“Even if we round up to 10,000 users, I think this is probably small potatoes for Amazon,” says Bendell, who should know. But why is Amazon, owner of those massive AWS server farms that earned nearly $50 billion in 2020, resorting to such draconian measures in response to my meager deployment of five Blink cameras? I could see a crackdown on large-scale corporate installations hammering away at the Blink API, but why me and other small-time enthusiasts?Īccording to Colin Bendell, developer of the Blink camera plugin for Homebridge, there are at most 4,000 homes using open-source plugins like his. My Homebridge integration may well be in violation of Blink’s terms and conditions, even if the terms seem unduly restrictive. It turns out that Amazon’s crackdown on Blink automators has been a known issue in the community for at least a year. In case of termination, Blink may immediately revoke your access to Blink Services without refund.” If your use of Blink Services is restricted, suspended, or terminated, you may be unable to access your video clips and you will not receive any refund or any other compensation. “We may terminate the Agreement or restrict, suspend, or terminate your use of Blink Services at our discretion without notice at any time, including if we determine that your use violates the Agreement, is improper, substantially exceeds or differs from normal use by other users, or otherwise involves fraud or misuse of Blink Services or harms our interests or those of another user of Blink Services. Terms which, admittedly, I was now reading for the first time (emphasis mine): Please disable these scripts or apps and reach back out to me so that I can re-enable your account.”Īfter a brief WTF exchange whereby I explained that Alexa and / or IFTTT are wholly inferior to the capabilities of Homebridge, Tori helpfully directed me to the exact paragraph of the Blink Terms of Service that I had violated. The only automation that is permitted for use with the Blink system is through Alexa and/or IFTTT. While doing a routine server audit, your account was flagged and subsequently disabled due to unsupported scripts or apps running on your system. “My name is Tori and I am with the Blink team. The reason was delivered in an email from Amazon the next morning:
My sense of delight and intense pride lasted exactly one week before my Blink cameras suddenly went dead. This allowed me to create rules that were previously impossible, like using the Blink XT camera’s motion sensor in my garden to trigger a Z-Wave siren and Hue lightbulbs at night.
Over most of a weekend, I was able to configure Homebridge to link every one of my 50+ smart devices to HomeKit and each other in the Apple Home app. Homebridge turns this Blink XT outdoor camera into a temperature and motion trigger for other automations in Apple’s Home app. It works, kind of, but requires several different apps, many interfaces, and lots of patience, especially from my family. It’s held together with a smattering of IFTTT recipes and four disparate hubs from Ikea, Aqara, Philips Hue, and Vera. Now it’s a devil’s brew of Z-Wave and Zigbee devices, some controllable with Siri, some with Alexa, and a few with Google Assistant. I started automating my home about 12 years ago, long before you could buy into complete ecosystems from Amazon, Google, and Apple. To set the stage, I recently set up a Raspberry Pi running Homebridge with the goal of creating a single iPhone dashboard to tie my smart home together. But instead of embracing its most passionate fans, Amazon has turned against them, threatening to terminate Blink accounts while challenging the very concept of ownership. This combination of price and functionality led many smart home enthusiasts to buy Blink cameras in bulk for whole-home monitoring, especially those who don’t want to be beholden to a corporate overlord (and its requisite subscription fees). Open-source projects like Homebridge, Home Assistant, and HOOBS have made the cameras even more extensible by allowing Blink’s temperature and motion sensors to work with smart home platforms like HomeKit and act as triggers for various automations. Blink, the Kickstarter success bought by Amazon in 2017, has long been synonymous with inexpensive battery-powered home video cameras that don’t require a monthly contract for cloud recordings.