If your Blink camera stops detecting motion or recording events when it should, there are some fixes you can try.

I noticed this issue when my Blink camera stopped detecting cars passing on the street at certain times of the day. So I went online to figure out how to solve this and found several fixes.

You are viewing: Why Is My Blink Camera Not Detecting Motion

I made this troubleshooting guide so that you can fix your Blink camera if it is not detecting motion.

If your Blink camera is not detecting motion, check if the motion detection is turned on and the Blink camera is armed. Next, check misconfigured activity and private zones. You could also check for wifi and IR issues. If the issue persists, power cycles the WiFi, and reset the camera and sync module.

These are fixes you can try regardless of the type of Blink camera you have (Blink mini, Blink indoor, Blink outdoor, Blink XT2, and Blink XT).

I have also mentioned a couple of other fixes you can try if the issue persists after basic troubleshooting.

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Blink Camera Not Detecting Motion: Best Fixes

The most common reason a Blink camera doesn’t detect motion is that motion detection is not enabled or the camera is not armed in the Blink camera settings. Other reasons include low sensitivity settings, activity zones being turned on, wrong IR settings, and exceeding the maximum range.

I’ll walk you through each fix you can try in the next sections.

If you prefer a video walkthrough, here’s a hands-on troubleshooting video for your blink camera not detecting motion.

Turn on Motion Detection

This is the most basic fix you can try.

Motion detection can be manually turned on or off in Blink cameras.

To do this, go to Camera Settings> Motion Detection and toggle Enable.

Ensure Blink Camera is Armed

When you set up your Blink camera for the first time the default state of the camera is disarmed.

What do the terms, armed and disarmed mean in Blink camera settings? If your Blink camera system is armed, it detects motion events and starts recording motion.

What this means is that your Blink camera will not detect motion unless it’s armed, even if motion detection is enabled in your camera settings.

To arm your Blink camera, follow these steps in your Blink app:

Go to the camera view, and toggle from disarmed to armed at the bottom of the screen.

As the second step, tap on the running man to turn it blue. This sets motion detection on for the “Garage” camera.

If the running man sign is grey in color, motion detection is off for that view.

Check Misconfigured Activity zones

Blink camera has the option to mask off zones in your camera view where you don’t want to detect any motion.

These zones could be objects that move often and trigger false alarms, such as a tree branch or a bush that moves often.

If your Blink camera is not detecting motion, you should check if there are activity zones set incorrectly in your Blink Home Monitor app.

If you suspect this could be an issue, reset zones in your app and see if that fixes the motion detection issue.

To do this, go to settings > activity zones, and tap on reset zones.

Check Misconfigured Activity zones

Privacy zones are zones in your camera view that you don’t want your Blink camera to view or record.

This could be a neighbor’s door, or your own bedroom door, which you don’t want the camera to either stream live or record due to privacy reasons.

Just like activity zones, you want to make sure there are no misconfigured privacy zones in your camera view.

To do this, go to settings > privacy zones, and tap on reset privacy zones.

Note that the privacy zones feature is available only in Blink Video Doorbell, Indoor (gen 2), and Outdoor cameras.

This issue is also easily detected as privacy zones are masked with grey color in your camera view.

WiFi Issues on Blink

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In general, the WiFi strength required for the smooth working of a Blink camera is much higher than what you would need to browse the internet on your phone.

The WiFi signal strength at your camera should be 3 bars for smooth running. Sometimes live view might also be affected if your WiFi is weak.

If you don’t get 3 bars at your camera, you need to boost your WiFi strength to improve the internet connection of your camera.

An obvious solution is to move the camera closer to your WiFi router. However, this can affect the optimal placement of the camera.

The best way to do this is to use a WiFi mesh system in place of having just a single router.

An affordable solution is the 3-pack Amazon eero mesh WiFi system which gives you three hubs that you can place at key points in your house for a strong WiFi network at your Blink camera.

Although you might be tempted to go with a WiFi extender, I strongly recommend you choose a mesh WiFi system for your Blink camera.

If you have several Blink cameras in your home, a single mesh network is much easier to connect to rather than extenders with different SSIDs.

The second important requirement is that your WiFi signal should be in the 2.4 GHz frequency band for it to work with your camera.

Most WiFi routers (dual band) have two frequency bands: a 2.4 GHz one and a 5 GHz one. While a PC or phone works fine on a 5 GHz band, security cameras operate only in the 2.4 GHz band.

The advantage of the 2.4 GHz band is that works better over large distances compared to the 5 GHz bands.

If you stick to the tips mentioned above, you are sure to steer away from connectivity and other issues on most monitoring Cam. SimpliSafe Camera not detecting motion being one of those issues.

Infrared (IR) Issues on Blink

Blink cameras (indoor, outdoor, and video) detect motion through a technology called Passive Infrared (PIR).

