r/blinkcameras

Blink currently requires sharing the main account’s email and password to give family members access. This creates several problems:

1. MFA codes go to the account owner. When another person is logged out or needs to re-authenticate, they need the six-digit verification code sent to my phone/email. This makes shared access unreliable and means I must be available to forward codes. Blink uses a six-digit MFA code for sign-in.

2. No per-camera or per-location permissions. I have cameras at home and at my office. I want to share home cameras with family members without giving them access to office cameras, or office people to home cameras, and share only selected cameras with specific people.

3. No limited user roles. Anyone using the shared account can view footage, change settings, disarm the system, and potentially delete recordings.

Requested feature: Please add proper multi-user support with separate Blink accounts, per-user MFA, and customizable permissions—for example:

• Owner / Admin

• Viewer: live view and recorded clips only

• Camera- or location-specific access

• Optional time-limited guest access

This would make Blink much safer and more practical for families, caregivers, small businesses, and people with cameras in multiple locations.

TL;DR: Blink Outdoor motion detection has been limited to about 4–5 meters (13–16 ft) in my testing, across two different models and at maximum sensitivity. Someone can enter my property and walk past the camera without triggering an alert. Support hasn’t been able to help, and one of the wall mounts broke during normal handling.

I bought a Blink system to secure my small house in a city center: gate entrance, garden, and front door.

I had what seemed like an ideal location for the camera, with a completely unobstructed line of sight to the gate, about 7–8 meters (23–26 ft) away.

Unfortunately, my Blink Outdoor 4 never detected people reliably at that distance.

Even with sensitivity set to maximum, detection only became reliable when someone was around 4–5 meters (13–16 ft) from the camera. That’s surprisingly close for an outdoor security camera, especially considering Blink recommends mounting it around 3 meters high.

In practice, someone could enter through my gate and simply walk past the camera without ever triggering it. For a security camera, that’s a pretty fundamental problem.

I initially thought I simply had the wrong camera for my needs, so I was ready to return it. Then Blink released its newer 2K model. I bought one during a sale, hoping the newer hardware would solve the problem.

Unfortunately, it was actually worse.

I tested it several times and measured the distances. Even at maximum sensitivity (9/9), it would frequently fail to detect someone beyond approximately 4 meters (13 ft), despite having a direct and unobstructed view.

At that point, I contacted Blink support.

The EU support experience (it's bad)

I first tried the chat. I spent more than an hour troubleshooting with them.

During the conversation, the agent asked me to perform some tests. While I was doing them, the chat disconnected me after roughly five minutes of inactivity.

When I came back, support told me they couldn’t reconnect me with the previous agent. I therefore had to explain the problem again to another person, who then asked me to repeat some of the troubleshooting I had already done.

I eventually tried phone support instead. Unfortunately, they didn’t appear to have access to the troubleshooting from my previous interaction either, so I had to explain the whole situation again.

Both phone agents were polite, but the troubleshooting felt extremely scripted. They repeatedly went through the same standard steps even when those steps didn’t address the problem I was describing.

For context, I’m in France, so this may be specific to the European support experience.

Returning the cameras was another surprise (I couldn't)

I bought them through Amazon and expected to simply return the cameras.

However, because Blink provides manufacturer technical support, Amazon directed me through the technical support process rather than immediately allowing the return. Apparently, poor detection performance wasn’t sufficient on its own to bypass that process.

I then asked Blink whether they could arrange a refund themselves. They couldn’t.

To make matters worse, during the troubleshooting process, the plastic wall mount on one of the cameras broke during normal handling. The plastic seems surprisingly fragile.

So after testing two generations of Blink cameras, my experience is:

• Human/motion detection has only been reliable at roughly 4–5 m (13–16 ft), despite an unobstructed view and maximum sensitivity.
• The newer 2K camera did not improve detection distance in my testing.
• €10/month (~$11/month) feels expensive considering how basic the cloud service is.
• The chat support system made me restart troubleshooting after disconnecting me.
• Phone support was polite but very scripted and didn’t seem to have any context from my previous support interaction.
• Returning the product through Amazon has been considerably more complicated than I expected.
• One of the plastic mounting components broke during normal handling. I now need a replacement mount that costs almost as much as I paid for the camera.

The detection issue is the deal-breaker for me. Someone being able to enter my property, walk through the camera’s field of view and potentially get past it without ever triggering an alert defeats the main reason I bought a security camera in the first place.

I don’t just want footage after something happens. I want to know immediately when someone enters my property, get a push notification, open the live feed, see who is there and, if necessary, react.

I’m now looking for alternatives. My priorities are reliable human detection at a reasonable distance, fast push notifications, and being able to quickly open a live feed from my phone.

If anyone has real-world experience with another system for this specific use case, I’d be very interested to hear about it.

My setup / things I've tried

• Blink Outdoor 4 (first gen, firmware 13,96)
• Blink Outdoor 4 2k (firmware 23,26)
• Video Doorbell (first gen)
• $11 / m subscription
• network strength good (4/5)
• connection to sync module (4/4)
• walking from left to right (right to left) at a measured distance of 6-7 meters did not active neither Blink Outdoor 4 or Blink Outdoor 4 2k at 9/9 sensibility.
• cameras were tested at 6 meters high (second floor) at around 30-40°, 3 meters high (first floor 15-25°) and closer to ground (around 1m, 0°) without any change in detection.
• tests were conduction in the middle of the day (3-4pm) during a cloudy day
• no direct sunlight or reflexion
• mid vegetation were visible (garden)

Note: I'm not a native english speaker so this post was corrected by Claude but it was written by me (a human, as far as I can tell).

Hey all!

Wondering if the sync module 2 is discontinued or just long term out of stock?

I got sucked into their sales and bought for an elderly neighbour, with the promise we could upgrade to the sync module 2 and didn't have to pay subscription. I cannot find one for sale beyond eBay 😫. Just wondering if anyone knows if they're moving to the xl-r or whatever? Wondering if I should just return the set I got and purchase one with the xl module...

I don't know how much longer my camera batteries will last. I am away from home and have my buddy checking in on my place. Can he just pop new batteries into my cameras when the batteries die or will there be some re-sync process that needs to be done? If so, will my phone with the installed app need to be present at the property to accomplish it?

I purchased another mini camera for my home and just added it to my exisiting account and a message came up saying I am getting a free trial for their subscription service. I never requested it, nor was there any option to decline it. I can't find anything anywhere on my BLINK acct. that will allow me to remove it. Does anyone know how I can remove the free trial?

Title.