One of the most attractive features of the Blink Mini is that it has two way audio. Not only can you see a live feed from your camera but you can also have a live conversation with a person who is standing next to it because the camera has a microphone and speaker built in.
Or not only can you see an intruder in your home but you can hear them as well.
But it is very frustrating when the audio system and particularly the microphone plays up. The good news is that just because you think that the Blink Mini’s microphone isn’t working doesn’t mean that it can’t be fixed very quickly.
The Blink Mini microphone 101
The Mini camera has a microphone which is positioned just below the lens on the front of the camera.
If you look closely, you can see a small hole (about 2 mm wide) which is where the microphone is situated.
As well as the microphone, your Mini has a speaker which is situated on top of the camera- you can see three lines of tiny holes on top of the camera at the back. The first line has five holes in it, the second line has 6 holes in it and the third has five holes in it.
Audio has been disabled
The microphone and speaker can be controlled in an individual camera’s device setting menu, in a sub menu labelled audio settings.
The first option in this menu is enable audio which has a circle switch as an icon. This turns the microphone and the speaker on the Blink Mini on and off. When the microphone and speaker areon, the switch is a blue circle and when it is off the switch is a white circle.
Once the blue circle switch appears you can tap on the left arrow on the top left of the screen to get back to the device setting screen.
Having checked the audio settings to ensure that audio has been enabled, it is time to check other things in the app.
Live View
The next place that I want to visit is the live view screen of the camera that you are having difficulty with. To do this, tap on the video camera icon on the thumbnail of the camera.
On the next screen, a live feed of your camera appears. On the top right of this image is a speaker icon. This can be tapped to turn it on or off.
This allows us to control if we want to hear the sounds that the Mini camera’s microphone is picking up.
When the microphone has been enabled, a plain speaker icon will be on display. We should see live footage and hear a bit of noise from the camera.
When the Mini’s microphone has been disabled, the icon changes to a speaker with a black line through it and although we can see a live feed we can’t hear anything.
Having checked out the two menus within the Blink app that might be causing you problems with your camera’s microphone, it is time for us to look elsewhere…
Phone Volume
The next setting which might be tricking us into believing that the microphone on the camera isn’t working is when the volume on your phone has been turned down very low or placed on silent.
The Blink app is clever and it can override your phone’s sleep setting but it can’t take control of the volume!
My phone is a Google Pixel and like most Android phones the volume is controlled by a toggle switch on the side. By pressing on the top of the switch the volume will increase and by pressing on the lower part of the switch the volume will be decreased until the phone goes silent. As the volume increases and decreases there is a visual scale to indicate the current volume.
The situation is slightly different with iPhones as they have two separate buttons for volume. The top button increases the volume the lower button decreases the volume until the phone goes silent. As the volume increases and decreases there is a visual scale to indicate the current volume.
Live View Session has ended
If you think that the microphone isn’t working because you are trying to have a conversation with someone and you can’t hear them, it might not be the microphone that isn’t working.
Conversations using the two way audio only work during live view sessions but did you know that in many instances the length of these sessions are only 5 minutes or less?
And these connections then stop automatically. Regardless of whether or not you want them to?
It might not be that your microphone isn’t working, it might be that your live session has ended and you just haven’t realised it.
If you use the two way audio a lot, paying for a Blink subscription provides you with 90 minute long live views.
Broken microphone
The final reason that the microphone on your Mini camera isn’t working is that it might be physically broken or clogged with dirt.
Did I tell you that the microphone is situated in a hole in the front of the camera?!
A visual inspection of the camera should tell you all you need to know. If the camera has been dropped or there are any cracks on the front of the screen those are tell tale signs.
Also just by looking at the camera should tell you if it is clogged up with something or other. In my house it might be a bit of dog hair or the sticky fingers of my grandson who picked up the camera soon after eating dinner with his hands!
If the microphone hole is full of dirt of one sort or another then don’t be afraid to use a damp (not dripping) cloth to clean out the hole.
