Blink Mini 2 review: The smallest outdoor security camera

As far as cheap security cameras are concerned, Amazon’s Blink brand is a major player. The original Blink Mini camera spent a few years on our best security cameras list as the default choice for those seeking an indoor security camera at a budget price, and now the Blink Mini 2 has arrived with several key upgrades.

Alas, along with the improvements, Amazon has also upped the price from £25 to £35, meaning the Blink Mini 2 isn’t quite the no-brainer that the first-generation camera was.

Blink Mini 2 review: What do you get for the money?

Still, it’s likely to get cheaper during Prime Day and Black Friday sales, and that extra £10 does get you a set of improved features. The first of these is weatherproofing. Where its predecessor was only for indoor use, the Blink Mini 2 is IP65-rated and can be bought in a bundle with a weatherproof power adapter for an extra £9. That means you can use the Blink Mini 2 as an outdoor security camera in a pinch, though you’ll need to have a conveniently positioned power socket.

Other upgrades include a wider field of view for the camera. The Blink Mini 2 can take in 143 degrees, which is a good deal wider than the Blink Mini’s 110 degrees. The resolution is the same as before at 1080p, but there’s an upgraded image sensor and the Blink Mini 2 now supports person detection, although this feature is only enabled if you pay monthly for cloud video clip storage.

The last of the major upgrades is that the camera comes with a bright LED spotlight, which allows it to act as a basic security light and to capture colour video at night.

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Blink Mini 2 review: What did we like about it?

One of the most important aspects of any security camera is how quickly it alerts you to motion, and the delay between receiving an alert and being able to view the camera’s live view on the screen of your smartphone.

Having tested many such cameras over the years, I can tell you that not every camera is equal in this regard. Some are very slow to respond and take ages to bring up the camera’s live view – a problem if you’re attempting to respond remotely to a burglary at your property – while others are more rapid.

The good news is the Blink Mini 2 falls into the latter category. Across all of my tests, I found that it was faster than the Blink Mini to respond, taking an average of seven seconds to go from detection to live view over my local Wi-Fi network and an average of eight seconds over cellular. It wasn’t as quick as the Ring Indoor camera, however, which took on average four and five seconds to complete this task over Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

Image quality is pretty good. It’s superior to the original Mini, with a sharper, higher-contrast image, and the wider view means positioning the camera so that it has a full view of your room is super simple. The really big upgrade, however, is to night vision.

Helped by the bright LED light, this camera can capture images in full colour at night, but that’s not much use if you want the camera to remain incognito. Fortunately, you can turn off the LED light in favour of monochrome infrared night vision and, in this mode, it‘s a lot sharper than the original Mini.

I found person detection worked well in my tests, ignoring my cat but alerting me whenever a human member of the family walked in front of the camera. It’s super easy to add motion and privacy zones in the Blink app.

I also like the fact that you can add local storage to the Blink Mini 2 via the Sync Module 2 (£35), thus avoiding the need to pay a monthly fee for video clip storage. However, if you don’t pay monthly, you do miss out on another new feature: extended live view, which allows you to access video and audio for up to 90 minutes uninterrupted per session. Without the feature, live view sessions are limited to five minutes and you have to tap the Continue button every 60 seconds.

Incidentally, if you also own a Blink Video Doorbell, the Blink Mini 2 can act as a chime for it, although the speaker is a little on the quiet side.

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Blink Mini 2 review: What could it do better?

I’ve never been particularly blown away by the audio quality on Blink cameras, and the Blink Mini 2 isn’t an improvement in this regard. Patch yourself into the camera’s live feed and your ears will be assaulted with a rather unpleasant whining noise in the background. The audio quality is plain bad. Another problem relating to quality is that there’s no HDR image processing. If you have a lot of bright light in your room, other areas can look quite dark and murky.

It would be a lot better if the camera’s person detection and extended live view features weren’t locked behind a monthly subscription. The fee isn’t punitive: you get a 30-day free trial in which to try all the features out and then it’s £2.50/mth or £25/yr for a single camera (Blink Basic) or, if you have multiple cameras, it’s £8/mth or £80 annually (Blink Plus). But rivals such as TP-Link and Eufy allow you to access basic smart features without paying, so it’s disappointing that you miss out here.

Finally, the weatherproofing, while nice to have, is a bit of a red herring because the camera needs to remain plugged into the mains at all times. You’d be better off with a standalone outdoor security camera such as the Eufy Solocam S220, which has a battery and a built-in solar panel to keep it topped up so you don’t have to worry about needing a nearby power socket or recharging. It also comes with internal storage, so you don’t have to pay a subscription or buy extra hardware to record clips locally.

Blink Mini 2 review: Verdict

For £35, the Blink Mini 2 is a decent security camera. Image quality is excellent during the day and night despite the absence of HDR support, it’s nicely made and ticks all of the core feature boxes. You can run it without needing to pay a subscription, too, which is nice – although you do have to purchase a Sync Module 2 to do that. It’s also water-resistant, so you can use it as an outdoor security camera as long as you have a plug socket nearby to power it.

However, there are cameras from other manufacturers that offer similar features and don’t require extra hardware to store clips locally. Our current favourite, the Yale Smart Indoor Camera (£60), for instance, offers local storage without the requirement to buy extra hardware, while the TP-Link Tapo C120 (£57) offers a higher 2K resolution, twin spotlights, local storage and person detection, also without having to pay for a subscription.

Ultimately, the Blink Mini 2 is a solid little camera with a good range of features, but it only makes sense to buy one if you’re planning on investing in multiple Blink products, or you already own a Blink doorbell and Sync Module 2. Otherwise, you’re better off looking elsewhere.