Google’s New Indoor Nest Cam Is a Stylish Upgrade With an Annoying App

Google’s refreshed indoor Nest Cam is among the nicest safety cameras you should purchase. The $100 wired digital camera is available in 4 colours and replaces the plain black model that’s been available on the market since 2015. That authentic Nest indoor digital camera is principally an homage to the model’s Drop digital camera previous, whereas this new indoor safety digital camera ushers in Google’s new aesthetic for the good house.

And the brand new indoor Nest Cam is extremely stylish. Its brushed pastel coloring and fake wooden base is pleasant and ideal for many houses. But the Nest Cam continues to be stricken by one obtrusive concern: It depends completely on the Google Home app for management and configuration, making it difficult to carry into a house populated with classic Nest gadgets.

As Chic As Security Gets

This is the third Nest digital camera that I’ve reviewed up to now two months, and to this point, it’s the cutest of the bunch. It is available in 4 colours, together with Linen, Snow, Fog, and Sand, which is the model I examined for thi evaluation. It appears to be like blush pink in particular person. I do marvel how this specific design will maintain up over time, contemplating this indoor Nest digital camera is as of its time as the unique digital camera was (and that cam now appears to be like tremendous dated).

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At the very least, Google’s indoor digital camera gives some aptitude with its pretend wooden base. The stand and the digital camera are one piece, and even the cable is completely affixed. You can place the digital camera from proper to left, however to pivot it ahead or backward you need to spin it nearly 180 levels across the base earlier than it would curve. It took me a number of tries to determine it out, and it’s positively not as intuitive because the tremendous low-cost TP-Link Kasa Spot digital camera I simply reviewed. You may also mount the digital camera on a wall with the included {hardware}.

The new indoor Nest Cam isn’t the smallest safety cam round. It’s about an inch larger than reasonably priced fashions just like the aforementioned Spot digital camera, and it’s shorter than its predecessor. But due to its trendy look, it matches properly into the background of a house. It took a number of days earlier than my cousin, who visits my home often, realized that the enticing little machine on the shelf was a safety digital camera.

Under the Hood

The new indoor Nest Cam is a 2-megapixel digital camera with a 135-degree subject of view and as much as 6x digital zoom. It has HDR talents, night time imaginative and prescient, H.264 encoding, and may document 1080p video at as much as 30 frames per second. It’s additionally able to 24/7 stay view, thought-about one in every of Google’s marquee options for its newest safety cameras. All cameras however the Nest Doorbell are able to around-the-clock recording.

The new indoor Nest Cam doesn’t really feel like a efficiency improve from the unique. Granted, you possibly can’t purchase that digital camera anymore because it’s been discontinued. But should you add this new mannequin to your lineup of outdated faithfuls, not less than you gained’t discover a disparity in digital camera high quality.

There is a slight distinction in lighting between the 2 cameras, as I noticed whereas testing each gadgets side-by-side. The new digital camera takes in additional mild to assist expose element across the room. The outdated indoor Nest digital camera additionally has a barely narrower subject of view, but it surely’s hardly noticeable between the 2 digital camera previews.

I set the cameras up in my household room, overlooking the sliding door to the yard. Both cameras had points managing the publicity from the skin in the course of the daytime. I couldn’t see into the yard on both of them. I most well-liked the brand new Nest Cam’s brighter preview general, nonetheless, because it provided higher distinction between objects like my daughter’s toys.

The new indoor digital camera can do object and face recognition, which the unique couldn’t. It can inform between animals, folks, and generic movement, and it additionally works as a sound identifier for smoke alarms. Like the different two Nest cameras we reviewed, the Nest Cam will document faces and allow you to establish them. That information is saved domestically and it’s encrypted. But to show the machine, you’ll have to painstakingly shuffle by means of every particular person earlier than the digital camera learns who they’re.

I seen that the brand new indoor digital camera picked up the info from the opposite cameras moderately shortly. All cameras in the identical house share a well-recognized face library. The thought right here that’s you don’t have to show every new digital camera that comes into the fold.

Prepare to Pay For Nest Aware

The indoor Nest Cam was a stable performer throughout my practically two weeks of testing, although I’m trying ahead to turning off fixed notifications since I positioned it in one of many busiest rooms in the home. Unlike the opposite two Nest cameras I’ve examined, this one has no battery, so it might want to keep plugged in always to choose up footage.

Google’s been shifting round its Nest Aware subscription in order that its free customers have a number of extra perks than earlier than. But they’re nonetheless not sufficient if you would like full use of the cameras. On the indoor Nest Cam, you possibly can view occasions for as much as three hours after they occur with out paying a payment. However, it’s a minuscule little bit of time should you’re counting on the machine for around-the-clock surveillance.

In that case, you’ll must pay for Nest Aware, not less than for the timeframe wherein you propose to be gone from house. Nest Aware prices $6/month or $60/12 months for 30 days of clip footage and clever alerts for acquainted faces and smoke alarms. But if you would like entry to as much as 10 days of 24/7 footage, you’ll have to improve to Nest Aware Plus, which is the very best tier for $12/month or $120/12 months. Both subscriptions embrace emergency 911 calling from the Google Home app and work for all Nest gadgets, together with audio system and good shows.

Long Live the Nest App

One of probably the most difficult components of migrating over the brand new Nest Cam is that when you have any of the older Nest cameras in your community, you’ll must shuffle between the legacy Nest app and the Google Home app to handle all of them. At the very least, the Google Home app lets me preview each digital camera without delay and concurrently flip all of them on and off, whatever the 12 months they have been made.

The greatest concern with the migration from Nest to the Google Home app is that scheduling the digital camera has modified. Rather than let you manually set the beginning and cease time of every digital camera stream, like you can within the Nest app, you’ll have to regulate the Home & Away Routines as a substitute. My outdated Nest cameras are scheduled to come back on at a selected time each night time and go off within the morning, however the brand new Nest cameras depend on the cellphone’s location or handbook interplay to change between Home and Away mode. You’ll have to program the modes beforehand in order that Google is aware of which cameras to activate and off. I desire scheduling them at particular occasions all through the day as a substitute of worrying whether or not my routine has run.

This two-app system gained’t final ceaselessly. Google has dedicated publicly to fixing this expertise, although there’s no particular timeframe. Regardless, the top is nigh for the Nest app, and also you’ll have to determine tips on how to work with the Google Home app.

Worth Buying?

The indoor Nest Cam is probably the most reasonably priced of Google’s safety digital camera lineup. It’s priced competitively towards finances manufacturers just like the Eufy SoloCam, which gives options like high-resolution feeds and customized exercise zones for the same value. But you’ll nonetheless must think about that month-to-month or annual subscription worth to Nest Aware if you would like greater than a three-hour holding time for footage.

You ought to solely think about the indoor Nest Cam digital camera should you’re already embedded in Google’s good shows and audio system ecosystem. It’s definitely a well-design safety system when paired with any of the Nest good shows and different companion gadgets. But except you’re married to Google, cheaper safety cameras just like the TP-Link Kasa Spot cam work nice for watching over the home with out requiring a month-to-month payment.