As a parent and pet owner, I don’t like to admit that I’m afraid of the dark… Even though my yard is fenced, I still dread taking my dog out to do his business at night. evening. My fear deepened one evening after I spotted several pairs of glowing eyes in the woods while I was walking through my yard.
Of course, they were probably very curious deer wondering what we were doing, but I imagined it was a pack of wolves or monsters with their big, glowing eyes in the dark caves, like what the we see in cartoons.
The key points of the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight camera
- At $140, this lamp is a viable, but battery-powered, solution for dark areas of your home lacking cables and power outlets.
- AA batteries allow the floodlights to emit light of 700 nits of intensity. So it’s not the most powerful camera on the market in this regard, but it’s enough to see what’s around you.
- The Blink app is feature-rich, with the ability to customize many camera settings. But you will need to sign up for a paid subscription to unlock the best features.
One side of my yard has no exterior lighting or electrical wiring. I tried several solutions to no avail, including outdoor string lights and several brands of solar-charging lights, but none were bright enough to illuminate the space evenly. That’s how I ended up trying out this Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera system.
Two AA lithium batteries as a power source that can last up to two years!
Since the first night I spotted those glowing eyes in the woods, I’ve toyed with the idea of purchasing a spotlight camera, mostly out of curiosity to see what kind of wildlife I might spot.
The Blink Outdoor 4 is a one-of-a-kind surveillance camera because it uses two AA lithium batteries as a power source that can last up to two years! This approach means you can place such a camera almost anywhere without having to worry about charging it for a while.
The Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera was placed on a stand overlooking the garden. The camera has a 143 degree field of view, which is enough to cover the entire fenced area of the yard it was aimed at.
Maria Diaz/ZDNET
5 minutes of action
With 700 lumens, the spotlight is enough to illuminate an area of approximately 3.25 m2. A single inexpensive PAR38 bulb produces an average of 1,200 lumens, and my Eufy Floodlight security camera produces 2,000. So the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight camera isn’t the brightest tool in the house. But it’s also worth remembering that the Blink Outdoor 4 is only powered by two AA batteries.
Due to its power mode, you cannot set the Spotlight Blink Outdoor 4 camera to provide ambient lighting, as this would drain the battery within a few weeks.
When you set the camera to record and turn on its little spotlights when motion is detected, those spotlights can stay on for up to five minutes at a time. This is more than enough for brief moments of action.
Maria Diaz/ZDNET
People detection is only available with a subscription
Besides configuring the projectors, the Blink app also allows you to change the sensitivity of the motion detection, check the battery level and configure the motion zones, the return time to re-trigger if there is detection, duration of recorded clips, night vision settings, privacy zones and much more.
The downside, however, is that some features, including people detection, are only available with a subscription.
There are two subscription levels to Blink: one, called Blink Basic, at €3 per month and another, Blink Plus, at €10 per month. Without a subscription, you can view the live stream for up to five minutes and receive notifications if motion is detected.
Store video clips? An optional accessory
If you want to store video clips, you need to purchase an optional accessory, the Blink Sync Module 2, and add a USB key.
Basic plan supports one device, up to 90 minutes of streaming, up to 60 days of cloud storage, people detection, photo capture, video sharing and quick access to video clips.
The Plus subscription lets you pause motion alerts for up to 24 hours, extend warranty coverage, and get 10% off Blink devices purchased on Amazon.
ZDNET’s buying advice for the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight camera
After using the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera for about a week, I am happy to have found a reliable solution to the problem of darkness in my garden.
I’m still in the free trial period, which allows me to enjoy some of the benefits of the subscription, but I’m curious to see how this surveillance camera works when you don’t subscribe to a paid subscription, and if it remains useful also useful in this case.
What intrigues me the most is to see what its battery life is worth and if I can use the camera for more than a year, especially since I go out every day at night.
Source: “ZDNet.com”