By default, your system is disarmed when setting up a new system. When armed, your cameras detect motion and send motion notifications. To save motion clips, you must have a storage option in place. Learn more about available storage options.

Arming your system

To arm your system:

• Tap Armed at the bottom of the Home screen of the system you wish to arm. A confirmation message will appear once the system has been armed.

You can also arm your system using:

• Scheduling: Set your system to automatically arm at specific times with Scheduled Arming.
• Alexa: Arm your system using the Blink SmartHome Alexa Skill.

The following table refers to how a single camera works when you arm/disarm your system:

*When adding a camera to your system, motion detection is enabled by default. To receive motion notifications, motion detection must be enabled. Motion detection can be enabled or disabled individually for each camera.

**To save motion recordings, a storage option is required. Learn more about available storage options.

To adjust your camera’s motion detection settings, from the Home screen, tap the More button  located in the lower-right corner of the device thumbnail, then select Device Settings > Motion Settings.

The table below explains the various icons you may encounter:

Icons	Description
	System is disarmed.
	Motion Detection is on.
	Motion Detection is off.
	Motion Detection is on and Snooze* is active.

*When Snooze is active, your cameras will still record motion if you have a storage option in place, but motion notifications will be paused. Learn more about snoozing motion notifications.

Disarming your system

When your system is disarmed, your cameras won’t record motion events or send motion notifications to your mobile device. 

To disarm your system:

• Tap Disarmed at the bottom of the Home screen. A confirmation message will appear once the system has been disarmed.

Frequently asked questions

Use this article to understand how to turn Motion Detection On or Off.

By default, Motion Detection is On for every camera in your system.

When Motion Detection is On for a camera:

• The Motion Detection icon (Running Man) appears on the Home screen next to More  for each of your camera thumbnails.
• You’ll receive motion notifications for motion events on your mobile device once you have armed your system. 
• If you have a Blink Subscription Plan or trial or are using Local Storage with a Sync Module 2 and USB drive, motion events are recorded as motion clips. If you aren’t subscribing to a Blink Subscription Plan or don’t have Local Storage, no motion clips are saved. Learn more about Blink storage options for motion clips.

When Motion Detection is Off for a camera:

• The Motion Detection icon (Running Man) changes to .
• You won’t receive motion notifications on your mobile device.
• Motion clips won’t be recorded and saved in your storage location.

How to activate it

In the lower right of the camera thumbnail, tap More, and then tap Motion Detection . This turns the  Motion Detection setting On or Off.

• A message displays at the top of your camera thumbnail confirming Motion Detection has been turned On or Off.
• means Motion Detection is On and the camera is actively watching for motion.
• means Motion Detection is Off for that camera.

Note: The Motion Detection setting can also be accessed by tapping More > Device Settings.

Turning off Motion Detection

If you have a Blink Subscription Plan or trial and you want a specific camera in your system to record motion clips, turning off Motion Detection may be a solution.

For example, you want notifications for a visitor arriving at your ‘Front door’ camera, but you don’t want to be notified of motion events seen by your indoor ‘Living Room’ camera. In this scenario, Motion Detection is On for the ‘Front door’, and Off for the ‘Living Room’.

• When the system is Armed, all motion seen by ‘Front door’ creates a notification, but all motion seen by ‘Living Room’ will not.
• When the system is Armed, video clips are recorded for ‘Front door’ events, but no motion clips are recorded from the ‘Living Room’.
• When the system is Disarmed, no notifications are sent, and clips won’t be recorded by either camera.

Snooze

Alternatively, if you want to temporarily disable Motion Detection, you can use Snooze. Learn more about How to Snooze Motion Notifications.

Settings memory

Each time your system is Armed, your settings will stay the same. Cameras that have Motion Detection On or Off remain that way until you change them.

Turning Motion Detection On or Off within Device Settings

You can also turn Motion Detection On or Off through your camera’s Device Settings.

Note: This setting functions the same as turning Motion Detection on or off through More.

1. From your camera thumbnail, tap  More here  .
2. Tap Device Settings.
3. Tap Motion Settings. 
4. The first setting is Motion Detection. Tap the toggle to turn On or Off.
   

The Snooze option allows you to temporarily pause the sending of motion event notifications to your mobile device. The camera, however, will continue to record clips.

Snooze automatically disables the pause after the desired length of time has been reached. If you’re subscribing to a Blink Subscription Plan, you can use Custom Snooze, which lets you specify the length in 1-minute increments up to 24 hours.

Turning on Snooze

1. On your camera thumbnail, tap More 
2. Tap the Snooze button and then select how long you want the Snooze to last.
   • Select 30 minutes (default) or up to 4 hours. If you want to cancel, tap the back arrow.
3. Once you’ve chosen your snooze length, tap Start Snooze. 
   • If you’d like the Snooze to apply to all of the cameras in your system, check the box next to Apply to all devices.
   • When your camera’s notifications are snoozed, the Snooze icon  will appear to the left of Motion Detection .

