With the launch of Blink, Amazon hopes to capture a new market of home security customers

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At a media event this morning Amazon officially launched the Blink brand into Australia, launching the Blink Mini 2 and Blink Outdoor Cameras to Amazon and Bunnings stores around the country.

The first question you might ask is “why?” Amazon already has an extremely successful and popular home security brand with Ring.

But according to Mark Fletcher, Blink Managing Director, APAC, the online giant sees there being absolutely zero cannibalisation between the two brands.

“In Australia, just recently we did some local research. We just noticed that 80% of Australians still today are willing to invest in home security annually. 
So there's still quite a lot of people that are really trying to get into this smart home space,” Fletcher said.

“However, unfortunately, some of these people, less than 50% of them are (facing) challenges with (the) economical times. And so they want to get into it, but affordability is a barrier,” Fletcher added.

No crossing the streams

As far as Amazon is concerned, the two brands run completely independently. There’s no sharing of R&D or features across the two brands. You can’t access Blink cameras through the Ring app, or vice versa, though both brands will show footage on an Alexadevice like the Echo Hub.

That also means that existing Ring customers interested in a Blink camera would need to fork out for a separate Blink subscription to access all the features of Blink’s cameras.

Fletcher mentioned that in international markets where both brands exist, the Ring and Blink are quite complimentary.

This is because of the target market. Blink is a much more entry-level product, targeted at Australians new to home security with tighter budgets.

More to come

One of the problems I have with this argument though is the fact that if it were true, Blink would be launching with a competing product for each of Ring’s product categories.

Or put another way, where is the Blink doorbell?

Well, the answer to that question was buried a bit in the discussions, but effectively the answer is that although there is a Blink video doorbell overseas, it’s a bit dated. When its successor is announced, Amazon will be looking to bring it to Australia.

Fletcher hinted to me that CES was going to be exciting next year, so we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground.

It may also be worth waiting for the Amazon Prime Big Day Deals sale before picking up the new Blink cameras. When asked directly about this by TechRadar’s Zachariah Kelly, Fletcher responded: “Well, you’ll have to wait and see for that”.

I have both the Ring Outdoor 4 and the Ring Mini 2 to review, which will be interesting to compare with the likes of the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro and the Ring Pan and Tilt indoor camera.