Blink Indoor (3rd Gen) – wireless, HD security camera

I might have had my expectations too high for this product. It seems like everything about this camera has just been a massive let down. Set up. Set up wasn't the worst but it could have been a lot better. The problem I had is that I installed everything before going through the setup process. To set it up you have to scan a qr code on the sync module and camera to get them set up. This meant I had to unmount everything to scan the codes. I get that this is a me problem. The thing I want to point out is that in current year a lot of similar products will have a temporary accesses point that your device can connect to for setup. I don't see why this couldn't have been the same. What makes this worse is that the sync module is supposed to be an access point for the cameras so it CAN be done. I also don't understand the need for a sync module for a single camera setup. The camera connects to the sync module in order to connect to you wifi. My guess is to have the sync module do all of the work so the camera can get the advertised 2 year battery (which is a bit of a scam I will get into later). Camera Usage. The biggest problem with the camera is that it works best when you don't use it. If that sounds crazy let me explain. This is not something that you can set up and just have a live feed locally that you can monitor. Everything the camera sees is sent to blink servers then to you. Any live feed you see has a few seconds of delay as a result. You are limited to 30 seconds of viewing at a time due to the bandwidth cost. This also drains the battery of the camera the more you use it. Pretty much the camera is off unless a motion event kicks in or if you go to the app to view the sort of but not really live feed. One big issue I have is you have to do everything via the app. There is no way to look at or manage your cameras on a pc (with the exception of something like bluestacks or other android emulators). Having a site to go to would be great for both convenience and as an accessibility for those with bad eyesight. Night vision is so bad that you are better off not using it. Motion detection seems to just have a mind of its own. I've had instances where I will get a bunch of clips of nothing happening and then times where I know there was motion but nothing was recorded. Picture quality. Picture quality is just outright bad. Lights bloom really bad and can cause objects around them to disappear. This is really bad it one of those objects happen to be a thief :/ The images are also really fuzzy and washed out. Whether this is due to a bad camera sensor or blink's compression we'll never know. Night vision has 3 ir settings. It goes from grey, less grey, and white. White drains the most battery. You can turn it off which I have found to be the best option as you can at least make something out. I'm not expecting to have amazing picture quality but they can surely do a lot better. The amazing 2 year battery life***** The 2 year battery life that is shoved in your face in every bit of marketing for this thing is an absolute scam. For the camera to get the advertised battery life you have to not use it. The app will warn you every time you do any little thing with the camera that what you are doing will drain your battery faster than the advertised 2 years. Motion detection is on? Well don't expect 2 years. Want to turn the ir up to see better at night? Well don't expect 2 years. Want to check the live feed because you heard a crash? Well don't expect 2 years. If you think I'm being nit picky let me paint a better picture for you. Imagine a cell phone manufacture advertising a new phone where the battery would last one week on a single charge. But when you boot the phone up you get a warning after 10 minutes saying that you should turn your phone off and that more than 10 minutes of use a day will cause it to not last a full week. No one would put up with that. Conclusion. I don't see any real world use for this camera. It's too unreliable to be used as a security camera. The lack of any real time monitoring makes it pretty useless. Doesn't seem worth it when it won't be used. Also there is a subscription fee for you to not use your camera. Is it worth paying a monthly fee for the camera to sometimes pick up motion and send back a blurry video where the thing making the motion is obscured by light source slightly off screen? *Edit* Dropped it down to one star. After doing some research I found that the blink app on ios violates Apples do not track policy by collecting data and sending it to know tracking companies used for marketing and advertising. On top of the camera being trash the app is actual spyware that should be avoided. *Edit 8 months later* Battery died in the camera. This shows that the 2 year guarantee is an absolute lie. It goes back to the original statement I had where it's only 2 years if you don't use it. Now I have some data to sort of back that up. I don't constantly check the stream either. I might check the camera once or twice a week for a quick 5 second glimpse. I don't use night vision or motion detection or any other feature that would cause it to drain faster. I simply check it occasionally when I hear a noise or when doordash shows up. After some quick math for how long I've had it that means 320 seconds of camera time which is a little more than 5 minutes. Maybe that is an underestimate so I'll double it to 640 seconds or 10 minutes and 30ish seconds. I'll even say that I got 11 minutes to give this trash an advantage. They actually think that 11 minutes of usage is good battery life. Worse is they think that 11 minutes is plenty of time for a security camera in a 2 year timeframe. That means 13 seconds of usage a week or about 2 seconds in a day. To stay within the guarantee you are only allowed to use the camera for 2 seconds a day otherwise you are using it too much. Given the fact that this think runs at 15 frames per second, you are allowed a whole 30 frames per day. How generous of them!