Turning off Snooze

To end an active Snooze early, tap the solid blue button. A confirmation message displays the amount of snooze time remaining.

• The Snooze icon will switch back to grey .
• Tap the Apply to all devices checkbox to end Snooze for all cameras in the system.
  
  

Setting Custom Snooze notifications

When you have a Blink Plus Subscription Plan or trial, you can set a Custom timeframe for snoozing your motion notifications and enter any time increment from 1 minute and up to 24 hours. Learn more about Blink Subscription Plans extra features and benefits for your devices.

1. Tap the More button on the Home screen and select Notification Snooze and then Custom.

2. Select the amount of time to snooze your notifications and then tap Start Snooze. You have the flexibility to select any time between 1 minute and 24 hours to stop your notifications. Your set Custom Snooze time will then appear as a notification on the Home screen.

Activity Zones are available for all Blink cameras. Setting Activity Zones allows you to eliminate areas in your camera field of view that may be causing too many motion notifications. 

For example, if your Outdoor camera view has a tree or bush that is triggering unwanted motion clips, you can adjust your Activity Zones to exclude that area. The camera will ignore the motion occurring in the activity zone to prevent sending unwanted motion notifications.

Creating Activity Zones

1. Choose the camera that you want to add Activity Zones to and tap More. Then select Device Settings.
2. From Device Settings, select Motion Settings and then tap Motion Zones.
3. On the Activity Zones screen, the most recent thumbnail is shown with a grid pattern.
   Tap Update Photo to refresh the thumbnail image so your settings are accurate.
4. Select your desired inactive Activity Zones by tapping on the rectangle you’d like to isolate. A selected area will become greyed out. The area within the grey square won’t detect motion even if motion occurs.

In the example below, bushes and plants are chosen as inactive Activity Zones since these outdoor elements may cause unnecessary motion events.

Note: The Advanced option on the Motion Zones screen is only available for Mini 2, Outdoor 4, Wired Floodlight, Indoor and Outdoor (3rd Gen) and XT2 cameras. This allows you to zoom into the thumbnail for a more precise zone selection. When using the Advanced option, swipe to move the view and tap to select areas that are active or inactive for motion detection. When you’ve finished, tap Save.

5. After you’ve selected your desired inactive Activity Zones, tap Done. To make all zones active and restart the process, tap Reset Zones.

Privacy Zones

Privacy Zones allow you to block off areas in your camera view that won’t be recorded. This is only available for the Mini 2, Outdoor 4, Wired Floodlight, Video Doorbell and Indoor and Outdoor (3rd Gen) cameras. Learn about on-camera Privacy Zones.

Troubleshooting

A Privacy Zone is an area you select that won’t be recorded by your camera. For example, you may want to exclude a neighbour’s door or window from being viewed or recorded by your camera. Up to two Privacy Zones can be set and they are easily recognised as grey areas of the screen.

Note: Privacy Zones are only available for the Mini 2, Outdoor 4, Wired Floodlight, Video Doorbell and Indoor and Outdoor (3rd Gen) cameras. 

Creating Privacy Zones

1. Choose the camera that you want to add Activity Zones to and tap More  located in the lower-right corner of the device thumbnail to access Device Settings.
2. From Device Settings, select Motion Settings and then tap Motion Zones.
3. On the Motion Zones screen, tap Privacy Zones at the top.
   The most recent thumbnail is shown with a grid pattern. Tap Update Photo to refresh the thumbnail image so your settings are accurate.
4. Tapping Reset Privacy Zones deletes the existing zones. Privacy Zones cannot be edited, only deleted (reset) and recreated.
5. Tap and drag on the screen to draw up to two zones you want selected within the thumbnail image. Once zones have been created, they can be moved and resized by dragging on the blue dots at the corners of each zone.
6. After your zones have been drawn, tap Done to save them. You can tap Save to apply all settings changes and be sent to the Home screen.
7. If you tap Zones again, the Zones screen now shows the Privacy Zones in black to help contrast with Activity Zones, which are grey in the Activity Zone view.

This article describes how to adjust the Retrigger Time for your Blink camera. 

Retrigger Time is the amount of time between the end of a motion capture and the beginning of a new motion event. During the retrigger time, your camera doesn’t record motion events. 

By default, the system will capture a five-second clip and wait for the retrigger time of 30 seconds. If motion continues, the camera will capture another five-second clip. Retrigger Time can be adjusted under Device Settings.

Note: Each camera in your system has an individual Retrigger Time setting.

Adjusting the Retrigger Time

1. From the Home screen, tap the More  button and then select Device Settings.
2. From the Device Settings screen, tap Motion Settings.
3. In Motion Settings, you can adjust the Retrigger Time value from 10 to 60 seconds. To increase the retrigger time, move the slider to the right, and to decrease the delay, move the slider to the left.
   • The longer the retrigger time is set, your camera allows more time between notifying you of the next motion event it detects. This is useful if your camera views an area where motion occurs often or if you’re getting false triggers.
4. When you have this setting where you want it, tap Save.

