Amazon’s Blink surveillance cameras are primarily intended to be used with Amazon’s own smart home system. We’ll clarify whether you can also connect the devices to Google Home.
The popular Blink cameras can only be linked to Google Home via a detour. (Source: Blink)
- Amazon’s Blink cameras generally cannot be used with Google Home.
- There is a way to control certain Blink features via Google Assistant: IFTTT.
- The app allows you to create links between the two services.
Anyone who decides to build a new smart home environment these days has the choice between three “basic” systems: surveillance cameras, thermostats and smart speakers can be used with Google Home, Apple HomeKit or Amazon Alexa. Buyers usually choose one of these systems and therefore have to pay attention to which devices are compatible with which model.
Here we clarify the question of whether Amazon’s popular and affordable Blink surveillance cameras are compatible with Google Home.
No native support for Google Home
As simple as the answer is, it is also sobering: If you buy a surveillance camera from the Amazon subsidiary Blink, you will not be able to connect and operate it natively with Google Home. This means that Blink users rely on the smart home environment in the Alexa app provided by Amazon.
Amazon’s Alexa system is also essential for setting up the Blink cameras; Google Home cannot be used here. This is mainly because Google Home is a direct competitor to Amazon’s in-house system – it is in the company’s interest to bind the buyer to the existing system.
Certain functions can be accessed via Google Assistant thanks to IFTTT
However, there is a small workaround to this limitation: the online service IFTTT. This stands for “if this, then that” and gives users the opportunity to link IoT devices and services from different manufacturers and brands, even if there is no native support for them. To do this, automations are set up with a trigger and an action.
In the case of Blink cameras, for example, it could look like this: The trigger in an automation is “Okay Google, turn on the camera at the entrance to the house”. The Blink account is linked in the IFTTT app and switching on the Blink camera at the house entrance is set up as an action that matches the trigger. Please note, however, that not all functions are available with this method and that the availability of some functions may change with updates.
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