Blink Camera Not Recording At Night: How To Fix [2023]

Blink Camera offers an affordable home security solution that surveys your household day and night, indoors and outdoors. But what will you do if your Blink Camera fails to operate at night?

Being a Blink user myself, I have had to deal with the camera not working at nighttime a couple of times.

Upon realizing that many users are experiencing similar issues with their Blink Camera, I've decided to compile a list of solutions that I found to be helpful.

If your Blink Camera is not recording at night, check and enable the Night Vision feature. If the camera has trouble detecting motion at night, increase the motion sensitivity. Network issues can also render Blink Cameras unusable. You should also update the Camera and Blink App, and if needed, factory reset the Blink Camera.

Keep reading for detailed troubleshooting steps on how to fix a Blink camera that is not recording at night.

Check and Enable Night Vision on Blink Cam

Blink Cameras come with a peculiar yet useful little feature called Night Vision. And as the name suggests, enabling Night Vision allows you to detect and record events come nighttime.

The basic principle of Night vision is that it employs an IR illuminator blasting Infrared waves onto objects and capturing the reflected waves.

Most night vision cameras employ IR illuminators to capture objects in the dark.

To check and enable the night vision on your Blink Cam, follow the steps below:

1. Open the Blink App

2. Tap on the Camera setting icon on the Blink App Home Screen. Then select Video and Photo Settings.

3. Scroll down to find 'Night Vision' listed.

Here, you can toggle the IR LED between ON or OFF, and also set it to Automatically turn on when the Camera detects low light.

Here's a video walkthrough from us that will help you troubleshoot blink camera not recording at night,

Configure the IR Intensity on Blink Cam

You can also choose the IR intensity of the Blink Camera on the same page as enabling Night Vision.

IR intensity feature determines how sensitive the Camera will be at detecting motion in low light situations.

IR intensity is configurable at three different levels - LOW, MEDIUM, and HIGH. Set to High for best results for Night Vision motion detection.

You can test and tune the IR intensity of your Camera through the live view feed.

Depending on your results, you can adjust your settings accordingly.

Increase Motion Sensitivity of Blink Cam

You can alter the motion sensitivity of your Blink Camera if you feel that objects crossing the Camera's field of view are not being registered by the Camera.

To change the motion sensitivity of the Blink Camera, follow the steps below:

1. Open the Blink App and tap on the 'Settings' icon next to the desired camera.

2. Navigate below the list to find the 'Sensitivity' slider. You can set the value between 'L' for Low and 'H' for high. If you have trouble detecting motion, set it to the maximum.

3. Tap on 'Save' to confirm the change in configuration.

From the Home Screen, arm the system to enable motion detection.

If you have pets or predictable events that you do not want to record, you can try adjusting the sensitivity slider to find the optimum sensitivity value that suits your setting.

Next to the sensitivity slider in the settings on the Blink App, you can adjust the delay in Retrigger Time. Retrigger Time is the duration the Camera takes to reset between two consecutive motion detections.

If you have set a long retrigger time, motion events that occur during the reset will not be detected or recorded.

Keep in mind that motion detection needs to be turned on for each individual Camera in the Blink App. Activity zones should be activated as well.

Check the Network Status

Proximity is a crucial aspect of modern smart gadgets. Propping up Smart Home Cameras far away from the Router/Modem could render them disconnected.

Server outages resulting from maintenance are yet another issue.

Network issues are one of the prime suspects for Blink Cameras to not arm, which could also render the Cam to not work. Even in the case of SimpliSafe Cam not detecting motion, the network plays a crucial role.

Check with your Internet Service Provider to know if any maintenance is underway that might be disrupting your network.

Your Wi-Fi network is programmed to refresh at a particular time. Your Blink Camera might be failing to record events if it does not reconnect with the network after the system resets.

Move the Sync Module Closer to the Router

Blink Camera is connected to the Wi-Fi network via the Sync module. If the network connectivity is poor, your Blink Camera might not work as intended.

A good indicator of network issues on the Sync Module is a flashing green LED.

