Blink, the Amazon.com Inc-owned hardware brand known for its connected doorbells and video cameras, introduced new devices on May 29, the latest entries in a saturated market for smart-home gadgets.
Compared with its predecessor, the newest Blink Video Doorbell provides a more expansive 150˚ "head-to-toe” field of view that should give a fuller preview of guests and package deliveries, according to the company. The device runs on three standard AA batteries and is rated for as much as two years of battery life, it added.
The camera is available today for US$70 (RM297) in black or white. Also new to the Video Doorbell is computer vision-enabled person detection, letting those with a Blink subscription receive notifications when people are captured by the camera. The notification system is designed to ignore movements from animals or objects, the company said.
Amazon continues to separately operate both Blink and Ring, another brand known for its smart-home cameras, despite significant overlap in their products and services. Ring’s devices tend to be priced slightly higher, however, giving Amazon a two-pronged strategy in a competitive category as it faces challengers like Arlo Technologies Inc, Roku Inc and Eufy, which is owned by Anker Innovations Technology Co. Aside from price, the long battery life on Blink’s cameras is another potential differentiator.
Blink’s basic plan covers a single camera and costs US$3 (RM13) per month or US$30 (RM127) annually; the "Plus” tier extends that to unlimited devices for US$10 (RM42) a month or US$100 (RM424) per year. The subscription is required for features such as motion event recording, 90-minute live views of the camera feed, unlimited cloud storage, automatic local backup and person detection. Other Blink cameras already support the latter, but it’s new to the video doorbell.
The company on Thursday also introduced a redesigned Sync Module Core that serves as a hub for as many as 10 Blink-branded devices and is compatible with Amazon’s Alexa smart-home platform, including its popular Echo speakers. – Bloomberg
