The Blink Mini uses lights as indicators- they tell the user what is happening.
The Mini has two lights either side of the lens at the front of the camera but what is interesting is that these lights display three colours- green, red and blue.
Where is the green light?
The light which is most important to us right now is the green light. It is next to the lens on the left hand side as you look at the lens, 9 o’clock on a clock face.
What is interesting is that the green light under certain circumstances will also appear as a red flashing light or as a solid red light.
The blue light is situated on the right hand side of the lens at 3 o’clock on a clock face. And this light doesn’t change colours- it either appears as a solid blue light or as a flashing blue light.
Why is my Blink Mini flashing green?
The reason that your Blink Mini is flashing green is because it’s not connected to the wifi- and it needs to connect to a WiFi in order to connect to the Blink servers which make it work.
My blink Mini flashed green 20 odd seconds after losing connection. I know this because I switched the Internet off.
Which begs the question…
Does the green light automatically stop flashing after the Internet comes back on?
Yes it does. The Blink Mini will automatically connect itself to your router. The length of time that this take will vary depending on how long the outage is for and if you have restarted your router, how long that takes- I’m with Virgin Media and my router takes an age to restart!
Although this is the main situation in which the left hand side light flashes green, there are two situations where it also flashes green.
Does it flash green soon after reset?
Yes, after you press the reset button a flashing green light is the first light to display.
Does it flash green after the power has been switched off and on again?
You will see a flashing green light if you turn the power on and off (like when you move it.) After you switch the camera back on, the left hand light will flash red a few times before flashing green.
And this got me thinking. Within the general settings of the Blink app are options to change the status LEDs.
Does the light flash green in all status LED modes?
In the app, you can opt to have the lights on the Mini display in one of three ways:
- Always on
- Always off
- When recording
I wanted to know if the green flashing light would be displayed in each of these states.
I ran a quick test and you can see a video below.
And the green light does keep flashing regardless of which option my status LEDs were on.
But is the flashing green light the only way that we will be notified about losing connection to the WiFi? What about the app?
Does the Blink app notify us of a loss of WiFi?
The Blink app won’t notify you that your Blink Mini is off line, which I was quite surprised about.
Clip of video of green light and status LEDs where the Mini is flashing and yet the homepage of the app seems OK.
You need to try and connect to a live view before the app indicates that your camera might be offline.
There is no message in the Blink app. I just knew that my Mini was offline because when I clicked on the video camera icon it just showed a thumbnail with the blue circle spinning constantly.
Then you get a message that the system is busy (see photo) or that live view failed (see photo).
And here’s another strange situation.
As soon as the app recognised that a camera was offline, the green light stopped flashing and only started flashing again when the camera was reconnecting to the WiFi..
Green flashing light fixes
A green flashing light tells you that a camera can’t connect to the Wi-Fi but it doesn’t tell us whether the problem is with an individual camera, all our Blink cameras, the router or a disruption of the broadband service in your area.
Individual camera
A quick check can be done to see if the issue is with just one camera and that is to try and connect to another of your Blink cameras.
If you connect successfully to another of your camera’s then the problem is with one camera.
Here are a couple of solutions to try.
Solution #1
Try switching the camera off and wait for 30 seconds before switching it on. Your camera is fixed if, after a few seconds, you see a solid green light and a flashing blue light which disappear and then you can connect to the camera live.
Solution #2
Is a two step approach.
Firstly delete the problem camera and then secondly add it into a system via the app.
All Blink cameras are offline
If you can’t connect to any of your Blink cameras, then you need to check if the Blink servers are down.
And the best way to do this is to look on support.blinkforhome.com. Blink will post any server issues on this page.
Another popular site that Blink users may use is https://downdetector.com/status/blink-security/
Router
If you can’t find any issues with the Blink servers then it is time to point the finger of suspicion at your router.
In order to do this you need to use another device- and ideally not your phone that you are using now.
Grab your laptop or your iPad and see if you can connect to the Internet on it.
If you can’t, then the good news is that it isn’t your Blink camera or Blink app that are the problem.
Turn off your router, wait for 30 seconds and then turn it back on again.
It is amazing how often this trick successfully gets a router back online.
If this doesn’t fix your WiFi, the most likely cause is that there’s a problem with the Internet in your street or local area.
Local area
Find the support number for your broadband provider and then phone them.
After I have confirmed a few account details, a computer will tell me if there are any connection issues in my post code.
It takes less than 5 minutes and I haven’t had to wait in a queue or talk to anyone!
