Stop Your Blink Camera Being Triggered by Pets
Blink cameras are an excellent tool for keeping an eye on your home, but they can be a source of frustration if your phone is constantly buzzing with motion alerts caused by your furry family members. While Blink cameras don't have a specific "pet detection" feature, they are equipped with tools that allow you to fine-tune their motion sensing to significantly reduce, or even eliminate, these false alarms.
This guide will walk you through the essential adjustments you can make to your camera's settings and placement to help it correctly distinguish between a person and a pet.
Understanding How Blink Detects Motion
Blink cameras use a passive infrared (PIR) sensor to detect motion. This sensor is triggered by changes in heat within its field of view. A moving pet has a different heat signature than the background, which is why it can trigger an alert. The key to reducing false alerts is to make the camera less sensitive to the smaller heat signature of a pet compared to that of a person.
How to Fix Blink Pet Detection Issues
By combining the following strategies, you can find the perfect balance for your home and pets.
1. Adjust Motion Sensitivity
This is your most powerful tool for reducing unwanted alerts. The sensitivity setting determines how significant a change in heat is required to trigger a recording.
- Open the Blink app and tap the settings icon for the camera you want to adjust.
- Go to the Motion Detection section.
- You will see a Sensitivity slider, typically from 1 to 9.
- By default, it's often set around 5 or 6. Lower this setting to 3 or 4.
- A lower number means a larger heat source is needed to trigger the camera, making it more likely to ignore a small cat or dog while still detecting a person. You may need to experiment to find the right level.
2. Strategic Camera Placement
Where you place your camera has a massive impact on its ability to differentiate between pets and people.
- Mount it Higher: The ideal placement is between 2 and 3 metres off the ground, angled downwards. From this vantage point, a person walking upright presents a much larger, more noticeable heat signature than a pet walking on the floor.
- Avoid Direct Line of Sight to Pet Areas: Try not to aim the camera directly at your pet's bed, food bowls, or favourite spot on the sofa. Angling it to cover entryways and walkways is more effective.
3. Utilise Activity Zones
Activity Zones are a crucial feature for telling your camera which parts of the image to pay attention to and which parts to ignore.
- In the camera's settings, tap on Activity Zones.
- You will see a grid overlaying the camera's view.
- Deselect the grid squares that cover the floor level where your pets roam.
- Leave the zones active for areas where a person would be, such as doorways or higher up in the room. This tells the camera to completely ignore any motion, regardless of sensitivity, in the deselected (greyed out) zones.
4. Experiment and Test
Finding the perfect configuration is a process of trial and error.
- After making an adjustment to the sensitivity or activity zones, arm the system and have your pet move around the area.
- See if their movement still triggers an alert.
- Then, walk through the area yourself to ensure the camera still correctly detects you.
- It may take a few adjustments to find the sweet spot where your pets are ignored, but human activity is still captured.
By patiently adjusting these settings, you can transform your Blink camera from a constant source of pet-related notifications into a smart and accurate security device.