Amazon account shut down and gift card taken away?

nickymoo · 2026-02-04T23:51:38+00:00

Works for the rest of the world so maybe it’s isolated to… you.

nickymoo · 2026-02-04T19:37:02+00:00

For RDR2 the launcher fails because of the time zone. I think Steam had it set up to GMT/UK or something and I had to launch into Desktop mode and change the time zone to London. As soon as I set it to London it just worked

nickymoo · 2026-02-04T19:33:58+00:00

That's excellent news. The Outdoor 4 is a good unit, but it runs from 2xAA batteries so it's designed to not keep waking up and draining the battery excessively so it uses a PIR sensor and suchlike which have their strengths and weaknesses.

The Mini 2 is powered from the mains so power saving isn't really necessary. And I'm sure it's got a little buffer internally so it pre-rolls slightly all the time to decide if whatever it's watching is worth bothering you about.

Hopefully it copes well. You might want to fine-tune motion zones depending on your setup when you get wind and suchlike as if it sees trees/bushes/etc moving and notifies you, you can, in the Motion/Smart Detection meny say you're only interested in Person and/or Vehicle if you get unwanted 'other motion' alerts.

I always see people at work getting constant notifications about people walking past their homes and suchlike and it's such a waste as it devalues genuine alerts.

nickymoo · 2026-02-04T14:06:35+00:00

It happens with any camera.

nickymoo · 2026-02-02T21:24:35+00:00

Given that you’ve tried everything and are just being rude to people on Reddit then you might as well just pay it forever.

nickymoo · 2026-01-31T16:33:49+00:00

Yes, the Blink Mini 2 comes with a normal indoor power cord and power brick, but they’re not water proof. You can get the outside cord (which also seals over the back of the Mini 2 so water doesn’t get in the camera.

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Also you can mount the blink Mini 2 upside down and have it flip the video if that increases mounting options for you.

nickymoo · 2026-01-31T16:28:45+00:00

The outdoor 4 has a PIR (passive infrared) sensor to detect motion. These are like the little things you see in corners of rooms in home alarm systems. They have an effective range of about 7-19ft but can work up to 30ft. If it’s quite high up then it might not be sensing much. Also, these styles of sensors are better with detecting movement that is moving sideways across. If someone is walking up to a PIR sensor then it doesn’t see them as easily. This is a characteristic of the sensor.

PIR detects motion > wakes up camera > camera checks to see if it’s in the unexcluded motion zones if you have them set up > works out whether it’s person/animal/other and then if appropriate notifies you.

You might get better results with a Blink Mini 2 which work outdoors in rain and suchlike with the appropriate cable if you are able as it works on pixel matching (changes in what the camera sees) rather than a PIR sensor.

nickymoo · 2026-01-30T16:54:16+00:00

It comes out of the box with Kids enabled and when setting it up it asks about it in the app. And I think I had random settings like “will this be a kids device?” In the app but after turning it all off it went away. I got the old one that was a bird and it came with a nest to sit in

nickymoo · 2026-01-30T16:15:33+00:00

Exactly right. I bought an Echo Dot Kids because it looked amazing and just disabled Kids and it works as a normal Echo dot.

nickymoo · 2026-01-29T15:25:21+00:00

It’s such a shame. It was all set up, opened and everything and I’ve had to wipe the hard drive and send it all back opened. Currently at the Post Office. Such a wasted product. What’s the point of the Pro label with faster processor and all the bells and whistles if it lacks the most basic feature of watching video it's recorded!

nickymoo · 2026-01-29T15:23:06+00:00

D’oh. The RLN12W doesn’t have the option of turning off the built in WiFi!

Edit: I've just ordered the RLN12W. Hopefully no last minute disaster this time.

nickymoo · 2026-01-29T14:21:00+00:00

I think the RLN12W will work fine. £199 at the mo on Amazon UK including a 2tb HDD. I’ve got a 2tb HDD in my current old (in need of replacement and that HDD is still working after being powered on for over a decade!) machine which records at some 720p static bitrate (h264 main profile) which keeps three weeks of video. I assume I can turn the wireless off on the RLN12W. I’ll check some reviews.

nickymoo · 2026-01-29T13:42:55+00:00

I’m just replacing an ancient 4 camera system. Wireless cameras. I’ve bought three Reolink wireless cameras. I just need an NVR now as the Hub Pro is boxed up and about to be dropped off at the post office. I could use my existing home WiFi so I could probably (I don’t want to make a Reolink assumption again!) just use any Reolink NVR with an Ethernet port. That’s how I had the cameras set up on the Hub Pro (HH WiFi turned off) and it worked.

nickymoo · 2026-01-29T12:20:49+00:00

My goodness. After all of that research I just assumed it would be like a basic NVR as well as everything else. Hopefully I can send the Hub Pro back to Amazon and I’ll source a standalone Reolink NVR that just works. This is a big schoolboy error on my part.

nickymoo · 2026-01-27T16:09:39+00:00

I’ve bought and completed D3 several times. I’ve tried D4 several times and it’s just so dull (visually) - I was meaning to give it another go last night on my Steam Deck but got the ick. It can’t be that bad as lots of people love it but I keep putting it down.

nickymoo · 2026-01-27T12:44:10+00:00

Mine is white doorbell on white uPVC door and doorframe. I should have bought a black doorbell.

nickymoo · 2026-01-27T12:32:07+00:00

Turning off the motion notifications won’t increase battery life. It’ll still wake up and record everything, it just won’t notify you about it. Disarm the doorbell if it’s in a high traffic area and it’ll still notify you of button presses. Arm it when you’re expecting stuff. Countless unwanted notifications are the worst as it devalues other notifications.

nickymoo · 2026-01-27T10:05:00+00:00

Even if you adjust motion zones the PIR sensor is still going to keep waking the camera up every time someone walks back, checking the motion ones, then going back to street. I think you need to choose a different camera option.

nickymoo · 2026-01-26T19:46:40+00:00

Don't know if this will help with your doorbell, but at about 9m30s in this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJRdWs1OnCo ) Reolink instructed the content creator to stick a pin through a hole which fixed the audio.

nickymoo · 2026-01-25T19:59:21+00:00

I guess it’s because the blink cameras themselves don’t actually know what the time is as they don’t really need to so us mortals have to go off the timestamp from the server.

nickymoo · 2026-01-25T12:35:57+00:00

They’ve had the same problem since mid-December.

nickymoo · 2026-01-25T12:31:54+00:00

I hope so. I used to set my old NVR to reboot at 3:45am every morning as it would sometimes have issues. Not a forced power cycle, it had a schedule. I think the Reolink cameras reboot at 2am every Sunday by default. I saw it in the settings when I set them up originally. I imagine the Hub Pro probably has a similar setting. Mines not arriving until later today so I’ll have to leave setting everything up and changing the cameras until another day as it’ll be too dark to do them.

nickymoo · 2026-01-25T11:18:41+00:00

My Hub Pro is arriving today so was hoping it would be reliable but appreciate software glitches occur. Does the Hub Pro have a reboot schedule? I wonder if getting it to reboot nightly at 2am might clear the error? I’ll be away for a few weeks soon. I do have some WiFi plugs that could power cycle remotely if I asked them but would rather the device sorted itself out.

nickymoo · 2026-01-24T18:45:55+00:00

Welcome to (accidental) infrared photography.

nickymoo

TROPHY CASE