home-assistant.io/source/_components/blink.markdown

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layout	title	description	date	sidebar	comments	sharing	footer	logo	ha_category	ha_release	ha_iot_class
page	Blink	Instructions for how to integrate Blink camera/security system within Home Assistant.	2017-03-05 22:13	true	false	true	true	blink.png	Hub	0.40	Cloud Polling

The blink component lets you view camera images and motion events from Blink camera and security systems.

{% linkable_title Setup %}

You will need your Blink login information (username, which is usually your email address, and password) to use this module.

{% linkable_title Configuration %}

To enable devices linked in your Blink account, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
blink:
  username: YOUR_USERNAME
  password: YOUR_PASSWORD

{% configuration %} username: description: The username for accessing your Blink account. required: true type: string password: description: The password for accessing your Blink account. required: true type: string scan_interval: description: How frequently to query for new data. Defaults to 60 seconds. required: false type: integer binary_sensors: description: Binary sensor configuration options. required: false type: map keys: monitored_conditions: description: The conditions to create sensors from. required: false type: list default: all (motion_enabled, motion_detected) sensors: description: Sensor configuration options. required: false type: map keys: monitored_conditions: description: The conditions to create sensors from. required: false type: list default: all (battery, temperature, wifi_strength) {% endconfiguration %}

Once Home Assistant starts, the blink component will create the following platforms:

• An alarm_control_panel to arm/disarm the whole blink system (note, alarm_arm_home is not implemented and will not actually do anything, despite it being an option in the GUI).
• A camera for each camera linked to your Blink sync module.
• A sensor per camera for every item listed in monitored_conditions (if no items specified in your configuration.yaml, all of them will be added by default).
• A binary_sensor for each item listed in monitored_conditions (if no items specified in your configuration.yaml, all of them will be added by default).

Since the cameras are battery operated, setting the scan_interval must be done with care so as to not drain the battery too quickly, or hammer Blink's servers with too many API requests. The cameras can be manually updated via the trigger_camera service which will ignore the throttling caused by scan_interval. As a note, all of the camera-specific sensors are only polled when a new image is requested from the camera. This means that relying on any of these sensors to provide timely and accurate data is not recommended.

Please note that each camera reports two different states: one as sensor.blink_<camera_name>_status and the other as binary_sensor.blink_<camera_name>_motion_enabled. The motion_enabled property reports if the camera is ready to detect motion regardless if the system is actually armed*.

Below is an example showing every possible entry:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
blink:
  username: YOUR_USERNAME
  password: YOUR_PASSWORD
  scan_interval: 60
  binary_sensors:
    monitored_conditions:
      - motion_enabled
      - motion_detected
  sensors:
    monitored_conditions:
      - battery
      - temperature
      - wifi_strength

{% linkable_title Services %}

{% linkable_title blink.blink_update %}

Force a refresh of the Blink system.

{% linkable_title blink.trigger_camera %}

Trigger a camera to take a new still image.

Service Data Attribute	Optional	Description
name	no	Name of camera to take new image with.

{% linkable_title blink.save_video %}

Save the last recorded video of a camera to a local file. Note that in most cases, Home Assistant will need to know that the directory is writable via the whitelist_external_dirs in your configuration.yaml file (see example below).

Service Data Attribute	Optional	Description
name	no	Name of camera containing video to save.
filename	no	Location of save file.

homeassistant:
    ...
    whitelist_external_dirs:
        - '/tmp'
        - '/path/to/whitelist'

{% linkable_title Other Services %}

In addition to the services mentioned above, there are generic camera and alarm_control_panel services available for use as well. The camera.enable_motion_detection and camera.disable_motion_detection services allow for individual cameras to be enabled and disabled, respectively, within the Blink system. The alarm_control_panel.alarm_arm_away and alarm_control_panel.alarm_disarm services allow for the whole system to be armed and disarmed, respectively.