Key Takeaways
- The Blink Outdoor 4 offers an affordable wireless outdoor security camera for the home.
- The camera can capture 1080p video, has a battery life of up to two years, and is easy to install.
- The app is not intuitive to use and the camera doesn’t always record, making it unreliable as a functional device.
We live in a golden age of home security with remotely monitored alarm systems, motion-detecting doorbell cameras, and a wide variety of outdoor security cameras. Whereas once outdoor security cameras were installed on the outside of luxury homes and wired to a central system, companies like Blink now make affordable wireless security cameras for the home. Amazon acquired Blink in 2017, and the two companies have been releasing a barrage of home security devices ever since. The Blink Outdoor 4 is one of their latest products, and is the company’s latest battery-powered wireless security camera for outdoor use.
Affordable but requires compromises
Blink Outdoors 4
The Blink Outdoor 4 is the latest generation of outdoor cameras from the Amazon-owned company. This battery-powered security camera is an affordable alternative to wired camera systems.
- Easy to install
- Affordable
- 1080p Video
- Local Storage Options
- Substandard apps and UI
- Easily scratched
- Easy to be stolen or taken away
- Temperature tolerance limits
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Pricing, Availability and Specifications
Since Blink is an Amazon-owned company, the Blink Outdoor 4 is easily available on the Amazon website. It’s also available at Best Buy, Target, and many other retailers. Pricing the Outdoor 4 is a little tricky, as Blink sells the camera by itself and in a few different bundles. A quick search on Amazon reveals 3-packs, 4-packs, 6-packs, and 8-packs at a variety of price points. You’ll quickly find great deals on larger bundles. Either way, expect to spend around $70-90 per camera.
The Blink Outdoor 4 is a battery-powered camera and comes with two non-rechargeable lithium metal AA batteries, which the company claims provide “up to two years of battery life at default settings.” The camera shoots video at up to 30 frames per second in 1080p. The Outdoor 4 works through a wireless relay that needs to be plugged into your home, and you can also save clips to a USB drive through this relay. Using this relay, the camera works through a 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi connection. The camera has an operating temperature range of -4 to 113 degrees.
What I like about the Blink Outdoor 4
Easy to install and operate
The Blink Outdoor 4 is an incredibly simple camera that took just over five minutes to get up and running out of the box, and a few more minutes to drill the mount onto a fence post. It doesn’t have a ton of features, and it doesn’t have a lot of settings, making it a very simple outdoor security camera. All I had to do was use the Blink Home Monitor app, which guided me through the setup process.
It took just over five minutes to get the Blink Outdoor 4 up and running out of the box, and a few more minutes to drill the mount onto the fence post.
The Blink Outdoor 4 is surprisingly inexpensive compared to “real” wired outdoor camera systems. At this price point, some trade-offs are expected, but I like the fact that I can set up a multi-camera system around my home for a relatively low cost. Availability is also a big plus, as additional cameras can be purchased online, at Home Depot, Lowes, or Target as needed.
Related
Blink Outdoor 4 vs Blink Outdoor 3: What’s the difference?
Blink’s latest Outdoor 4 camera has some useful new features, but is it worth buying over the Blink Outdoor 3? Let’s take a closer look.
What I didn’t like about the Blink Outdoor 4
You get what you pay for, both in software and hardware
This is an incredibly bare-bones camera, and in everyday use it feels just as cheap as the product. I had many frustrations while testing this unit, many of which left me thinking, “I don’t know what I was expecting” given the price. First, the app experience was very frustrating. It’s not intuitive at all for the user to understand if the camera is on and recording a clip, or simply on and not recording anything. Once I “armed” the camera, it started recording a clip to a USB drive that I placed in the Wi-Fi relay module. I quickly realized that the camera wasn’t recording all the time, which meant I couldn’t scroll back to a moment when I might have started recording later than I would have liked, and it was up to the camera to make sure it actually captured everything I needed in a safety-related situation.
While testing this unit, I had a number of frustrations, many of which left me thinking “I don’t know what I expected” given the price.
When I navigated to the live view in the app, it was slow to respond and would often take a while to start displaying. Then, after just a few seconds, the live feed would disappear. A pause and play button would appear, as if I didn’t want to watch the live view for much longer. The day I was supposed to pick up a FedEx package that required a signature, I had the camera set up in front of my house, hoping to keep an eye on the feed until the truck arrived. However, I couldn’t do that at all, as the camera repeatedly timed out, rendering it useless at that exact moment.
Should I buy the Blink Outdoor 4?
To me, the answer to this question is pretty simple: If you can’t or don’t want to purchase a full-fledged wired outdoor camera system, this low-budget approach will get the job done. At $70-90 per camera, the Blink Outdoor 4 may be more valuable as a deterrent to criminals than its actual value as a functioning piece of equipment.
