Blink or HA Link

Ive had my hub for about a week and have managed to move over everything from HA except one thing, a switch to arm and disarm my blink cameras. Is there any interest in the blink system. I know the streaming of cameras isnt possible but to be honest only the arm disarm function is needed.

If no intergration is it possible to have that one switch in HA to be controlled by hubitat?

Setup a virtual switch in Hubitat, then use IFTTT to control the blink system.

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I used IFTTT but its so slow its useless. I use the switch with presence detection. I have it set so i dont trip my own cameras. With IFTTT i trip it every time.

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I agree with you.

I have a couple of devices that are just not compatible with home assistant unless I use IFTTT. I tried to do that but the service was unreliably slow and terrible. I find it sort of funny that system we turn to because it's local means the answer to our problem is a cloud based monstrosity.

That being said I just bought myself a new raspberry pie for home assistant. I am looking into the various options to integrate them. It looks like HE will have an MQTT option. So that might be something.

Blink is dying anyway, I'd give it a year or two before their cloud shutters.

I'm hoping for RTSP integration eventually in HE, that'll work for a lot of options and would be local.

For the Blink that I have remaining, I do use IFTTT to arm them with presence. It's mostly reliable. Given the fact that don't allow for independent camera arming and disarming, that's about as good as you're going to get with them.

I use IFTTT to arm and disarm my Blink cameras with a virtual switch and rarely get a delay (it worked well when I used my ST hub too). I have noticed that people have different experiences with IFTTT latency, sometimes it doesnโ€™t appear to be related to specific applets or linked services.

How were you using Blink with HA?

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I'm using blink on HA with life360 and Amazon Echo, it works pretty well. It disarms and arms with in about 10-20 secs of comming and going in my home zone. Im guessing mqtt would be my best bet, but its not fully intergrated yet so Ill just leave it running on HA.

IFTTT was extremely fast with Wyze cameras for me. When I've tried to do things with my Nest camera via IFTTT it's very slow. So I don't think IFTTT is the bottleneck. I'm sure Blink is doing some sort of QoS where IFTTT traffic is the low man on the totem pole...

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Agreed, many people have noticed this when using blink as the โ€œThisโ€ in an IFTTT applet. It makes them pretty useless as a motion sensor to tie into HE automations.

But fewer people seem to have issues when Blink is the โ€œThatโ€ in an automation.

Can you explain more? What is the trigger for Blink to arm/disarm?

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I used a virtual switch that i activated either with Echo, Life360 detection or a Pico remote button. I used a standard applet for disarm on IFTTT.

I've used IFTTT for about 3 weeks with Hubitat and Blink. Hubitat has an applet "Arm Blink when Hubitat's mode changes" So I have it set when HSM is armed that blink is activated. It does take about 20-30sec's for IFTTT to turn on Blink , but that gives you enough time to leave the house. Hubitat also has a IFTTT applet to turn off Blink with a Hubitat mode change also, but I use Blinks own Applet "Disarm your Blink System when you get home" and it works fairly well. Again there is a lag but usually 15- 20 seconds and the zone area works well.

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Team,

New Convert from ST. I have most things working (YEAH). however I can't seem to figure out how to set the armed/disarmed for the blink system without using IFTTT. I can use IFTTT but don't really want to use it unless I have to do so. Any suggestions are welcome. I have tried many different combinations with Rules but not luck so far.

Thanks in advanced for the help.

Have a look here: [PROJECT] Driver for Blink API

It has been working for me so far using the Blink API. It is in it's infancy but it hasn't failed me since finding it after switching from ST.

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