Score Breakdown
Performance 8/10Usability 9.5/10Features 9/10Design 8/10
Pros
- Free smart alerts with incredibly accurate AI
- Indoor/Outdoor application
- Great Home app interfacing with Google and Alexa
- Free video storage
- Easy-to-use magnetic design
At $180, the Nest quite expensive for specs that range from unique to mid-range. It’s also a little bulky compared with some of the compact security cams on the market. What you do get from Google (something very few others offer) are excellent and primarily fee object recognition, activity zones and some free video storage. At first, we were disappointed by the lack of support beyond Nest, but a series of updates in recent years has also made the cam compatible with Amazon Alexa and Echos, solving our primary complaint. The result is a camera that’s very easy to recommend for homes that don’t have a security cam yet.
Design
Technically, the Nest Cam is called the “Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery),” but that’s a handful to type, so we’ll refer to it simply as the Nest Cam, which comes with an IP54 rating to resist milder types of outdoor weather, although you’ll need to keep it sheltered from very stormy conditions. It is battery-operated, but you can buy a $35 weatherproof power cable to go with it if you’d rather opt for a wired outdoor installation.
A charging stand for indoor use is sold separately.
Battery life is the big question with smart home devices like cameras, locks and doorbells. Nest wins on one front right away: The magnetic base makes it easy to pop the cam off and recharge when you want, no tools or screws needed.
Google estimates the battery to last somewhere between one and half months and seven months, depending on those factors. I charged our camera to 100% and 24 hours later, I was down to 97% in default battery mode with the automatic battery saver enabled. That’s about four months of battery in those exact circumstances, which matches with the other Nest camera devices we’ve tested from this generation. There are options in the Home app to adjust frequency of event recordings, video quality and length of clips. There are also three battery modes to choose from if you don’t want to cherry-pick power settings.
The Google team provided these estimates for battery life:
- Busy: About one and a half months battery life (about 20 to 25 recorded events per day)
- Typical: About three months battery life (about nine to 12 recorded events per day)
- Quiet: About seven months battery life (about two to four recorded events per day)
Nest Cam mounts magnetically to its base.
What else is out there
You have options these days when it comes to outdoor cameras. Google’s Nest Cam is an excellent all-rounders, but other cams do have it beat in specific areas. Arlo’s feature-packed 5S Pro cam offers a 2K resolution, more compact design and nearly every feature you could want, including Apple support (but the subscription is more or less a necessity). The Eufy S350 adds pan/tilt features with 2K/4K dual lenses and intelligent tracking for a complete indoor cam package, plus it supports local storage if you want to stay off the cloud and away from subscriptions (all at a lower price). And Ring’s Spotlight Cam Pro is a more expensive $230 option that adds a targeted LED light and some Ring specialties like 3D motion detection.
Related Posts