It detects motion by sensing the heat emitted by a thing (humans, animals, cars, etc.)

PIR is a reasonably inexpensive sensor technology and it does have its flaws.

The most common drawback is that it doesn’t work through glass. If your Blink camera is behind a glass window, it’s not going to detect any movement on the other side of the glass.

Do not place a Blink indoor or Blink mini camera from inside your home and point it outside through the window, since it may induce issues like Blink Cam output in black and white.

Invest in a Blink outdoor camera and place it outside your house for outdoor motion detection.

Blink cameras must also not be pointed directly at the sun. Instead, it should be tilted so that it can detect the surroundings of your house.

Excess sunlight entering the camera can hamper its motion detection ability.

In general, all PIR-based cameras detect sideways much better than motion straight toward the camera.

What this means is that if you want to detect someone who’s coming towards the front door of your house, you should mount the camera somewhere to the side of the door.

Do not mount the camera right above the door, as it can result in poor motion detection.

Remember to peel off the sticker that’s on top of the sensor of your camera before you mount your camera as it can affect motion sensing ability.

Blink Camera Motion Detection Issues at Night

If your motion detection issue happens only at night, the Infrared (IR) settings or the night vision might be causing the issue.

The first step is to see if IR is turned on in settings.

To check this, go to Camera Settings > Nightvision, and toggle control to either auto or on.

I recommend you keep it at auto.

Change IR intensity to high.

If this doesn’t solve your issue, you might have to provide extra IR illumination to your Blink camera.

The best option here is to use an IR flood light that will help your Blink camera in detecting better at night.

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IR flood lights can’t be seen by the human eye, so you will get the darkness you need at night.

Sensitivity Setting

Blink camera sensitivity can be tweaked to prevent false alarms from pets walking in the field of the camera.

Sensitivity can be set from a low value (1) to the highest value (9).

Ensure that the sensitivity is not set too low in your camera, as that can prevent your motion sensor from performing correctly.

A typical example would be a camera placed inside a garage. You’ll need to dial up the sensitivity in this case as a garage is a low-activity area.

Maximum Range of your Blink Camera

Sometimes the motion could be happening outside the maximum detection range of your camera.

Blink Cameras have a maximum range of 20 feet where they can detect motion.

In fact, the best range of detection for a Blink camera is between 5 and 20 feet (1.5 to 6m) of the camera.

This means if the motion happens extremely close to your camera, Blink might not detect or record that event.

Subscription Expired: Blink Camera Not Recording

If your actual issue is that Blink is not recording events rather than detecting them, then you might be facing an issue with storing the data from your camera.

All Blink devices come with a 30-day free trial of Blink subscription plus, which stores photos and videos from your camera in the amazon cloud.

Once you are past 30 days, you need to either subscribe to a Blink subscription (cloud storage), or connect a USB flash drive (local storage) to your sync module.

Note that the USB flash drive option is available only in sync module 2 and not in the original sync module.

So, check if your subscription is live or if a USB flash drive is connected to your sync module if your camera isn’t recording events.

If you have multiple Blink cameras, you’ll need to buy a Blink subscription plus plan that costs $10/month.

You can also check our dedicated article on how to tell if your Blink camera is recording.

Power Cycle WiFi, Reset Camera, and Reset Sync Module

Try turning your WiFi router/modem off and back on to see if that fixes the issue.

If your Blink camera uses batteries, check if the battery power is too low.

Check if your firmware is updated as that can sometimes affect motion detection.

As a last resort in camera troubleshooting, you can try resetting your Blink camera and sync module.

Note that you’ll need to reconfigure your camera system from scratch if you reset your camera.

To reset your blink camera, look for the reset button on the device.

In Blink mini, the reset button is on the underside of the camera. In Blink outdoor, indoor, XT2, and XT, the reset button is on the backside of the camera.

Long press the reset button for 5 seconds until the red and blue lights start flashing on your camera. This indicates the reset is complete.

At this point, you need to reconnect your camera to your home system.

Conclusion

Your Blink camera might not be detecting motion due to any of the reasons above. You need to try and rule out each issue before you can conclude that your device is faulty.

In case it’s faulty, Blink cameras have a one-year warranty using which you can get your device replaced if it’s within one year of purchase.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why is my Blink camera not showing Video?

If you are trying to view the camera feed through the Blink app, ensure your WiFi is working properly. You need three bars at your camera for the device to work correctly.

If you are using Echo Show or Alexa, you need to enable the camera in the app settings.

Does Blink camera connect to Wi-Fi or Sync module?

Blink cameras connect to the Blink sync module and through that to the WiFi router in your home.

Without the sync module, the camera cannot connect to the internet. This means your Blink camera is almost useless without a sync module.

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