Check the proximity of the sync module with respect to your router. Maintain a healthy distance to ensure proper connectivity.

If you feel that the Sync Module is too far from the router, check if moving them closer fixes the issue of events not being recorded by the Blink Camera.

Check for Obstructions in Blink Cams Vicinity

A definite check you should make is to ensure that there are no obstructions blocking the infrared LED illuminator responsible for lighting up the area the Blink Camera is pointing towards.

If you have a Blink Mini, it is a reported bug that if you have placed your Camera behind glass, then the Camera fails to reset itself when night turns into day.

During the first light early morning, Blink Cameras have to reconfigure themselves to adjust for the change in light.

Blink Camera might not be re-arming itself once this configuration has been completed. That could be the bug that leads to Blink Camera not recording events at night or rather, early morning.

This is a widely reported flaw with the Blink Camera software, especially in Blink Mini.

Schedule Arming on Blink Cam

If you are experiencing the reported bug in the Blink software, you can use the Schedule feature to re-arm the Blink Camera automatically.

The failure of Blink software to re-adjust with the change in light can be overcome by setting schedules during the early hours of the day.

Set schedules at 06:00 AM, 07:00 AM, and 08:00 AM to ensure that your Blink Camera rearms during these hours.

The Cameras would however be disarmed for the first 15 mins of each hour.

You can also try force-stopping the Blink App and restarting it to resolve the bug.

To access the schedule setting in the Blink App, follow the steps below:

1. Open the Blink app.

2. Navigate to the desired Camera setting

3. Tap on 'Systems' and navigate to 'Scheduling'

4. Tap on 'Weekly Schedule'.

5. Create a Schedule corresponding to the recommended time period

Enabling Schedules is indeed a creative way to turn OFF Blink Cams without the app.

Check and Update Blink App

To keep your Blink Cameras secure, ensure that you update the Blink App. The Blink Camera firmware is automatically updated over your Wi-Fi.

To enable automatic updates for your Blink App, follow the steps below:

• Open 'Settings' on your phone.
• Tap on 'General'.
• Tap on 'Software Update'.
• Tap on 'Automatic Updates'.
• Turn on Automatic Updates by toggling it.

Factory Reset Blink Cam

Factory Reset your Blink Cam if none of the other fixes seem to alleviate the issue. A factory reset will reset all customized settings to the factory defaults.

Doing so will remove all temporary files and could potentially resolve error-causing bugs.

A factory reset happens to also be a preferable fix for resolving other critical issues like Blink Photo capture not working.

To factory reset your Blink Camera, follow the steps below:

1. Locate and press the 'Reset button' next to the battery compartment.

2. Hold this button down for around 5 seconds or until the LED indicator turns off.

3. The flashing red LED indicates that the reset is underway. A blinking Blue LED with a Solid Green LED indicates the completion of the process.

Once the reset is complete, begin configuring your Camera.

Final Thoughts

And there you have it, a comprehensive guide on how to resolve Blink Camera not working at night issue.

The issue with Blink Camera failing to capture events early morning is most prevalent in Blink Minis. This bug has been reported for over 2 years but has not been mended yet by the Blink team.

And if you happen to record multiple Blink Cams simultaneously, the chances of encountering the said issue exasperated exponentially.

If you find that you have a device that is facing this bug, contact Blink customer support directly for further assistance.

The Blink Support page is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why Is My Blink Camera Black at Night?

The IR illuminator used for night vision returns a black-and-white feed. You can disable this feature from the settings tab of your Camera to make the image output normal, in color.

Why Is My Blink Camera Not Updating?

If your Blink Camera is not updating move it closer to the Sync module. Between the Camera, Wi-Fi, the Camera, and the Sync module, there should be at least 3 bars of signal strength respectively for proper connectivity. You can also power cycle both your modem and blink Camera by powering them down and back up.

How Long Do Blink Cameras Last?

Blink Camera batteries last for up to 2 years. Total usage comes up to around 70 seconds per day. Of course, battery life is susceptible to how you employ the Camera. Arming them all day could lead to lesser battery life.

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