Okay, so I’ve been messing around with my Blink cameras lately, and I wanted to figure out a way to turn them off automatically when I’m home. You know, just for a bit of extra privacy when I’m around. So, I did some digging and experimenting, and here’s what I found out.
First, I tried the most obvious way. I grabbed my phone, opened the Blink app, and went into the settings for each camera. There’s an option in there to disable the camera, which basically turns it off. I tried this, selected “disable”, and it worked – the camera was off. But, I don’t want to do it every day, right? So, it is not a perfect way for me.
Then, I stumbled upon this “Motion Detection On/Off” thing. It’s like a shortcut that lets you quickly turn motion detection on or off for the cameras. I tapped on it and selected “Turn Off” to stop the motion detection. This was kinda cool because it stopped the cameras from recording every time I moved around the house. But, it’s still manual labor, right?
- Open the Blink app.
- Go to camera settings.
- Select “disable” or “turn off.”
Next, I learned about disarming the whole system. There’s this “Disarmed” button at the bottom of the app’s home screen. When I tapped on it, the app showed a message saying the system was disarmed. This means the cameras won’t record anything or send any notifications. It’s a bit more convenient than turning off each camera one by one, but still, I had to do it myself every time.
It turns out that these Blink cameras are meant to be on all the time. You can’t just power them off remotely unless you unplug them or take out the batteries. I realized it is not a good idea. So, that wasn’t really an option for me.
My Final Workaround
What I ended up doing was a bit of a workaround. I found out that you can disable individual cameras. I can just go through the app and disable them one by one. But it’s still a bit of a hassle. I’m still hoping for a feature that automatically turns off the cameras when my phone is connected to my home Wi-Fi or something. That would be really neat. But for now, this is what I’ve got. Hope this helps anyone else who’s trying to do the same thing!