Start recording blink camera based on motion or ringing of my ring doorbell

Hi all,

Have been using home assistant for the better part of a month and migrated almost completely from Homey and really enjoying the experience so far. The dashboards, the node-red flows, everything that can be integrated, just wow!

I’m facing one issue, have integrated my Blink camera’s (two sync modules, 5 camera’s) and would like to trigger a recording of the camera on my driveway, based on motion at my front door coming from the ring camera. The blink camera is further away but would like a second angle of the person/motion event for my door.

This worked in Homey but this is one of the flows which I can’t get to work and/or understand what to do. Is it even possible with the current or any integration to start a recording on a blink camera? If anybody can point me in the right direction/tell me if it’s even possible or has a node-red flow to share, that would be much appreciated.

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@fronzbot, do you have a solution? As said completely new to the forum and saw that you are the main men when it comes to Blink integration as you created it.

Have the main BLINK integration only and my flow for activation my backyard camera is working wonders. The issue is the camera on the driveway, for motion sensing the distance is too big and so it’s unreliable so would like to use my ring doorbell as a trigger to start recording but can’t get it to work. Any tips?

Triggering a recording is not supported, only snapping a picture. I think I’ve tried getting the record API endpoint to work a few times but never managed to. Been awhile since I looked at that though

Not sure if i’m the only one that would love to have to function but if you can find the time to check, that would be much appreciated! If need be I can assist as well, let me know.

Hereby a link to the app available for Homey where the list of functions is listed: https://homey.app/nl-nl/app/com.jasperbollen.homey-blink/Blink/
and the github if that is helpful: https://github.com/steffjenl/com.jasperbollen.homey-blink

You know, I’m actually wrong. I did get this implemented in the upstream library and even opened a PR for home-assistant but let it lapse because I didn’t have time to implement the changes.

Take a look here:

I don’t have the bandwidth to re-submit this, but all the details are there for anyone else to add the feature in. Might want to test it first to make sure the endpoint still works though!

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I would love to know how to implement this into the code (I have some coding experience but nothing like what you and others do here.

If you could walk us through it, we could prolly do it.

This is a function I would love to have myself, I just installed a PIR for my walkway, and the camera points right at it, so it would be perfect, right now I have taking a picture, but video would be better.

Thank you either way for the amazing work you have done!

Lighter

Hi,

I’m also interested in setting the cameras to record when sensors from other devices are triggered.

How could we achieve this?

Thank you so much!

@Bully89 @fronzbot

I read this a while ago and today I sat down and set up a custom component to fix the current issues with blink.
I edited few lines here and there and got the record service implemented but nothing happens when I call the service :smiley: anyone got this working?

Edit: It seems like the api endpoint changed, so no chance atm.

For me the API endpoint used by blinkpy is still working and therefore I implemented a fresh PR:

I succesfully tested it with the Blink Outdoor Camera (3rd generation).

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Oh god, I made a stupid stupid mistake and when I saw an open issue at the original blinkpy repo I did not investigate any further.
I did a quick test just now and its working for me, Blink XT first gen. You tested blink.save_video with your adjustments?

I didn’t touch blink.save_video and only added blink.record. I guess it should still work, but probably some delay between them is required as the recording takes time and will need to be available in Blink cloud first.

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Oki :smiley: Error was probably already in my code when I added the record service… I fixed it, everything works splendidly. The record service is really a nice addition, already changed some automations and got some other use cases in mind.
Thanks a lot for the pr, I think youll make many people happy!

Hey there ! I am digging this post up, but can anyone please elaborate on how to integrate the record service to blink since it doesn’t seem to be added to HA at the moment ?
Tried to have a look at the repo but I don’t see how to add this code to my instance :slight_smile:
Thanks a lot !

It will be included in Home Assistant 2024.6, so just wait a week I would suggest. :wink:

Just upgraded to 2024.6, the blink record service is indeed there, but the endpoint it uses to trigger the record appears to not exist when it’s triggered, no clip created in Blink. Does the record feature only work for their full camera models, and not the doorbell cameras?

Unfortunately it seems you are correct. The record service does work for my Blink Outdoor 2, but not Blink Mini or Doorbell. :frowning:

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Upstream library pull-request to fix support for Blink Mini and Doorbell (tested locally): Fix clip recording for Blink Mini and Doorbell camera models by mback2k · Pull Request #946 · fronzbot/blinkpy · GitHub

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That fixes it, thank you so much. My Blink doorbell may actually be useful now :rofl:

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Hi,
Could you share the instructions on setting up blink doorbell and mini to capture the video recording with Home Assistant?

Hi I am a complete newbie. How do you install and run this.