Does Blink Record 24/7? Understanding Your Camera's Capabilities
If you're new to the Blink ecosystem, one of the first questions you might have is whether your camera can record continuously, 24/7. It's a common desire to want a complete, unbroken record of everything happening around your property. However, Blink cameras are not designed for 24/7 recording, and this is a deliberate and important aspect of their design.
This guide will explain why Blink cameras work the way they do, what their recording limitations are, and how you can get the most out of their motion-detection-based system.
The Blink Philosophy: Battery Life First
The core feature and main selling point of most Blink cameras is their incredible battery life, which can last up to two years on a pair of AA lithium batteries. This is achieved through a very specific operational design:
- Low-Power Sleep Mode: The vast majority of the time, your Blink camera is in a 'sleep' state, consuming an extremely small amount of power.
- Motion-Activated Wake-Up: The camera's passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor is always on. When it detects heat and movement, it instantly wakes the camera up.
- Record and Return to Sleep: The camera then records a short video clip of the event, uploads it to the cloud, and immediately goes back into its low-power sleep mode to conserve energy.
A camera that records 24/7 would need to be constantly active, processing video, and transmitting data. If a Blink camera were to do this, its batteries would be depleted in a matter of hours, not years. The entire system is built around capturing the important moments of motion, not the empty moments in between.
Understanding Blink's Recording Settings
While you can't have continuous recording, you do have control over how your camera behaves when it detects motion.
Key Settings to Know:
- Clip Length: This setting determines how long the camera will record for after motion is detected. You can typically set this for anywhere between 5 and 60 seconds. If motion stops before the clip length is reached, the recording will end early.
- Retrigger Time: This is a very important setting. It's the "cool-down" period after a recording ends before the camera can be triggered to start a new recording. This can be set from 10 to 60 seconds. For example, if you have a 30-second clip length and a 10-second retrigger time, and motion is continuous, you will get a 30-second clip, followed by a 10-second gap, followed by another 30-second clip.
- Live View: You can drop in and watch a live feed from your camera at any time through the Blink app. However, this is also designed to save power. A live view session will time out after a maximum of 5 minutes.
Maximising Your Blink Camera's Coverage
Knowing that you can't record 24/7, how can you ensure you're capturing everything you need?
- Strategic Camera Placement: Position your cameras to cover key entry and exit points. Think about the most likely paths an intruder would take. Good placement is more important than continuous recording.
- Optimise Your Settings: For critical areas, you might choose a longer clip length (e.g., 45 seconds) and a short retrigger time (10 seconds) to minimise the gaps between recordings during an event. For less critical areas, a shorter clip length will help conserve battery.
- Use Multiple Cameras: Creating a network of several cameras can provide overlapping fields of view, ensuring that if one camera is in its retrigger "cool-down" period, another might be triggered by the ongoing event.
- Understand the Limitations: The most important thing is to understand that Blink is an event-based security system. It's designed to alert you to specific moments of activity and provide a video record of those moments, not to provide a continuous, uninterrupted timeline like a traditional CCTV system.
For users who prioritise easy installation, flexibility, and extremely long battery life, Blink's motion-activated recording is the ideal solution. If your primary need is for an unbroken 24/7 timeline, a mains-powered system from a different brand would be a more suitable choice.