Amazon-owned Blink is jumping into the budget security cam market with the Mini, a compact and Alexa-friendly indoor camera with night vision, motion sensing, cloud storage for videos, and a $35 price tag.
Slated to ship on April 15 and available for pre-order now, the Blink Mini ranks as the least expensive security cam in Blink’s lineup, which includes the $100 indoor/outdoor Blink XT2 and the $80 Blink Indoor.
With its budget sticker price, the Wi-Fi-enabled Blink Mini is poised to compete with such inexpensive security cameras as the ultra-cheap but well regarded $20 Wyze Cam v2, as well as the $40 Xiaomi Mi Home Security Camera, which is our current Editor’s Choice for budget smart cams.
Capable of capturing 1080p video and equipped with a 110-degree field of view, the Blink Mini boasts infrared night vision, motion detection, and customizable motion-detection zones that let you pick which areas can trigger motion alerts. There’s no word on people detection, however, which means that your dogs, cats, or robot vacuums would trigger alerts as well as humans.
The Blink Mini also features a live view and two-way audio, and you can ask Alexa to view the Mini’s video stream or play back video clips (if you’re using an Echo Show smart display), as well as to arm or disarm the camera.
For now, unfortunately, the only storage option for the Blink Mini’s recorded video clips is in the cloud. Blink says it’s offering a free trial of its Plus subscription plan, which includes 60 days of rolling video storage for unlimited cameras, until December 31, 2020. After that, you’ll have to pay $10 a month or $100 a year for the Plus subscription plan, or $3 a month/$30 a year for the Basic plan, which offers 60 days of rolling video storage for a single camera.
Local storage for the Blink Mini is in the pipeline, but you’ll need to pair the camera with the upcoming Blink Sync Module 2, a wireless gateway that supports local video recording for up to 10 Blink cameras. The Sync Module 2 is “coming soon,” but a solid release date hasn’t been set yet.
The compact 1.97 x 1.93 x 1.41 Blink Mini comes with an adjustable and removable stand, a pair of mounting screws, a USB cable, and a power adapter.
We’ll have more to say about the Blink Mini once we get our hands on a review unit, so stay tuned.