Ring rival from Amazon impresses with decent feature set
There’s no doubt that the rival doorbells, such as the Ring Video Doorbell 4, are better products that shoot better video, with more options. However, the rivals are also all a lot more expensive, and it’s the low cost that makes the Blink Video Doorbell particularly enticing. At this price, the video quality is good enough to deal with callers, and the option of offline video is good to see. This isn’t such a great doorbell if you also want a smart security camera, particularly at night, but if you want something that gets the basics right and doesn’t cost much, the Blink Video Doorbell is a great choice.
Pros
- Works with Alexa
- Optional offline storage
- Easy to install
- Compatible with existing chimes
Cons
- Basic video quality
- No smart detection options
- No Google Assistant or HomeKit support
- Can be slow to start streaming
Amazon’s other security company, Blink, is known for its range of cheap, wireless security cameras. Now, it’s added door security with the launch of the Blink Video Doorbell, a low-cost wireless alternative to Ring.
The Blink Video Doorbell is a cheaper alternative to its sister company Ring’s doorbells. While Ring now makes an affordable entry-level video doorbell, it’s wired-only. The £49.99 / $49.99 Blink video doorbell can run off a pair of AA batteries, or be can wired in.
That makes it a much more wallet-friendly option than the likes of the Google Nest Doorbell or the Ring 4, with a price-tag that puts it even cheaper than the sub-$100 Ezviz DB2.
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Simple to install, with optional offline storage, this is one of the cheapest ways to protect your home. Can it really compete with the big names in doorbells? Read the full review to find out.
Blink Video Doorbell: Design and installation
There are two versions of the Blink Video Doorbell available. The stand-alone version (£49.99 / $49.99) ships with just the doorbell, while the Full System version (£79.98 / $79.99) ships with a Sync Module 2.
Both systems work in the same way, but there are a few differences in features. Use the Blink Video Doorbell without a Sync Module and it doesn’t have the same power-saving features, nor can it save offline video.
For most people, then, a Sync Module makes the most amount of sense, and that’s the version that I have reviewed here.
As with other cameras in the range, such as the Blink Outdoor + Indoor, the doorbell is a wireless device that runs on AA batteries.
In this case, the Blink Video Doorbell needs Lithium cells, which the company says will last up to two years, assuming average use. There’s a pair in the box and replacements are around $15 a pair.
Doorbells that have a rechargeable battery, such as the basic entry-level Ring Video Doorbell 2nd Gen, are a little more convenient.
Installation of the Blink Video Doorbell couldn’t be simpler. First, there’s the mounting plate, which screws to a wall or door frame. There are no corner adaptors in the box, although these can be purchased separately if required.
The doorbell then clips into the mounting plate, and a flat-head screwdriver can be used to remove the doorbell for maintenance, such as changing the batteries.
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There are two terminals on the back of the doorbell, which will take cables from an existing wired doorbell. Provided you have a transformer between 16V and 24V, the Blink Video Doorbell can be used to ring an existing chime, although it still uses its internal batteries to charge.
Connecting to the app is straightforward too, and this talked me through setting up the Sync module (which connects via Wi-Fi) and then connecting the doorbell to it.
Blink VideoDoorbell: Features and performance
Although the Blink Video Doorbell has a Full HD 1080p sensor inside, resolution is not a guarantee of quality.
I found the doorbell a little more basic than much of the competition.
In daylight, when everything is easy to see, the Blink Video Doorbell is at its best.
The video is well exposed right to the back of the image, but the overall picture was softer than on the competition, so some detail is blurred out.
At night, the camera has to rely on its IR lights to shoot black-and-white video. These weren’t particularly bright, so the final video was often quite dark with little range on it.
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The caveat to this is that when someone calls at the door at night and is in front of the camera and its lights, they’re quite easy to see. In that respect, the Blink Video Doorbell works well as a doorbell, but not so well as an add-on security camera.
Audio quality is pretty good for callers, to the point that it’s easy to understand what a caller is saying; for general video, I found that wind often created a distorted soundtrack on motion-activated video clips. The Blink Video Doorbell’s speaker is nice and loud, so callers can hear what you’re saying back.
I found that call notifications came through quickly, both on my phone and to a connected Echo speaker, but connecting to video in the app can be very slow. It seems to take the camera a while to wake up and start streaming.
Video is shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio, so it’s wide and not that tall. That’s alright for talking to people, but you lose sight of the ground and, therefore package tracking.
Blink Video Doorbell: App and everyday use
As a far cheaper product than much of the competition, the Blink Video Doorbell can best be described as basic. It has simple motion detection options, using the camera’s PIR sensor.
There are very basic activity zones, selectable using the grid system in the app, plus the Re-trigger Time can be adjusted, which is the time the camera waits after an alert before it will detect motion again.
There are no smart detection options, such as the ability to detect people only. I found that if the camera was pointing at a busy location, I got a lot of alerts.
Where possible, the Blink Video Doorbell should be pointed away from locations that are likely to cause a lot of alerts.
Video can be recorded to the cloud if you have a Blink subscription, which costs £2.50 / $3 a month (or discounted to £24.99 / $30 a year) for one device with 30-days of event history.
Or you can cover any number of Blink devices for £8 / $10 a month (£80 / $100 a year). That’s not bad pricing for cloud storage, and it competes well with Ring and Nest Aware.
Clips are available in the Clips section of the app, presented as a simple list of thumbnails. Tap any clip and it will play, giving the choice to download and save the video.
If you don’t want to pay for storage, the Sync Module 2 has a USB port for a flash drive, giving you free offline storage.
Motion detection can also be selectively applied, either on a schedule or by arming and disarming the system using the app or Amazon Alexa.
Blink Video Doorbell: Integrations
As an Amazon-owned company, it should be no surprise that the Blink Video Doorbell works with Amazon Alexa only, and it doesn’t any other system, such as Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit.
When Matter fully rolls out, that could change, but for now, if you have any other system other than Alexa, you may want to look elsewhere.
It’s a shame that Alexa support is so basic. The Blink Video Doorbell can ping an alert to an Echo device when someone presses a doorbell, but you can’t answer the door from an Echo Show device. To do this, you need to buy a Ring Video Doorbell instead.
The Blink Video Doorbell is on sale now priced from $49 in the US, £49 in the UK.
