The Blink Mini 2 is a decent little entry-level cam for the price. I’d personally shell out more for clearer, less saturated images without a fishbowl effect, and also for a camera which pans and tilts, but then I like to splash the cash. Instead Blink is a good first buy – and has the potential to be brilliant if you have more than one of them.
Pros
+
Straightforward to set up and use
+
Extremely affordable
+
Can delineate privacy and activity zones
+
Blink Moments (when it gets out of beta)
Cons
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No battery-operated option
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Its view can easily be obstructed
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Doesn’t support Google Home or Apple HomeKit
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Subscription fees can mount up
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The Blink Mini 2 is definitely one of the best cheap security cameras. Like Ring, Blink security cams are made by Amazon, but they’re more affordable - and have fewer features as a result.
The Blink Mini 2 is tiny and inconspicuous, so it would be the perfect cam to hide if you wanted to monitor your house but didn’t want others to know. Now, ahem, of course I’m not suggesting you do anything underhand or untoward – but if you do happen to share your house with paranoid people and need to check everything’s okay when you’re not at home, this is just the ticket.
The Mini 2 comes in a small box. If you’re planning on using it outdoors, you can buy it in a bundle for about a £9 more, and then it’ll come with a massive whopping weather-resistant power adapter for outdoor use. So you can use the Mini 2 indoors or outdoors, but for the purposes of my convenience, let’s assume you’ll be using it indoors.
Compared to its predecessor the Blink Mini, the Blink Mini 2 can detect people, be used outdoors, and it also offers night vision.
Blink Mini 2 Specifications
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Resolution
1080P
Field of View
143-degrees (diagonal)
Night Vision
Yes
Frame rate
30fps
Subscription storage
Yes – $3/month or £2.50/month
Battery
No
Ingress protection
Yes (outdoor connection kit option)
Operating temperature
-20 to 45°C
Dimensions
51x51x40 mm
Weight
65g / 0.14 pounds (excluding connector)
Live view
5 min max without subscription, up to 90 minutes with
Blink Mini 2: Price and Availability
The Blink Mini 2’s RRP is $39.99 or £34.99, which is cheap for an indoor/outdoor cam. Don’t quote me, but it’ll probably be even cheaper on Black Friday!
You will also need a subscription to use some of the features after the first 30 days – this is at least $3 / month or $30 a year in the USA, or £2.50 a month / £24.99 a year in the UK (rising for multiple cameras).
The main contents of the box. Alas, they don’t give you pretty flowers. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
Blink Mini 2: Build and handling
The actual Blink Mini 2 camera alone (not attached to its stand) is ridiculously light at just 65 grams. To put that into perspective, the lightest letter you can send through the post is a maximum of 100 grams. The Mini 2 sits comfortably in the palm of your hand, but you probably won’t be handling it much.
As far as looks go, it’s unexceptional (or, as my 13-year-old daughter would say, ‘Meh!’). The casing is a very light grey in a matte finish, so will slot neatly into any interior scheme. The cam is also unobtrusive, so burglars probably won’t notice it.
You scan the QR code at the back to set it up. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
You plug it in, install the Blink Home Monitor app, create an account and are asked if you want to add your device to an existing network (I created a new network called Blinkety Blink). Once you’ve scanned the QR code on the back of the device and linked it to your Wi-Fi, the app will automatically enrol you in a 30-day free Plus Plan trial, giving you unlimited cloud video storage for a month.
I don’t own multiple Blink cameras, but if you do, Blink is beta-testing a feature called Blink Moments, which ‘automatically groups related clips across your cameras, so you can see what’s happening around your home’. Nifty.
A noteworthy improvement over the original Blink Mini is the prospect of putting the device outdoors – but that does require buying the 'Weather Resistant Adaptor' at additional cost.
(Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
Blink Mini 2: Performance
The Blink Mini 2 is very reliable and performs well, whether the light in the room is dim or bright. The image quality isn’t the best and it only has a static view, but it’s very sensitive to motion and the audio is reasonable for such a competitively-priced cam.
