My wife got her Dad a Blink video doorbell for his birthday a week ago. She asked if I wouldn't mind installing it for him since I successfully installed our Ring doorbell a few years prior, and I agreed.
A week and three tinkering sessions later, I can conclude that while the Blink does indeed function as a video doorbell, the app and the installation instructions for the device leave a lot to be desired.
What I was expecting: Since I had installed our own Ring, I was expecting that level of compentency from the app and instructions: Smooth flow through every step necessary to connect the camera to our existing doorbell writing and fluid connection between the doorbell and our other Amazon devices.
What I got: Incomplete instructions that left me guessing why the video feed from the camera wasn't showing up in the app or on any of the connected Amazon devices.
There was one particular problem that wasn't Amazon's fault, though it did befuddle me for a while: The existing doorbell wiring was shorting out on the aluminum cladding around the doorjamb. That was preventing the doorbell from connecting at all to the other devices, but once I figured that out I was able to get the camera to communicate.
Alas, no video.
But here I felt that the instructions were incomplete. I recalled from the Ring installation that there was a step involving the existing doorbell chime that the Blink installation instructions seemed to have omitted. I set that concern aside as I struggled with the obvious problem: Sound seemed to work (though the existing chime didn't) but it was the video that was not. I spent a good hour today poking around in the camera settings and also in the Alexa settings to no avail.
But the chime problem kept nagging me.
So I found a setting that concerned testing the existing chime for functionality. I followed that bit of instruction -- left out of the original setup -- and the chime worked. And so, magically, did the video feed. Clearly in the app's logic tree was the fact that the chime function had to be confirmed for the "connected to home wiring" loop to close. Keep that in mind when installing your own Blink.
Anyway, the app/instructions for the Blink, in omitting this step, are flawed. A user shouldn't have to struggle over hours trying to guess why the video connection wasn't working only to figure out that the chime functionality closed the home wiring loop and made the whole shebang work. If that's essential, it should be included in the initial setup.
My father-in-law is pretty happy with the setup now that it's working, and I'm certainly glad it's all working now. But getting it to work shouldn't have been so laborious.
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