Wireless security cam Blink goes from sleep to recording in less than a second

Keeping an eye on your home when youre not there comes with trade-offs. Connected security cameras can be costly and difficult to install. They usually require constant power, and the ones that dont run off batteries that need to be recharged. Ive tested a few of these cameras and found that, at least for me, the annoyances generally outweigh the benefits of being able to peek in on my living room from my desk at work.

Blink addresses a few of the key problems with many home security cameras. It doesnt need to be plugged in, which gives you much more freedom in where you can place it. Its inexpensive, so you can set up multiple cameras and see more places in your house. And it uses intelligent power-saving technology so you dont have to constantly charge its batterya convenience made possible by creator Immedia Semiconductors own chip, designed in house.

See, Blink is a home security camera and a demonstration of Immedias technology. End users like you and me who order the Blink cameras on Kickstarter are customers, but Immedia also sources its semiconductors to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) across several technology markets, including home monitoring. Immedia cofounder Don Shulsinger explained to me that by crowdfunding Blink on Kickstarter, Immedia can not only sell a finished product directly to consumers, but also prove to its OEM partners that they should adopt Immedias chips for their own products. With the Kickstarter campaign a runaway success, the company has already shown that there's demand for Blink's unique set of features.

Blink can be wall-mounted, corner-mounted, or sit on a shelf.

Each Blink camera has a motion sensor and a temperature sensor, and connects to your home Wi-Fi network. But you don't have to set up multiple cameras one by one. Instead, the Blink system also comes with a sync module that plugs into the wall. When you fire up the smartphone app (for Android or iOS), youre communicating with the sync module, which then in turn sets up the network of camerasShulsinger told me that Immedia has tested one sync module with 10 cameras, and suspects itll work with up to 16. Then you can put the wireless, battery-operated cameras anywhere, up to 100 feet away from the sync module, as long as theyre within range of your Wi-Fi network.

To minimize the chore of keeping that many Blink cameras charged, the system keeps the cameras at zero power when they arent being used. Recordings are triggered by motion sensors, so Blink also has to start up quickly to be able to actually record whatever the sensor detectedif the hardware takes a few seconds to boot up, the burglar who tripped the motion sensor could be in the kitchen making a sandwich by the time the camera by the front door captures any video. Shulsinger says the Blink cameras can wake up and start recording in a fraction of a second.

Blink can start recording in under a second, then send the data to the cloud in a single burst. Push notifications arrive to your iOS and Android phone.

The system defaults to 5-second recordings in response to the motion sensor or the onboard temperature sensor, but you can tweak that duration in the app, as well as check in on the cameras manually, of course. And the cameras dont stream the video up to the cloud; they compress it and send it up over Wi-Fi in one short burst. Because Immedia controls both the hardware and the software in Blink, Shulsinger told me that the system can squeeze up to a year of battery life out of each Blink camera. Thats something I cant wait to test, but even if that estimate turns out to be high, it would have to be off by a lot to approach the battery life of a competitor named Butterfleye, which I saw in prototype form in May.

Like Blink, Butterfleye is a wireless, rechargeable, sensor-equipped security camera. Unlike Blink, it's totally self-contained, so it works without a sync module or other base station. But it also only goes about two weeks between charges, and costs significantly more$199 to preorder, versus a current price of $69 to preorder the Blink. Along with a motion detector, Butterfleye uses iBeacon and Wi-Fi geofencing, plus thermal sensors, to decide when to record and when to stay asleep, while Blink focuses on power consumption by staying asleep most of the time and then blinking awake in a flash.

You can check in on your home from the app at any time.

Follow this link:
Wireless security cam Blink goes from sleep to recording in less than a second