Nest Cam review
Our Verdict
As the successor to Dropcam, the Nest Cam continues to set the standard for wireless home security cameras.
For
- Excellent 1080p video quality
- Easy setup
- Impressive night vision
- Programmable with Nest Protect and Nest Thermostat.
Against
- Pricey
- Requires monthly subscription for extra features
- Microphone/speakers not very powerful.
Tom's Guide Verdict
Every bit the successor to Dropcam, the Nest Cam continues to set the standard for wireless home security cameras.
Pros
- +
Excellent 1080p video quality
- +
Easy setup
- +
Impressive nighttime vision
- +
Programmable with Nest Protect and Nest Thermostat.
Cons
- -
Pricey
- -
Requires monthly subscription for extra features
- -
Microphone/speakers not very powerful.
Cheers to its easy setup, clear video and integration with other smart-home products such as the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect smoke alarm, the Dropcam Pro has been our top-rated wireless security camera.
Its excellent successor, the Nest Cam, delivers even sharper 1080p video, height-notch dark vision, and improved sound and motion alerts, which is why it's one of the all-time habitation security cameras y'all can buy.
Editor's note (Aug. 2021): Nest has a newer model the Nest Cam (indoor, wired), which costs $99 and will exist available in September. If you're looking for a wireless pick, there's the $179 Nest Cam (battery), which has a 1080p camera and includes for costless three hours of rolling video storage also as person, animal, and vehicle detection. For more details, please cheque out our Nest Cam (bombardment) review.
Nest Cam: Design
The Nest Cam sports a sleek blueprint, with a smoothen, cool-gray metal stand supporting a sleeky black camera eye that very much makes i experience as if ane's being watched. The magnetic base provides stability for the camera while supporting a slim, pivoting leg that attaches to the lens. At the top of the lens is a single LED that flashes blue when the camera is trying to connect to the network, and stays solid green when it'southward on and recording.
The convenient, 10-foot power/USB cord plugs into a microUSB port in the dorsum of the camera. The USB portion disconnects from the plug prong, allowing the camera to plug into any USB port, such as on a laptop or desktop. The Nest Cam comes with a magnetic base and a wall-mounting plate and hardware, giving you several options for camera placement: on the wall, standing on a flat surface on a tripod or even stuck on the fridge.
The camera's small size and cleverly engineered adjustable stand — too equally its wide, 130-caste lens — give yous user-friendly flexibility when it comes to defining the area y'all want to capture. The entire unit measures 4.5 x 2.8 x two.viii inches, with a leg that rotates 180 degrees, and the camera head atop it that rotates a total 360 degrees.
Nest Cam: Features
One of the major pluses of the Nest Cam is its crisp 1080p streaming video. Coupled with the camera's wide-bending lens and 8x zoom, the flick quality is tough to beat.
Nest has also upped the ante with enhanced night vision, which is more impressive than you would look, because that Nest doesn't sell information technology as the camera's best feature. The camera'south 3-megapixel lens, which is ringed by 8 LED lights, picks up impressive particular, though there'due south still is the typical move delay associated with domicile security cameras.
You lot can set your preferences, in either the desktop interface or the mobile app, to receive sound and/or motion alerts from the Nest Cam. You tin can't tweak the settings; each kind of warning is only either on or off.
The device was designed to trigger fewer false alarms (cars passing, shadows moving, etc.) than the Dropcam Pro. However, you don't get the maximum benefit of this "avant-garde sensing" without subscribing to Nest Enlightened.
The Nest Cam has a scheduling feature, so yous can cull which hours of the day you want the photographic camera to exist on and recording, and when to turn it off so that your Television set-watching fourth dimension isn't recorded.
The Nest Cam besides gives you the ability to talk and mind through the photographic camera. The feature is like a 2-way babe monitor; yous can check in on and coo at your pets from the office, say "hi" to the kids when they get home from schoolhouse or fifty-fifty spook an intruder. It'southward worth noting that the camera's basic intercom attributes are just that — bones. The quality of the audio in either direction is certainly not hi-fi.
Another unique feature is the camera's compatibility with other Nest devices. If you own Nest's Learning Thermostat and set information technology to "abroad," the Nest Cam will automatically turn on. With the Nest Protect carbon-monoxide-and-burn detector, if fume is sensed in the home, Nest Cam will automatically record a clip to capture the events and help you figure out what happened.
The Nest Cam can interact with several third-political party devices. If the Nest Cam senses move while a domicile'due south residents are away, it will turn on Philips Hue smart light bulbs and trigger the SkyBell video doorbell to kickoff recording. The Mimo infant monitor and onesie will trigger the Nest Cam to start recording if a baby moves. Other products that work with the Nest Cam include the August smart lock and the Petnet smart pet feeder.
Nest Cam: Smartphone app
The complimentary Nest app for Android and iOS is basic and straightforward. A simple habitation folio displays all of your installed Nest devices, with a drop-down bill of fare giving access to settings and account information.
