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For most people, a home is the most expensive investment in a lifetime. Even if you rent, the contents inside the home are usually expensive or even irreplaceable. Home security has always been a must for my family growing up in a lower income, high crime neighborhood. Now, my wife and I live in a relatively safe neighborhood with very low crime rates but, crime still occurs even in the safest neighborhoods. We wanted a way to make our home safer and give us peace of mind while not breaking our budget on expensive camera systems and recurring monthly service fees, so we decided to do some searching for outdoor security cameras. Our search for security cameras began where it normally does 99% of the time for anything we look into buying, Amazon. Amazon has their own home security section called “Blink Home Security” where they sell all kinds of cameras, lights, and accessories. We found the Blink XT2 security camera and were highly impressed for the price.
The Blink XT2 is a 1080p HD outdoor and indoor smart security camera system intended for residential use during day or night. We bought the 3 camera kit and it also came with an Echo Dot (3rd Gen) – Smart speaker with Alexa – Charcoal free of charge. The Blink XT2 came with free cloud storage and an easy to use app to store and view hundreds of video clips. It has 2-way audio so you can speak to anyone at your home through the app. It is a motion detection camera that you can adjust the range and specific zones that motion is detected on. You can allow the app to send you notifications and alert you anytime motion is detected. When alerted, a simple tap to open the app will open up a live view of the specific camera that alerted you. The product page boasts a 2 year battery life on two AA batteries per camera. We noticed however, depending of how much traffic passes the camera and how sensitive your settings are, will ultimately determine the battery life. On average, we usually need to change the AA batteries in all of the cameras about once in every one to two months. Our settings are very sensitive and have high traffic, so these can be adjusted to fit your needs and extend battery life. Or you can get a large pack of batteries like these: AmazonBasics 48 Pack AA High-Performance Alkaline Batteries and even setup a subscription and save 5-15%.
In the package it had simple simple three step instructions to get the cameras up and running. You basically download the Blink app on Apple or Android and create an account, plug in and add your sync module then connect it to Wi-Fi, then connect the cameras and mount them where you please.
Our home is a rental and has vinyl siding on the outside so drilling was not an option for us. We found and decided to go with these (10 Pack) Vinyl Clips Outdoor Siding Mount for less than $10. These were a super easy way to mount our cameras outside to get the perfect angles of security coverage for our home.
The Blink XT2 has been very durable over the last year for us. It has gone through two hurricanes, multiple tropical storms and tornado watches, flash flood producing rain storms, very hot and humid summer days, and below freezing winter mornings. The only issue I can recall having with connection is when we switched internet providers but a quick and easy call to their customer service resolved our issue and got our cameras back up to protect our home.
Pros:
- Affordable
- Easy to setup and use
- Peace of mind home security
Cons:
- uses batteries quickly depending on settings
- connectivity issues with Wi-Fi can occur
- narrow field of view
The set of three Blink XT2 cameras that I bought on Amazon one year ago are unfortunately no longer available. They have been replaced by an new model (All-new Blink Outdoor – wireless, weather-resistant HD security camera with two-year battery life and motion detection – 3 camera kit) that seems to have the same performance but an updated look. This new version will also connect and work with the older Blink XT2 cameras.
The Blink XT2 for my family was an affordable and easy to use option that continues to provide security and peace of mind for our home. I would buy this product again and would (I have in the past) recommend this product to friends and family.