or video of who was in your home. Because the video of the break in was not uploaded to the cloud and stored off site. So what happens with the devices from blink that use batteries (this can apply to solar powered devices as well) is that they try to conserve their energy so the best way that they do that is to only upload to the cloud as needed. Meaning without the module they are only uploading pictures, and (in my experience) no video. So when they do have the module they are communicating with it via wifi and saying "Hey I saw something and it needs to go to the cloud (if you have it) but I dont want to waste my power can you do it for me?” and the sync module responds back and says “sure im plugged in and I have plenty of power give it to me and I will send it”. The camera then send the video to the module (using a lot less power) then sends the video to the cloud storage (that you can pay for yearly or monthly) and it is saved. I think that the sync module 2 is nice, but I also think that they can do a better job on this site. They need to explain exactly what the module does and what will happen if you don’t get the cloud storage and what will happen if you do. I personally believe in redundancy when it comes to things like this and I think that if you are going to have this security system it is best to have the cloud storage, and to use a thumb drive. But if you really want to have just a thumb drive and you need this to do it I would suggest hiding this device somewhere where it will not be seen and where thieves cant get to it. Like one reviewer said it would be nice to be able to use this with an Ethernet cable, but you cant. Which is something that I don’t like other than that I would buy it and my blink doorbell camera again. That’s my two cents sorry about the long review. I hope that this helps you make a good decision about your home security needs. I did the best that I could so if it is a little confusing I am sorry.

This is an excellent Blink sync module. The Blink sync module was very easy to set up and connect my blink cameras.

Love how I can use this instead of paying for a subscription. Very nice. Works great.

It seems like the makers of the Blink Sync Module they don't actually want you to use it! They REALLY want you to put all of your video clips "in the cloud" (and pay them a monthly fee) instead of just storing your clips yourself. And from the way this is designed, it shows. I bought a few blink cameras because I had some stuff stolen out of my yard and wanted a deterrent/monitoring system just in case it ever happens again. Given the choice of paying Amazon a monthly fee to store my video clips in "the cloud" or to just keep them on a USB drive at my house for a one-time fee, I chose the local option. Hence, I bought the Sync Module and a USB thumb drive. My frustration with this product really begins with the way the app tries to hard-sell the cloud storage even though the whole reason I paid extra money for the Sync Module to begin with is to avoid cloud storage, which seems like the main benefit of the Sync Module. When you open the app, even if you have a Sync Module with a USB plugged into it, it defaults to a screen that informs you that there are no video clips saved because you're not paying Amazon for cloud storage. Only when you tap another tab will it allow you to access your locally-saved clips. Now, wouldn't it make sense from a user experience perspective to make the local clips tab pop up by default if you have a Sync Module with a USB inserted and that's where you've chosen to store your clips? Yes, but I guess then you would have one less daily reminder that Amazon wants MORE of your money to operate a product you ALREADY PAID FOR. So, moving along to annoyance #2: when you go to load a video clip that's saved locally, you have to sit there and wait for it to churn and churn before it will not load. Not too long, granted. But just long enough for Amazon to remind you that if you pay a monthly fee for cloud storage it'll work faster! Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For those of you who haven't figured this out yet, there is no cloud; you're just storing files on someone else's computer instead of your own. So can someone explain to me how it takes more time to load and transmit a file from the Sync Module that's five feet away from me via my own in-home Wifi, than it does to load and transmit that same file from some data center in Idaho or some other place thousands of miles away from me? The only explanation I've come up with so far is that Amazon needs those extra few seconds to show me a screen reminding me (in case I missed it!) that I can sign up for cloud storage. And as if that wasn't bad enough, here's the worst part: the dang thing doesn't even work half the time. Every month or two, it will just corrupt my USB drive storage and stop saving clips. I'll have to remove the thumb drive, plug it into a PC to repair it, and then plug it back into the Sync Module. As far as I can tell, I'm not doing anything to cause this; the Sync Module sits in its little corner untouched except for when this happens. But, of course, here's yet another problem that could be "solved" by...you guessed it...paying a monthly fee for cloud storage. Amazon markets this product as a way to avoid the extra fees for saving your video clips in the cloud...and then proceeds to make it clunky and unreliable, all the while forcing constant ads for cloud storage upon the user. One star, would not recommend.