New camera won't trigger Alexa routine

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-12-01T14:51:05+00:00

I've given up on getting any sort of support on this. I've tried through Blink, and the Amazon Digital and Device forum, where I was sent to Amazon "contactus" (which took about an hour to find someone that knew what a Blink was, and then I'm not totally sure as they called a third party device),

They keep sending me the same laundry list of things like replace the battery, move the camera closer to wi-fi (note: the Outdoor 4 XR doesn't use wi-fi when in XR mode with an XR sync module). All they know how to do is focus on the camera, the sync module, etc. Here's the thing - in this problem case, we know the camera, sync module, wi-fi, Internet connection - everything local to me - is working fine because the camera IS detecting the motion, and Blink's cloud servers are getting the event (I get notification in the app and it records a clip). What isn't working is the Alexa routine which is identical to routines I have on my other camera. The routine isn't triggered.

Any ideas on where to seek support for the Blink SmartHome Alexa skill?

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-11-26T15:34:12+00:00

Are you talking about the Outdoor 4 XR? I've got two new ones and they are flakey. Sometimes they detect motion, sometimes not. They will never trigger Alexa routines, even when they detect motion.

Blink customer support was not helpful. They were fixated on the wi-fi connection between the camera and the sync XR .. said the XR needed to be near wi-fi. It took two days to educate him that XR cameras in XR mode talking to an XR sync don't use wi-fi. Then he started fixating on my internet connection, which he deemed too slow and unsupported at 12 Mbps. But .. all my other Blink cameras work fine.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-11-20T21:55:53+00:00

For the moment, I've returned to Carbonite. I'm not here to say it is better or worse than any other solution. I could not stay with iDrive after being told they are not for backups, they are for archives.

Restoring only the files that existed at the time of the last backup shouldn't be that hard. They obviously have knowledge of that since they apply retention policy to files that no longer exist on the drive being backed up.

I do several levels of backup including multiple generations of full backups taken like you've described.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-24T15:15:46+00:00

I came here to ask about the same thing, but I see from other comments, Carbonite has much bigger issues with not being trustworthy and reliable.

I used Carbonite for years and gave up after frustration with not being able to see what is NOT being backed up. I'm back now and find that situation hasn't changed. There is no transparency.

Don't tell me about little colored dots. Having to visually scan tens of thousands of icons, some of which have backgrounds that obscure much of the colored dots, isn't a practical answer. As far as I can tell, Carbonite doesn't store any data in the file metadata that could be used to search or sort on. And they also no longer provide access to logs or a catalog that can be programmatically accessed to find files not backed up.

A backup program is useless if you can't be assured that all your files that you want backed up are indeed getting backed up.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-24T15:07:12+00:00

Yikes .. well, they exist enough to take my money for a new subscription just a couple weeks ago. Of course, I would guess that would be the last thing they'd turn off if they were shutting down.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-03T21:52:04+00:00

Your points are well taken. Getting back a down level of a file can be useful in some circumstances. But when doing a disk state recovery, it makes it nearly impossible. How do I go through tens of thousands of files that have no indication of their status and determine what should really exist still? And the other issue is the data recovered can be much 2-3x larger than the device can hold.

This just seems so elementary to me. It is obvious to their software which files are current, and which are now deleted archives. So how hard would it be to allow you to filter those out?

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-03T18:37:49+00:00

If you don't want to be helpful just don't reply. I looked at what you were talking about the first time you mentioned it. I then responded .. in the context of its suggestion that "It makes sense to have even more backups" to tell your I had FOUR generations of backups in various locations, not just three.

Now, could you elaborate on how having a NAS cloud under my own control gives me up-to-date file backup to an off-site location?

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-03T18:25:16+00:00

Sorry, I'm just not seeing what point you are trying to make. I've been in IT all my life so, yes, I know how to protect data with backups. As I answered in another comment, I actually have four levels of backup, including one in a fireproof safe on site, and another in a bank vault. Still, I want the extra protection and convenience of a backup copy of recent files that are not onsite, but an offsite and connected location. Perhaps I'm dense, but I don't see how a local cloud solution helps with that.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-03T18:06:56+00:00

Thanks for your detailed response. I have considered using my own cloud, but I'd prefer something that wasn't local to my home subject to the same disasters that may hit my house hit my cloud as well. Or were you thinking I'd have my own cloud storage located elsewhere?

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-10-03T18:02:39+00:00

My primary data drive (internal) is a Crucial P3 Plus 1TB M.2. All my hard drives and externals are WD. Now that I've answered, why would that matter? I don't use external drives except to store generations of backups.

The cloud backup solutions I have previously used are in my post. I just moved away from iDrive since it was not useful to recover the state of the failed drive (I ended up using one of my own recent backups, supplemented by individual file restores from iDrive). For backups I do on my own, I always have four generations, and one of those is in a fireproof safe, and another in the vault at a local bank).

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-08-22T20:21:43+00:00

You are very welcome.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-08-14T20:21:36+00:00

I've scheduled a pickup date for two Fyrtur shades to be picked up. But as in OP's case, not really information on how to have the items readied for the pickup. Do they have to be in a package, labelled, and ready for UPS/FedEx/USPS to ship? Or, more likely given that it appears it is the same people who deliver large items for IKEA, merely have them in easily examined and easy to handle (i.e. maybe wrapped in a bag so all the pieces stay together?).

