Automatically save every Blink motion clip to your local network or cloud - no subscription required!

⚠️ Requires no active Blink subscription. See Subscription compatibility below.

A Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W plugs into your Sync Module 2's (SM2) USB port and pretends to be a USB flash drive. The SM2 happily writes motion clips to it. Every 30 seconds, the Pi reads the same backing file, finds new clips, validates them, and pushes them to your SMB share, rclone remote (Google Drive, S3, Dropbox, …), or both. There's also an optional local web UI to browse and play clips instantly on your home network.

The Pi uses Linux's g_mass_storage gadget to present a backing image file as a USB drive. The SM2 formats it as exFAT and writes motion clips to it. The Pi loop-mounts the same file read-only every 30 seconds, walks the filesystem for new clips, validates each one (size check → 500ms stability window → ffprobe), and pushes to your configured destinations.

The SM2 has no idea anything unusual is happening — from its perspective it's a normal USB flash drive.

Note on cloud dependency: Blink cameras require an active connection to Blink's servers to function, and clips may travel via the cloud before reaching the Sync Module (depending on model). BlinkPi only handles clips after they land on local storage, it does not bypass any cloud capture pipelines.

BlinkPi only works on accounts without an active Blink subscription plan.

When no subscription is active, the SM2 writes each motion clip directly to the USB drive as it is recorded — BlinkPi's 30-second polling loop picks these up in near-real time.

When a subscription is active, Blink enables "Clip Backup" and changes the local storage behavior: instead of writing clips continuously, the SM2 performs a once-daily batch backup of clips from your cloud storage to the USB drive. Backed-up clips are also written to a different path (blink_backup/ instead of blink/), which the current BlinkPi code explicitly skips — so no clips would be detected at all regardless of timing.

If you have a subscription, you have two options:

• Drop the subscription: Cancel or let it lapse, then re-format the USB drive from the Blink app. BlinkPi will work as normal. See Blink's Clip Backup support article for details.
• Keep the subscription and patch the code: @bagofgag worked out how to modify sm2.py to also walk the blink_backup/ directory — see issue #1 for the details. Note you'll only get clips once a day in this mode.
• Use the Blink API instead: The blinkpy project can fetch clips directly from Blink's cloud via API calls, which is a better fit if you have a subscription and want near-real-time access.

⚠️ Only works with Sync Module models that have a USB port. Newer Sync Modules with SD card slots are not compatible.

1. Flash & boot the Pi

Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64-bit, SSH enabled. Then:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

2. Install dependencies

sudo apt install -y python3-venv python3-pip ffmpeg cifs-utils rclone git

3. Clone and configure

git clone https://github.com/OVR92/BlinkPi
cd blink-usb-bridge
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
$EDITOR config.yaml   # set pi_user, timezone, destinations

4. Run the installer

sudo ./scripts/install.sh

Idempotent — sets up systemd units, USB gadget overlay, sudoers, and fstab.

5. Reboot

sudo reboot

Required to activate the dwc2 USB gadget overlay.

6. Plug into the SM2's USB port

Once plugged in, open the Blink app on your phone. Tap your Sync Module 2 → Local Storage. You should see a prompt to format the new USB drive — tap Format and confirm. The SM2 will format the Pi's virtual drive and begin writing clips to it.

7. Trigger a test clip

Walk past a camera, wait ~30 seconds, then watch:

journalctl -u blink-sync.service -f

Or if you enabled the local webserver in config, go to http://blinkpi.local:8080 and watch for the clip to appear.

Everything lives in one config.yaml. Key fields:

See config.example.yaml for every option with inline documentation.

Three systemd units do all the work:

Why not reformat nightly? The SM2 prompts for human confirmation whenever it sees an unfamiliar filesystem. Instead the wipe deletes only the monthly clip directories inside /blink/, leaving the skeleton intact. The SM2 resumes recording with zero human interaction.

Clip filenames on the SM2 follow the pattern:

blink/26-04/26-04-28/04-38-40_garage_001.mp4
             ↑           ↑
          YY-MM-DD    HH-MM-SS (UTC) + camera + seq

The Pi converts UTC timestamps to your configured timezone in output filenames.

Destinations implement a simple ABC in destinations.py:

class Destination(ABC):
    name: str
    def available(self) -> bool: ...
    def push(self, local_path: Path, target_filename: str, camera: str) -> bool: ...

Subclass it, add a config block in config.example.yaml and a dataclass in config.py, register in Destination.from_config(). PRs welcome.

Still stuck? Open an issue with your Pi model + OS, config.yaml (credentials redacted), and journalctl -u blink-sync.service -n 100.

Point HA's network storage at the same SMB share the Pi pushes to and browse clips through the Media browser or using a "gallery card". See examples/home-assistant-gallery-card.yaml for a one-line example.

MIT License · Not affiliated with Blink or Amazon · Most code is AI-assisted — use at your own risk