Blink Outdoor Review

Our evaluation of this camera revealed a half-baked product that failed to follow through on the most basic security camera functions. As such, we cannot think of a single reason for recommending this product. We encourage you to stop here and go look at other, better-ranked products in our review.

Performance Comparison

Recorded Video Quality

We'll be frank; the Blink Outdoor performed terribly in our recorded video metric. The 1080p resolution video is easily washed out in bright light, subjects' faces are hard to make out, and the images get blurred if there are any quick movements. Finally, you cannot make a recording with this device if you don't pay for a subscription with the manufacturer. Given its limitations, the Blink received a below-average score in this evaluation.

Additionally, the Outdoor does not have color night vision, which would have been fine, except its non-color night vision is extremely blurry and dark, making it hard to see anything at all. Moreover, the camera's field of view is only 116 degrees, while the camera lacks a panning function. This would be a good field of view for greater depth of field framing, but video quality doesn't support such shots.

Monitoring Performance

It's hard to imagine, but the Blink Outdoor performed worse in the monitoring metric than in the recorded video quality metric. To begin, the camera suffers from almost three seconds of latency between real events and their depiction on screen. The video wasn't terrible, but we wouldn't describe it as good either. Yet, the audio produced a lot of feedback, fuzz, and static. Accordingly, the Outdoor received another below-average score.

The Blink Outdoor camera doesn't allow continuous video monitoring. As it is, every 30 seconds, the app kicks you out, requiring you to manually reenter for an additional 30 seconds of viewing. It's extremely frustrating if something interesting is happening on screen. Finally, we would say that the sound produced by the camera's onboard speaker was unremarkable, but it doesn't produce an alarm for some reason.

Ease of Use

The Blink Outdoor did not fare much better in the ease of use assessment than it did in the previous two evaluations. We awarded the Outdoor very few points in this assessment because it has limited settings and features in its app, and the ones it does have are locked up behind a paywall. Particularly frustrating is the camera's lack of local storage, thus requiring the need for a subscription to record to the cloud. All told, we did not find this camera easy to use, let alone enjoyable.

Value

Given this security camera's poor showing across every metric in our assessment, it shouldn't be too surprising that we do not think this camera offers consumers a good value. In most of our assessments, this camera's performance does not match its cost both in the long and short term.

Conclusion