Blink Mini 2 review – is this gateway camera right for you?

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

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).

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.