Listen I am a really busy person… install was easy peasy, functionality could use a few patches to “bug fix” the streams and motion capturing. Also, quality of the hardware is great… the problem I have is that my camera is used for a nanny cam, and the moment I needed it the most the extension battery pack stops working all together without a hint of a video to tell how and why and what or SOMETHING!! I bought it in July. It’s not that old, 4 months of using it. I take top notch care of my belongings. What went wrong !? And to top it off I can’t even return it!!!!!? That’s just ridiculous!!!

The New Gen 4 Blink outdoor cameras are somewhat more durable housing but the rubber lens ring birds like to pull and peck at. It’s easy to install and update, my current Gen1’s Gen3’s and they have better field of view better quality even at night, they function like the older models with a few new features like person identification verification versus just a trip from motion and better sound communication A great upgrade and good price

I like how much of an area I can now view when compared to the Gen 3 Blink cameras. I also love how I can set it to just trigger when a person is near it which saves me a lot on lithium batteries. It has a great quality video too.

Do not buy this equipment!!! I have (6) Blink outdoor Gen 4 cameras as well as a video doorbell. What Blink documentation says is that when a camera detects motion that it will send a notice to the "sync 2" module which will send it to your phone. On the app on your phone there is a button labeled "pics" that will display the number of pics available to view and when you hit the pic button you get a list of pics available. You can then watch the video to see what caused the motion. The documentation says that you can pay a monthly fee to store the vids on the cloud OR you can insert a USB drive and store the vids locally. However if you use local storage the app does NOT show you the number of vids available to view. In fact you CANNOT view the vids. They are stored to local storage but you must walk to the sync 2 module and eject the USB using the app. Walk over to a computer mount the USB drive and you can view the vids. Now lets say you are at a restaurant wether locally or far away. You get a notice that motion was detected at your back door, you cannot see what caused the motion without driving home and viewing the vid on your computer. What you don't know is the guy that caused the motion is in your home and clubs you over the head and takes your wallet as well as anything else he wants. As far as I am concerned this is fraud. Of course you don't figure this out until the free trial ends and the return period on Amazon has expired. I now own $500 of useless security cameras. *************************************************************************************************** Update: Yesterday I received an e-mail from Blink support that said true, the vids button will not display the number of vids available if Local storage is being used. They don't say why. They do say you can see the vids in local storage using the app. So I asked them how. They sent an e-mail that said to select local storage from the "storage switcher menu". But it never said where to find the menu. Nowhere in the app is a storage switcher menu mentioned. Nowhere in the documentation is a storage switcher menu mentioned. I went through every path in the app and this menu is never mentioned. When using local storage the number of vids available does not show up on the vids button as it does when cloud storage is used. Why not? Even so if you hit the vids button at the top of the screen it says no recent activity - which could be wrong if in fact there was activity. I noticed at the bottom of that screen it says cloud storage followed by a downward arrow and to the far right an antenna symbol. Pushing the antenna symbol does absolutely nothing. Pushing the downward arrow, which typically means a drop down menu should appear, does absolutely nothing. Just because I had tried everything else possible I pushed on the text itself and low and behold a menu appears to select storage. Nowhere on either display page does it say storage switcher menu. Its like playing a video game and there are hidden paths to take. Now I only have local storage, so why does it say I'm using cloud storage, and why does it give me the option of selecting between cloud and local. This is a poor design and an even worse implementation. So, I selected local storage and in fact I could see my vids. This is after 2 weeks of dealing back and forth with support, and twice allowing them to take control of my system remotely. Once I was told they had to reboot my entire system including all cameras and the sync module. They said it HAD to be done remotely, doing it locally would not work. Never did anyone ask me if I had selected local storage and how to do it. So you can in fact see the vids in local storage but unless you read this review you may never figure out how. So now it is buyer beware!!! *************************************************************************************************** The second thing is their documentation says that when you plug a USB drive into the sync 2 module if it is not formatted the sync 2 module will format it. IT DOES NOT!!! Easy fix plug it into your computer and format it. The third thing is I have vids where motion was detected caused by a car moving from right to left. When you look at the vid you see one second of the car leaving the left hand side of the screen. Useless if you need to identify the car and the driver. Blink has no answer for this. Useless if your neighbors house was robbed. Fourth thing, I have one camera that issue a motion notice every 15 minutes, 24/7 without any motion occurring. Blink has no solution for this . I've told them about it 3 times. As far as I'm concerned this is fraud. Amazon ought to be upset about this and should allow me to return the product with a full refund. DO NOT BUY THIS EQUIPMENT!!!

I thought I was adding 4 rechargeable batteries to the 2 rechargeable batteries in the camera. NOT. First you remove the existing two batteries, then attach this. MORE IMPORTANTLY, neither these nor the batteries in the original camera are rechargeable! They are supposed to last a VERY LONG time. I will update if they go down too quickly.

This will not work in conjunction with another power source like a solar panel. The extension does not allow for an input cable to pass through.

I had a couple of Blink cameras that quickly ran out of battery, and these hopefully should do the trick to extend the life, in these busier locations that catch a lot of motion.

The ability to choose movement of people only vs animals or pets saves a lot of battery life and adding the battery 4 pack greatly increases having to change batteries even more.