Test your settings

After you have set your desired Retrigger Time, arm your Blink system and then walk through the field of view of your adjusted camera. You’ll receive a motion alert on your screen. Continue to walk through the field of view of this camera for the length of your delay. You’ll receive a second motion alert when your system has captured another clip. If the retrigger time was too short or too long between captured clips, return to camera settings to fine-tune.

Your Blink camera captures motion based on heat moving across the camera's field. The total size of heat objects and amount of motion together cause a motion event. Your camera's Sensitivity setting adjusts how much input it takes to send you a notification.

Low sensitivity is less responsive, so a larger amount of heat and motion are needed to cause a notification. The highest setting may cause alerts from blowing leaves or even shadows.

If you are receiving too many notifications with nothing interesting, try reducing the Sensitivity down two levels. If that is effective, test by arming the system, and walking in the field of view when Motion Detection is on, to make sure a human sized object will trigger a notification.

Be careful if you tap the notification and enter Live View with your microphone or speakers on, significantly loud feedback may occur. Tap mute speaker in the upper right corner of the Live View.

Each camera has an individual sensitivity setting. You can find this in the Camera Settings for each camera in your system.

Choosing High or Low Sensitivity

The sensitivity setting on your camera not only depends on what is making the movement, but how long the movement is occurring. 

• High sensitivity means less motion over a shorter period of time will create a notification.
• Low sensitivity means more movement over a longer period of time will create a notification. 

The motion can be a big or small object, or a lot of small objects. Motion detection depends on where the object is in relation to the camera lens. For example, a bird flying close to the camera can be perceived as bigger than the person walking on the sidewalk in the distance. A person walking directly toward the camera will produce less motion than a dog walking left to right across the camera's field of view. It's about the amount of motion that's occurring within the detection zone of the camera and not necessarily how large the object is.

Testing sensitivity for your home camera

1. Tap More on your camera's thumbnail and select Device Settings .
2. Select Motion Settings.
3. On Motion Sensitivity, move the slider two or three increments to the left for a lower numeric setting. Tap Save to save this setting and walk out of the frame of view of this camera.
4. From the main screen of the Blink app, set your system to Armed to enable Motion Detection.
5. Test the camera sensitivity by introducing movement.
6. If the sensitivity is not successful, reduce the slider more, save, and try again.
7. If you have adjusted the sensitivity to your liking, proceed to test with a larger moving object, such as yourself. Walk in front of your camera and check to see if the setting gives the desired motion alert.
8. If the lowest sensitivity continues to cause an unwanted Motion notification, you may need to create an Activity Zone instead. Learn more about setting Activity Zones.

Learn more

• Understanding placement of your Blink Cameras
• Understanding Motion Detection

When Early Notification has been enabled, your camera sends an alert when motion is first detected. If not enabled, Motion Alerts are sent after the Motion Clip has been saved. Learn more about Motion Detection and Notifications.

Early Notification is determined by clip length settings, network speeds, etc., and it is available for the following Blink devices:

• Blink Outdoor and Indoor (3rd Gen)
• Mini
• XT2

Early Notification is enabled by default and cannot be turned off on the Blink Mini 2, Outdoor 4, Wired Floodlight and Video Doorbell.

Why would I use Early Notification?

A real advantage of Early Notification is being able to enter Live View if you tap the Motion Alert notification, when you’re within the timeframe of that clip length or five seconds after. As a result, you can interact with visitors using two-way voice or view whatever triggered the motion alert within a few seconds of receiving your notification.

Note: If you pass the five-second timeframe after the clip has ended, you’ll automatically be taken to the Clip List screen with no clip selected.

Can I save the Live View session?

If you have an active Blink Subscription Plan‍ and your camera supports recording the Live View session, a Save / Discard toggle appears in the live view. When the toggle is set to Save, the current session records until the timeout, or when you stop the Live View by tapping Close.

How do I use Early Notification?

To enable Early Notification:

1. Tap the More  button located in the lower-right corner of the device thumbnail.
2. Tap Device Settings.
3. Tap Motion Settings.
4. Toggle on Early Notification.

Early Notification is off by default for Blink cameras, as shown in the image.

How to enable the setting

1. From the Home screen, tap More on your desired camera and then tap Device Settings.
2. From the Device Settings screen, tap Video and Photo Settings.
3. Find End Clip Early If Motion Stops. Tap the switch to turn it on.

Note: Not available for the Wired Floodlight Camera.

What does it do?

When this setting is switched on, your camera stops recording a video clip if motion is no longer occurring before the Clip Length reaches its stopping point.

For example, let’s say your Clip Length is set to record for 30 seconds after motion has been detected and a car passes by your camera view.

• Setting off: The camera will keep recording until the set Clip Length has been reached. In this example, the clip would be 30 seconds long.
• Setting on: Your camera would record the clip of the car passing by and end immediately afterwards if no more motion occurs.

This feature may not always end the clip early under certain conditions.