How to Tell if Blink Camera is Recording: Easy Trick!

You've set up your blink camera, and now you want to make sure the camera is recording.

How do you know if your blink camera is recording?

All Blink cameras have a blue LED light (illuminator) on them that lights up when the camera is recording. However, the blue activity light can be turned off manually in all cameras, so if you need to check if it is recording, make sure the status LED is set to recording.

How to Tell if Blink Camera is Recording

The blue LED light (illuminator) that's on the face of all blink security cameras, called 'status LED' indicates that the camera is recording.

This LED light is present in all blink cameras including blink outdoor, indoor, mini, XT2, and XT.

Blink camera status led that indicates recording
Blink camera status LED that indicates recording

If this blue light is on, it means the blink security camera has detected motion and is recording the event.

To test if your camera is recording, walk sideways in the field of view of your camera and see if the blue light turns on.

If it does turn blue, it means your blink camera is recording your movement.

After doing this, you can go back to your blink home monitor app and see the recorded footage.

But if your blink camera isn't turning blue, it's not necessary that the camera didn't record anything.

This is because the blue recording indicator can be turned off in all blink cameras, and that can trick you into believing that your camera is not recording.

To check this, open the blink app and go to camera settings.

You'll see a button to turn on the status LED.

The interface is slightly different for blink mini cameras when compared to blink indoor and outdoor cameras.

For battery-powered blink indoor and outdoor cameras, you have the option to either turn off the camera or set it to recording.

When you are checking if your camera is recording, you should make sure the status LED is set to recording.

You can turn it off later after you're done checking.

Blink Status LED
Status LED for Blink indoor and outdoor

For USB-powered blink mini cameras, you have an additional option called "on".

status led for blink mini
status LED for blink mini

When you set the status LED as "on", the LED illuminator in the blink mini camera can either be green or blue.

It turns green when the camera is powered and ready to record.

When it detects motion, it turns blue like the other cameras.

If you set the status LED as recording, the LED illuminator will turn blue when recording and will display no light at other times.

In any case, you want to set the status LED to off, for all blink cameras as you don't want to give away the location of your camera to strangers.

This is more important at night when the light will be clearly visible.

If the blue light does not light up when you move in view of your camera despite the status LED being turned on, it could indicate other problems with motion detection on your blink camera.

Make sure motion detection is turned on, the camera is armed and the blue running man sign is turned on.

That's how you know if your blink camera is recording motion or events.

Here's a walkthrough video from us that'll help you understand if your blink camera is recording or not.

How to Tell if Blink Camera is Recording

Do Blink Cameras Record all the Time?

Blink Cam LED indication

Do Blink cameras only record when motion is detected or does it record all the time?

Blink cameras record only when motion is detected, and not all the time. While you can always see a live view of the camera by going into the blink home app, it doesn't record unless it detects movement through its Passive Infrared (PIR) sensing technology.

Cameras like Blink are called motion detection cameras while cameras that record 24x7 are called continuous recording cameras.

Nest, Arlo, and Wyze are examples of continuous recording cameras.

With in-home security cameras like Wyze, you get the option to either record continuously or record only motion events.

However, Blink camera only supports motion detection-based recording and it simply cannot record continuously.

While continuous recording might sound like a safer choice, it's unnecessary for most homeowners.

It's also much more expensive compared to motion detection cameras.

For example, a nest outdoor camera costs twice that of a blink outdoor camera. This difference can add up quickly when you buy multiple cameras.

The amount of data storage required for a continuous recording camera is also much higher than that for a motion detection camera like blink.

You will need to subscribe to a large cloud-storage subscription plan for continuous recording cameras whereas you can use a USB flash drive (local storage) for blink cameras, even without a subscription.

Blink cameras do not display any light when sitting idle (except the blink mini which can turn green), and lights up only when recording motion.

Does Blink Camera Record When Disarmed?

No, Blink cameras do not record when disarmed.

Since blink cameras are based on motion detection, disarming the camera tells it to not record any event.

Disarming is generally used when you have some kind of event happening with a lot of people moving around.

In such a case disarming helps in preventing motion alerts from flooding your notifications.

How do I Stop My Blink Camera from Recording?

There are several different ways to stop your blink camera from recording.

If you want to stop all blink cameras in your system to stop recording, disarm the system as a whole in the blink app.

Disarming your blink camera system
Disarming your blink camera system

This will turn off motion detection for all cameras in that particular system.

All cameras connected to a particular sync module are part of the same system, with the maximum number of cameras that can be added being 10.

If you just want to stop a specific camera from recording, you can press the running man icon in the blink home app to turn it grey.

This will stop that camera from recording motion.

You can also turn off the motion detection feature of a particular camera by going to camera settings> Motion Settings and toggling Motion Detection to off.

Blink Motion detection enabled
Blink disable or enable Motion Detection

Can You Use a Blink Camera Without a Subscription?

Can you use a Blink Camera without a Subscription?

Yes, you can use a blink camera without a subscription by opting for local storage instead of cloud storage if you are using blink Video Doorbell, Outdoor, Indoor (gen 2), and Mini cameras.

The local storage option is not available for the older blink cameras- XT2 and XT.

USB storage is a highly preferred option by many because it's much cheaper than a blink subscription.

A great option for local storage is the 64 GB USB flash drive sold by blink.

A negative of local storage is that you need to manually delete the clips in your USB drive when it gets full.

However, a 64 GB drive will last a long time before it gets full.

Note that you need a sync module to use local storage to save your clips.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What does red light on a Blink camera mean?

In blink cameras, red light indicates no connection to the internet or WiFi issues.

In the blink mini camera, a continuous red light will show in the illuminator indicating that the camera is not connected to the internet.

For blink outdoor, indoor, XT2, and XT cameras, red light will flash every 3 seconds to indicate no internet connection.

What does blinking green light on Blink mean?

One of the leads in the blink sync module will indicate a solid green color when its working correctly.

The green light is nothing to be worried about and rather tells you that the sync module is working as it should.

A green light can appear in blink mini cameras as well. In that case, it indicates that the camera is active and ready to record.

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About Doug Stevenson

Hey! I'm Doug, My passion for tech started by fixing phones and computers for my friends and family.

I started Blinqblinq to give reliable tech advice to anyone who needs it, for free! If you have questions on anything tech-related, feel free to contact me.

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Doug Stevenson

Hey! I'm Doug, My passion for tech started by fixing phones and computers for my friends and family.

I started Blinqblinq to give reliable tech advice to anyone who needs it, for free! If you have questions on anything tech-related, feel free to contact me.

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