The battery-powered Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera is just what my dark yard needed

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

ZDNET's key takeaways

At the price of $130, the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera is a practical, battery-powered solution for darker areas around your house that lack wiring and outlets.The AA batteries allow the floodlights to beam at 700 nits of brightness, which is not the most powerful on the market but good enough to see your surroundings.The Blink app is feature-rich, with plenty of camera settings to customize for the best surveillance. Unfortunately, to unlock the best features, you'll need a paid subscription.

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As a parent and pet owner, I hate to admit that I'm afraid of the dark. While I have a fenced-in backyard, I still dread taking my dog out for his evening potty breaks. My fear worsened one night after spotting several pairs of gleaming eyes in the woods as I strolled through my yard.

Sure, they were probably just curious deer wondering what we were doing, but in my head, they were a pack of wolves or monsters like the big bright eyes in the dark caves you'd see in cartoons.

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See, one side of the yard lacks outdoor lighting and wiring. I've tried several solutions to no avail, including outdoor string lights and several brands of solar lights, but neither were bright enough to keep the space evenly lit. That's how I ended up with Blink's Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera. 

I've toyed with getting a floodlight camera since I spotted those shiny, inquisitive eyes in the woods the first time, mostly out of curiosity to see what kind of wildlife I could spot. 

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The Blink Outdoor 4 is a unique security camera because it uses two AA lithium batteries as a power source that can last up to two years. This approach means you can add a security camera almost anywhere without worrying about charging it for some time.

Getting a floodlight mount that is also battery-powered is the perfect addition to a dark area without wiring.

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For me, the best spot to install the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera was a post on the deck looking out to the yard. The camera has a 143-degree diagonal field of view, enough to cover the entire fenced area of the yard it was pointed toward.  

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

At 700 lumens, the floodlight is enough to illuminate an area of about 35 square feet. A single inexpensive PAR38 floodlight bulb averages about 1,200 lumens, and my Eufy Security Floodlight Camera has 2,000 lumens, so the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera is not the brightest tool in the shed. Two AA lithium batteries power the Blink Outdoor 4, so the lesser power draw helps keep the lights on -- literally.

Since it's battery-powered, you can't set the Blink Outdoor 4 Spotlight Camera to provide ambient lighting, which would drain the batteries in a few days. When you set the camera to record and the lights to turn on with any motion detection, the lights can stay on for as long as five minutes. That's more than enough for those brief moments of action.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

Beyond setting up the floodlights, the Blink app also lets you customize motion-detection sensitivity, check your battery levels, and set up motion zones, retrigger times, motion clip length, night-vision settings, privacy zones, and more. 

The downside, however, is that some other features, including person detection, are only available with a Blink Subscription Plan. 

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There are two Blink Subscription Plan tiers: a Basic Plan for $3 per month and a Plus Plan for $10 per month. Without a plan, you can view the live stream for up to five minutes at a time and get motion-activated notifications. If you want to store clips, add a Sync Module 2 with a USB flash drive, a device you plug in.

The Basic Plan supports one device, up to 90 minutes of continuous live-streaming, cloud storage for up to 60 days, person detection, photo capture, video sharing, and rapid video clip access. The Plus Plan allows snooze motion alerts for up to 24 hours, extended warranty coverage, and 10% off Blink devices on Amazon.com.

ZDNET's buying advice

After using the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera for almost a year, I am glad to have found a reliable solution to the dark side of my yard. I used the free trial period, so I got to enjoy some of the perks of a subscription, but I've been using the camera without the paid plan with the Sync Module since the trial ended.

I hoped to get at least a year of use out of the batteries, but we've had to replace them every three to five months. This isn't terrible for me, especially since we're on that side of the yard several times a night with our dog.

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Most other floodlights on the market have solar panels or need recharging every few months. The Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera remains a unique option that doesn't need to be taken down every three months to recharge, especially if you don't use it as often as I do or place it right where the sun hits it.