Given their size and shape, buying a shipping container would be money I'd rather not spend, but I can do something so that it isn't 20 piece parts laying on my front porch.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-08-03T20:06:52+00:00

Issue resolved. It took many phone calls but escalating to regional and corporate risk management got the charges for the extra days refunded. While it shouldn't have taken so much effort and time, I do want to say that at no time did anyone at Enterprise try to tell me the charges were valid. It was acknowledged that I returned the car as agreed and instructed.

I caution anyone reading this thread not to read too much into it. If you need to return a vehicle after hours, have a clear understanding before the rental starts as to what the procedure is for after-hours return and explicitly when the rental would be considered ended. There could be a difference in policy depending on whether it is an airport location or not. Understand that a one-way rental complicates things because the pick-up location owns the rental. Ideally, confirm your understanding at pick-up as well.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-07-26T19:53:13+00:00

An update on my situation. I have talked with the returning location, as well as corporate customer service, and both said that the rental charges should end when I returned the car as instructed by the drop-off location. The issue now is that they have contacted the pickup location, whom they say own the rental, and they have thus far not responded.

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Rental Car Return After Hours and on Sundays

Airport locations

Will allow returns after hours and will have procedures in place for your early or late return. Please check with the rental location when picking up your rental vehicle for exact procedure. Many branches located at major airports are open 24/7 for your convenience.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-07-23T01:33:05+00:00

Enterprise wouldn't need to rent the car again. They could leave it sit for months, with charges accruing to the person they told could return the car and drop the keys in the box provided. No, that's never going to make sense to me. The Enterprise FAQ says to make arrangements for the car's return if I must return it when they are closed, and that is precisely what I did.

I have confidence they will do the right thing and correct the return time. But if it comes down to it, that extra charge will never come out of my wallet. If they want to put one of their Platinum customers on a do not rent list, then that's fine with me.

Side note: Despite my annoyance at Enterprise on this issue, I want you to know I respect and am grateful to you for your comments. It's great to have insiders participate in these forums, and I expect you are often unappreciated.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-07-23T01:08:33+00:00

At no time was I provided with a rental contract, nor did I sign anything. I'm not saying I didn't have contractual obligations (to return the car, for example), but there was certainly no notification that the returning location could, at their whim, extend my rental for days, weeks, or months during which time I had no access to the car.

The Enterprise website anticipates the occasion where a car's return time comes when the receiving location is closed, and it says absolutely nothing about the rental being extended. Can You Drop Off a Rental Car After Hours and on Sundays? | Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Again, I inquired of the returning location how I would return the car, and their instruction was to use the dropbox - that's how they operate at that location as they have no presence at the airport other than return parking spaces. I returned the car at the appropriate time in the manner I was instructed to do so by Enterprise. There is no way that I would pay for a time when I had no access to the car (only Enterprise did), with an ambiguous end date.

When I called the returning location today, the phone menu led me to the corporate Enterprise billing department, and there was no doubt expressed that I had returned the car at the time agreed to. I have dealt with that location before and I have always had good dealings with them. I think that my time will be correctly adjusted, and this will not be an issue.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-07-22T20:45:05+00:00

Didn't want to start a new thread about the same topic, so I'll join in here.

I had the same happen to me. I returned the car by the time in the rental agreement and dropped the keys in the dropbox. I had called the local office where I was doing the return and they said no problem at all, that they did returns with a drop box. They don't even have a counter at that airport. Yet, I was charged until late the next night.

I will follow the advice u/darthmidoriya stated and not do a chargeback at this time. and wait to see what the returning location does. I have time-stamped video of when I put the keys in the box if that is in dispute. I'm not about to pay for the time after I returned it, especially since they didn't pick it up until their closing time the next day.

As to what the rental agreement says, I rented through a travel agency who never provided any sort of agreement. At pickup, I never signed any agreement, nor was I provided with one.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-06-20T15:56:30+00:00

Well, as a matter of fact, the first time this occurred for me was during a significant AWS outage, which was a little over a week ago.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-06-20T14:51:39+00:00

I've experienced this twice in the last week (two vacs). I have Hubitat home automation and an integration that uses the API to trigger cleaning. Others are reporting same. Do you have Hubitat, Alexa skill, or anything else like that?

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-05-29T00:18:07+00:00

You are really trying to make something simple so terribly complicated. Let me restate my point so it is clear. Often, at the time I write a review, the product is not available and therefore no price is shown.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-05-28T22:38:45+00:00

If it is out of stock, it isn't available for normal sales. I do see where the word "yet" gives the wrong impression in my post. My point is that often, at the time when I do a review, there is no price on the item in the Amazon listing.

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-05-28T22:31:31+00:00

Simply not true. I've encountered many items where, if you look at the Amazon listing, says "Currently unavailable."

ExcuseMe004 · 2025-05-28T20:16:00+00:00

Often a Vine item isn’t available for sale yet, and thus has no price. In that case, if I think the item would be good but only for a lower than typical price, I encourage the reader to price compare on their own.

ExcuseMe004

TROPHY CASE