A very dim fishbowl view of my bedroom taken at 10am with bright light streaming through the windows (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
The first thing I noticed when accessing the live view of my bed was that I was a sort of Donald Trump orange colour. Now, I’m a brown woman, but this looked like I’d gone to an Essex beauty salon for several applications of their deepest spray tan. I haven’t even been abroad on holiday this year. Basically, the colour of the whole room was much darker and more saturated. I have no idea why it was so dim, as bright sunshine was filtering into the room and it was much brighter than the cam shots would suggest.
Dale Winton, eat your heart out! Another dim, heavily saturated shot taken in bright sunshine. (Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
Secondly, it was clear that the camera had a kind of fish-bowl lens. The walls on the live view were curved, with the bed headboard sloping inwards, along with the three pictures above it. The same was true of the wardrobes along the other side. It was slightly bizarre viewing my bedroom in Blink’s parallel universe.
(Image credit: Ariane Sherine)
Blink Mini 2: Overall Verdict
If you’re taking your first steps into the world of home security cameras, this is a good first buy which you can customise to your liking in Settings. Because of the price point, there are no real bells and whistles, though there is a bright light and an alarm.
The cam is similar to alternatives from Ring in that you can enable motion detection, choose which notifications you want and the type of recordings you want saved, and adjust the motion sensitivity with a slider. You can even select ‘activity zones’ and ‘privacy zones’ from a grid – useful given that I’d set it up facing my bed, though it lacks the physical privacy guard some cameras offer.
The resolution was far less sharp than 4K cameras I’ve tried, which is definitely to be expected for the price, but say what you will about Amazon (and people definitely do) but I’ve always found them to be really good with returns and customer service issues.
The prospect of the Blink Moments feature is interesting too, but of course extra cameras also increase your subscription charges! On the subject of additional cost, even the 'live view' (just looking through the camera on your phone) is limited to 5 minutes at a time unless you cough up the subscription fee!
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Features
Good for an entry-level home security cam (and have the potential to get better with Moments)
★★★☆☆
Design
Blends unobtrusively into the average home interior.
★★★★☆
Performance
Reliable and consistent and adapts well to different lights (though skintones definitely don't seem right, especially when there is backlighting).
★★★☆☆
Value
You get a lot of bang for not much buck (but think about the long term!)
★★★★☆
✅ Buy it...
You can easily set privacy and activity zones.
If you’re new to home security cams.
🚫 Don't buy it...
If you’d prefer your camera to pan and tilt.
If you’d like more bells and whistles.
Alternatives
The Blink Mini Pan-Tilt is only a bit more cash on Amazon but would allow you to see much more of your room (though you do only get the older Blink Mini camera atop it for now).
The Ring Indoor 2nd Gen is a similar concept. It is a little taller and perhaps more noticeable in the home but, in exchange, it has a physical privacy guard which can be closed in front of the camera lens.
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Ariane Sherine is an author and journalist on many subjects including interiors, and singer-songwriter (under the artist name Ariane X). She has written for the Guardian, Times, Independent, Telegraph, Spectator, Mail, New Statesman, Esquire, NME, Sun and Metro. She regularly appears on television and radio.
She's also written comedy for the BBC and Channel 4, and is still known worldwide for the 2008 Atheist Bus Campaign, featuring adverts on buses which proclaimed 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life' sponsored by Richard Dawkins.
As a result, Ariane went on to edit and compile the bestselling celebrity charity anthology The Atheist's Guide to Christmas (HarperCollins). She has also written three self-help books for major publisher Hachette: Talk Yourself Better, How to Live to 100 and The How of Happy (the last two co-written with public health consultant David Conrad). Ariane's debut novel Shitcom was published in 2021, and is a hilarious body swap comedy. Her latest book is the biography The Real Sinéad O'Connor by White Owl Books.
