With some proprietary security camera providers controlling when or what you can record, the home security world has been awash with fancy camera owners with no control over the footage their artificial eyes see. Ring was the first to institute some recording controls and premiums. Luckily, Blink doorbells and cameras give you a workaround if you don’t have a subscription and prefer saving your footage offline.

To control how much footage the Blink cameras capture, most people prefer setting them to start recording when they detect motion. This could be the first scenario where you encounter problems and miss out on expected footage.

You Have Disabled Motion Detection

Blink allows you to disable motion detection from the app if you don’t want to trigger recordings when someone or something passes by the camera’s field of view. If you disabled and forgot, then you will start wondering why your camera isn’t recording at all. Here’s how to turn on motion detection on your blink camera

Open the Blink home appTap on the Settings iconScroll to the ‘Motion Detection’ option and ensure the slider is colored, signifying that it is onIf the slide is greyed out, tap on it to enable motion detection

Alternatively, you can automatically turn on motion detection for all Blink cameras in your home by simply arming them. Here is how to arm your Blink system.

Launch the blink app on your smartphoneTap on ‘Arm System’ on the bottom right cornerOnce the system arms, it will automatically toggle motion detection on

Your Camera’s Battery is Low

If your camera runs on batteries, it will reduce power consumption by turning off some features to keep functioning for as long as possible. Replacing or recharging your batteries as soon as you get the low battery notification is the best way to keep your Blink working optimally. Luckily, you will get a notification on your smartphone app when the battery is low. If you have a Blink Mini or any other Blink product with an inbuilt battery, plug in the USB cable to recharge it or keep it juiced up indefinitely. For other products with a removable and replaceable battery:

Dismount the camera from the wallOpen the back compartment to expose the two batteriesGetting the same size replacements. Most cameras use AAs Replace the old batteries, close the battery compartment and reinstall the camera back on its stand

There’s No WiFi Connectivity

The only way your camera can get footage to the Sync Hub, your smartphone or any other storage media is through WiFi – unless you have a unit that can record to USB. In this case, there will be a complete communication breakdown if the camera, the Sync Hub, and your smartphone aren’t connected to the same home network. Your Blink camera needs a stable high-speed connection with at least 2 Mbps of upload speed for seamless footage collection. If your system backs up to the Blink server or you have configured access outside your home, you will need an internet connection active on your WiFi for this data exchange. However, mini cameras without a Sync Module can work on a local Wi-Fi home network without internet connectivity.

Disarming your Blink system tells it to stop detecting motion and recording whenever it happens. If you disarmed your unit when you were having a bbq or a lot of visitors, remember to arm it again to resume recording motion-triggered footage.

You Have Enabled Energy Saving

Motion detection and recording on demand are energy intensive. If you think your camera is running through batteries too fast for your liking, you can disable motion detection from within the app to save on power.

Open the Blink appNavigate to: Settings – Power – Energy/Battery Saving – Off

Check out any other modes that might limit motion-triggered recording and turn them off too.

Motion Sensitivity Setting is Too Low

Blink lets you dictate how aggressive you want your motion detection to be. Higher sensitivity makes the system easily triggered, and hard to miss anything. Some people opt to turn it down since too sensitive and will record even a bird flying by. You will have to play around with the sensitivity setting until you get the perfect setting for your home and camera placement.

Open the settings menuChoose the camera whose sensitivity you want to modifyScroll down to the Sensitivity optionMove the slider to the middle and work on modifying the sensitivity from there.

Starting with the setting in the middle and increasing or decreasing the sensitivity to suit your application is best practice. Most people will be happy with a setting between 40 and 80.

If you have a mini Blink or another model that can record to USB, you might find this more practical than recording over WiFi – especially if it is in your holiday home and you don’t keep an elaborate home network running all the time. It is also a good idea if you want to stop paying for the Blink subscription. You will lose online video backups, but you shouldn’t worry because you will save all that footage locally. The first reason your Blink camera isn’t saving to USB is that you are using the wrong USB drive. The basic pre-requisites are:

It should be between 1GB and 256GB capacityYou have to format it to the exFat File SystemThe USB drive must have at least 400Mb free space

Formatting a USB drive to a specific format varies from one operating system to another. Here is a look at how to do it on Windows.

Insert the USB drive into your computer and launch the File ExplorerFind your USB drive in File Explorer, Right Click on it, and Select FormatSelect File System > exFat, StartWait for the format complete message before removing it and inserting it into your Blink.

If you use a Mac,

Insert the USB into the Mac Open Launchpad and start Disk UtilityClick on the USB drive and select Erase – exFat – EraseWait for the completed message, and your USB drive is ready for your Blink camera

The Blink cameras are all motion-based units. Their philosophy is recording when there are motion triggers. This means they don’t record 24/7. Even though you can keep your camera armed for longer to capture as much motion as possible, you won’t get constant footage unless you use an external trigger to simulate constant motion. Check this too: Why is My Ring Doorbell Not Charging? If you want something to record 24/7, you must look for different CCTV and surveillance systems. 24/7 recording is intense. All that footage needs tons of storage and a processing unit that is robust enough to keep working day in and day out. That is why security cam providers like Ring and Bling that focus on user installability and DIY give simple offerings that rarely record constantly. Nonetheless, I find a constant recording with inbuilt motion detection better. I will have the rest of the footage to help place the motion into context instead of having short clips that occurred just after the motion was detected and stopping a couple of minutes (or seconds) after no activity.