Black Friday deals alert: Black Friday may be over, but Cyber Monday is just around the corner. There are still plenty of discounts to be had during this time as well, including sales on home security systems that you'll want to keep an eye on, like deals on some of the products we've tested and loved. Take this one, for example: this two-camera bundle for the Blink Outdoor 4 is currently $120, which is an impressive $180 off its original price. That gets you nearly $200 off a device that bagged a CNET Editors' Choice Award. And because it comes packing a long-lasting rechargeable battery, you can save money in that area as well.
CNET's key takeaways
The Blink Outdoor 4 security camera
The Blink Outdoor 4 is one of the more affordable cams, and it is often on sale.
The Blink app is limited to Alexa support only, meaning you cannot connect with Google, Apple or other third-party smart platforms.
Blink's Outdoor 4 cam came with a big promise when I first started reviewing it: lithium AA batteries that could last for two years without needing to be replaced. That's a ridiculously long time for a wireless security camera, which usually has batteries that need recharging every few months.
I started out skeptical, but Blink's cam stayed operational on my fence, not just for a few months but season after season while I waited, and I was increasingly impressed.
While my Blink Outdoor 4 model didn't quite reach the full two years that Blink rates its wireless camera batteries at, a year and a half far surpasses the use of any wireless camera with a rechargeable battery, like Ring or Nest. In my experience, those rechargeable batteries tend to last several months at the most before you need to bring them in for a recharge or switch them out with a new battery pack.
That recharging gets annoying during cold winters or for wireless cameras that are posted out of reach and require a ladder to switch batteries out. And if your cams activate all the time, batteries run out even faster. I don't mind leaning out to grab the video doorbell for a quick recharge, but for other outdoor cameras, it turns into an unwanted and inconvenient task.
Blink, meanwhile, promises long-lasting batteries that you replace, not recharge, when the time comes. Those new batteries cost $4 to $5, which works out to about 22 cents a month for the convenience of not bothering about it. I've found that to be a particularly helpful option for an outdoor camera I can set up and leave to do its job, giving me one less thing to worry about.
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