Ugh, this is a shame.
Good shout Kevin, I’ve just sent them an email with some examples of how creative the community can get when given the opportunity. The more people that can email in the better.
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Just finished moving my rather basic Blink integration across to IFTTT as a temporary measure while I look to replace the cameras.
I only do arm / disarm and record details of motion detection (date and time), so for me it is feasible to do with IFTTT.
What features does this support please?
I have one Blink XT outside which I can replace with a Unifi Protect camera (I already have 2 Unifi cameras integrated), however the two indoor Blink cameras are more difficult to find a reasonably priced replacement for.
EDIT
I’ve also emailed Blink requesting proper authorised API access and (politely) pointing out the shortcomings with their existing facilities and IFTTT integration.
At least this time they emailed rather than just locking my account for a week without notice…
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How did you build the IFTTT service. Played around in the tool but haven’t been successful in creating something.
I basically followed the docs to setup the integration and then setup an IFTTT account (with 2FA of course):
In HA:
- created an input_boolean signifying armed / disarmed state per Blink hub (I have two)
- wrote scripts to arm and disarm each hub, e.g. below where ‘arm_outdoor’ is the event name sent to IFTTT’s webhook:
arm_outdoor_camera:
sequence:
- service: ifttt.trigger
data:
event: "arm_outdoor"
- service: input_boolean.turn_on
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.armed_outdoor
- created a template switch per Blink hub for GUI and Google Assistant exposure (and ease of maintenance in other automations) referencing the input boolean and turning on / off using the arm / disarm scripts.
- created the webhook for the calls from IFTTT to HA, and built the receiving scripts for recording datetime of motion detection (NB: I have Nabu Casa so this was pretty straightforward)
in IFTTT
- connected Webhook and Blink (Europe) to my account
- created applets for each Webhook event to be sent to IFTTT (arm_outdoor, disarm_outdoor, etc) and linked to the appropriate blink hubs.
- built applets for each camera’s motion detection event to generate web requests (using the unique nabu casa webhook URL provided when I setup the integration, Post, application-json, and in my case the script to trigger e.g.
{ "action": "call_service", "service": "script.turn_on", "entity_id": "script.garden_motion_detected" }
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I got a response from blink, although it doesn’t say much really:
Thank you for your email. Currently Blink only integrates with IFTTT and Amazon Alexa-enabled products
We do appreciate these other smart-home requests for consideration as it’s a feature we know is important to many of our customers. I am unable to comment on any future product or feature roadmap however I would be happy to pass along the suggestion for HomeAssistant support to our Team for consideration. Thank you for being a Blink Customer
Got exactly the same reply… my guess is not going to happen 
Any alternatives that don’t require cables?
Got some Reolink I like for powered wifi cams, pretty affordable. I haven’t found a good RTSP battery alternative, which isn’t that surprising considering the battery cams need to sleep. But I’d like to find a solar powered one that allows RTSP when on solar or something. So far no dice on that front.
FYI it looks like they’re just moving to 2FA. What this means is:
- Library needs to be updated to work with new login endpoint
- Library needs to be updated to allow user entry of 2FA token
I’m working on both of those as we speak
- The home-assistant integration needs to be updated to allow the user to enter a 2FA token
To me, this implies migrating the Blink integration from yaml config to UI config. Personally, I’m a fan of yaml so I’m going to do my best to maintain both, but we’ll need a UI element to allow users to enter a token. I hope I’ll have something working by 5/11 but there’s no guarantee. The more people that can put some eyeballs on this (and contribute code, happy with that too!) the faster we can get something working, I think.
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I’m guessing there will be an update to the mobile client app. Maybe some clever people can try to decompile the APK?
I had the same response, which is the same as when I emailed them last year after they locked my account without notice.
They didn’t even answer my question about why I had to provide my login credentials to ifttt rather than use OAuth or similar.
It’s vendor lock-in under guise of security.
Can you arm via iftt or does it give the same message?
It would be ironic if their “approved” method had broken…
Does anyone currently have 2FA enabled for Blink? I haven’t seen any place to set it up and have something I think might work https://github.com/fronzbot/blinkpy/pull/242
AFAIK it’s tied to email, requiring a verified email address. If you have no “verify email” button in the app then it’s setup.
Based on: this article
Yeah, interesting. I just changed the login endpoint and got an email to allow the device. So I’m thinking the process is as follows:
- Login with integration
- Receive email from blink to allow device
- If you click allow, setup will proceed
Right now I think that this implies my implementation is insufficient (since a unique identifier will be re-generated every restart) so I may need to work around that. But if this is really how it works, then there’s not much that will have to change with the home-assistant portion, just the library.
It’s also worth noting that when I added Blink to IFTTT this morning, no email confirmation was supplied or required by Blink
Right now what I have implemented should work for the old login method (no email), current-ish login method (email asking to verify access), and 2FA login (email with pin that you enter). I’ve been able to verify the former two, but can’t do the latter since I still haven’t figured out how to setup 2FA (I’m guessing it’s an account migration thing).
But, I’m pretty confident there’s a solution here. Just have to figure out how to make something pop up on the front-end of HA.
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@fronzbot, please check the Amazon Alexa Media Player component (URL) as I believe it has applied the 2FA successfully from within HA (I’m personally using it).
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Perfect, thank you!