You lot need to simply click on the Nest Cam icon, and any cameras you take gear up in your home volition be displayed by a photo icon and the photographic camera'south proper noun (eastward.g., Living Room, Bedchamber). You're and then taken to the live video stream, where you can view and listen to your video, utilise the talk option, zoom in and change your settings.
Nest Cam: Cloud storage plans
To get the full perks of the Nest Cam, you'll have to pay to subscribe to the Nest Aware app. Nest updated its Nest Aware cloud storage plans for its dwelling house security cameras and video doorbell; now, for $half dozen per calendar month (or $60 annually), you can store 30 days of event history from an unlimited number of cameras at 1 location; if you lot upgrade to Nest Aware Plus ($12/calendar month, $120 annually), you get 60 days of rolling deject storage, plus 10 days of 24/7 video history.
Nest Aware comes with ane feature particularly worth noting. Your camera will employ "avant-garde algorithms using depth sensing and confront detection" to produce more accurate sound and motility alerts. It won't tell you who's who, but information technology can tell if someone enters a room — and helps ensure that you receive fewer fake alarm alerts while y'all're away. Here'due south how Nest'south cloud-storage plans compare to Ring and Arlo.
The app will also record a short prune every fourth dimension it sends you lot an alert, so yous can review the footage subsequently, if necessary, to see what triggered the motion or sound sensors.
Nest Enlightened also includes a couple of fun, creative options. It lets y'all create brusque clips from your video footage and share them through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, as well as your own time-lapse videos.
Nest Cam: Video and sound quality
When played on a smartphone, the 1080p footage from the Nest Cam tin can make your family room expect almost like the set up of an action motion picture. The advantages of this upgrade in resolution from the Dropcam Pro — which maxed out at 720p — are clear.
Information technology's true that the 720p default setting on the mobile app will load video faster when your Net signal is weak, but viewing the 1080p footage on a strong connectedness is second to none. With sharp focus and silky-smooth video, it is truly loftier-definition. There was a slight, roughly one-2nd filibuster in real-time viewing, but lag time is not a problem for the Nest Cam.
The Nest Cam's 130-caste range of vision — one of the widest bachelor — and its 8x zoom allow for maximum flexibility in surveying your palace. Placing the camera in a corner will capture the entire room, and so some. You tin view a full-screen stream from your smartphone, tablet or reckoner; while larger screens show more item, the video appears slightly darker.
The Nest Cam's 8x zoom works quite well, allowing you to pinch and zoom in or out on a certain area on your touchscreen device. It's a nice characteristic, but doesn't capture a great corporeality of item when fully zoomed in, even when employing the "enhance" part.
Notwithstanding, the Nest Cam'south night vision is astounding: articulate, well divers and plenty brilliant. You tin can activate night-vision style manually to capture low-light areas; information technology will also plow on automatically when the lights go out.
Nest Cam: Two-way talk and live video
One of the unique selling points of the Nest Cam is its "talk and heed" feature, which functions almost like a walkie-talkie with video. When viewing your remote stream (which captures decent audio) you can press the Talk push button on the app to be connected to a speaker on the camera.
On the front of the camera unit, a blue flashing light will appear and a beep will sound every bit a signal for someone on the other side to talk. The thought is that you can talk to your pets or family through the camera — or maybe scare off an intruder by shouting at him remotely.
I'll admit to having some fun while testing this feature. On the app, you can set the camera to give an alert beep before you begin talking, or you can let your voice project without alarm. I tried the latter setting on my girlfriend, and let's just say she was not amused.
Nest Cam: Installation and setup
Nest boasts up and down that installation literally takes only a minute. And, surprisingly enough, information technology actually does. I plugged the camera into the wall and and then downloaded the Nest app, which is available for iOS and Android. From there, it'due south a matter of filling in a few information fields.
When you ready a new account with Nest, the app will walk yous through a quick setup earlier giving you the pick to add the Nest Cam by scanning the QR code on its dorsum plate and connecting information technology to your Wi-Fi network. Five seconds afterwards, you can watch yourself finishing the setup from your smartphone.
One of the beauties of the Nest Cam is that it works with other Nest home devices, such every bit the Nest Protect and the Nest Learning Thermostat. If you already accept i of these products, yous just accept to visit your Nest app and click "Add."
More: All-time Wireless Home Security Cameras
Both the mobile and desktop apps are piece of cake to use and have adequately intuitive settings. You can alter the alerts yous get, the "talk and listen" settings and more.
Nest Cam: Verdict
The Nest Cam is a superior security camera that offers easy setup and usability. The camera'south broad-angle lens and crystal-articulate 1080p resolution are truly loftier-def, and the night vision is unbeatable.
These features don't come cheap, though. At $199, the Nest Cam is a flake of an investment, and boosted benefits and add-ons cost extra. Still, with Nest Enlightened, y'all tin can store up to 60 days of footage in the cloud, and yous'll get app enhancements such as more-sensitive motion alerts.
Although the Nest Cam works with other Nest devices, like the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect, the Nest network is non a home-automation organisation. But for painless operation, solid security footage and the ability to collaborate with (and through) the camera, the Nest Cam is a bang-up choice.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/nest-cam,review-3049.html
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