Okay, so I was messing around with my Blink cameras the other day, trying to figure out if I could ditch the subscription. I mean, who wants another monthly bill, right? So, I started digging in.
The Experiment Begins
First thing I did was unplug my Sync Module 2. You know, the little white box that connects everything? Yeah, that one. I wanted to see what would happen if I just relied on the local storage – a USB drive plugged directly into the module.
Setting up Local Storage
Getting the USB drive set up was pretty straightforward. I just plugged it into the Sync Module 2, and the Blink app walked me through formatting it. Pretty painless, actually.
Testing Without a Subscription
With the USB drive ready, I started testing. I walked around in front of my cameras, triggering motion alerts. I wanted to see if the clips were being saved to the USB drive, even without an active subscription.
- Motion Detection: Yep, the cameras still detected motion. That part worked fine.
- Notifications: I still got notifications on my phone when the cameras detected something. Also good.
Checking the Clips (Here’s the Catch)
Now for the important part – could I actually view the recorded clips? This is where it got a little tricky. I opened the Blink app, expecting to see my clips, but…
Without a subscription, you can’t use the cloud storage.
And I can view the clips stored on the usb via the app. It’s totally doable!
So, I can see my locally stored clips, which is fantastic! No subscription needed for that basic functionality.
My Verdict
So, can you use Blink without a subscription? Yes, but with some major limitations.
If you’re okay with, you know, just basic motion detection and the ability to view clips on a computer(Or the App), then yeah, you can totally ditch the subscription. But if you want all the fancy features, you’ll probably need to keep paying.