#1:Google Nest Cam Indoor - 1st Generation - Wired Indoor Camera - Control with Your Phone and Get Mobile Alerts - Surveillance Camera with 24/7 Live Video and Night Vision
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5.0 out of 5 stars Nest Cam is a MUST HAVE for those living far away from elderly parents
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2018
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
I cannot say enough good things about the Nest Cam. I purchased a 3 pack and a single camera (total 4 cameras) for my mother's apartment.
My Mom is 86 years old and is in stage 3 of Alzheimer's disease. She forgets everything all of the time. We live 1200 miles apart. The Nest Cam has helped me help her with her daily routines. We do not use the Nest Cam with a video tape. We just use it as a live camera so I can check in with her & help her follow through on her chores. The picture quality is excellent. There is even sound so you can have a full conversation over the Nest Cam. You can talk and be heard and listen to what the person at the other end of the camera is saying. Cameras were very fast and easy to set up and move around. Setting up your on line account was simple. Anyone can do it. You need "0" experience to set up & use. When using the camera this way, there is no monthly charge of any kind. If you want to move the camera around frequently, just purchase an extension cord. I frequently help my mother while she is on the computer. My mother moves the camera directly in front of her computer screen so I can see what she is doing, read her computer screen & assist her with tasks she finds difficult. I can make sure she turns off the oven after she cooks.
The customer service at Nest is among the best I have ever come across. They are friendly, professional, knowledgeable, and available 24/7. I called them a few time before purchasing the Nest Cam and 2X afterwards.I was speaking to someone at Nest within 1-2 minutes each time I called which was very impressive. I am used to being put on hold listening to bad music for 10-15 minutes when calling customer service at other companies. Another good feature is that Nest e-mails you every time there is a break in Wi-Fi service. The Nest camera system would be a great security camera system but it is also ideal to help and keep track of elderly parents. I highly recommend the Nest Cam system.
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Dan
5.0 out of 5 stars Expensive but excellent product
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The product is definitely more expensive than most smart security cameras available in Amazon. However, the nest cam app is very user friendly and intuitively designed. Kinda makes sense since it was originally founded by an engineer who worked at Apple and it is now owned by Google. The motion and sound alerts work very well too. This camera is definitely better than one of those cheap, never-heard-of-companys' security cameras. I know because I owned one before. The app UI was crappy, some options were only available in Chinese, etc, etc.
In order to fully take advantage of this camera, you will need $50/year subscription + good wifi in your home because it will eat up your data at least 300GB per month if you decide to record everything in high quality. Without the subscription, I wouldn't recommend it as you can only view videos in live mode (no recording).
The set up was super simple and it probably took me about 5 minutes from opening the box to fully operational nestcam.
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David Jeandreau
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy as 1-2-3-4
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
I originally bought the Funlux cameras. After four or five hours of following tech-support pages, I give up and returned them. The nest cameras took longer to take out of the box and unwrapped to set up. It was a simple as one - scan the barcode, two - plug them in, three – locate them in the nest app, four – connect them to the Wi-Fi and you are in business. The Funlux cameras have a similar set up, but the app was hurrendous.
I like them because they have a magnetic mount, also have screw mount, and they work with my nest thermostat in doorbell system.
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Tiffany
5.0 out of 5 stars Makes dealing with PTSD much better
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2019
Verified Purchase
I am so happy I bought these. I have PTSD and got kind of thrusted into living on my own and had to find a place quick - said place ended up being sketchy as heck and I have been followed and chased by a drugged out lady who proceeded to try to break in. The door isn't exactly the best, but with these cameras set up you could see someone was trying to break in and I was in distress if there was proof needed. I can watch my dog who is going blind while I'm at work so I can make sure she is safe and okay! I cannot stress enough how much safer these cameras make me feel; I have four and bought the ring version for later. The only complaint I have is the sound quality isn't great.
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Your Huckleberry
5.0 out of 5 stars Love the quality. Going to get the outdoor ones as well.
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have had the camera for a month now and love it. It came with a month free of "Nest Aware" and I can say that I felt it was worth it enough to get a subscription at the end of the trial period. The video quality is excellent. That's honestly the best part about the camera. If anyone was to come into my house when I'm not there, I would be able to easily identify them. I can also push a button and talk to whoever is in my house through the camera.
This camera provides peace of mind when we are away from the house or on vacation. We have an alarm system, but the ability to check in on things is great. I have pets, so I don't use the motion alerts, I use the "person alerts" that come with the nest aware subscription. I've tested it and it works every time I've tested it. The only time I get a false alarm is when my cat jumps up on the back of the couch to look out the window because the camera sees him as a 4 foot tall cat man I suppose.
The Nest Aware subscription is $100 a year for the first camera and then $50 a year for each additional camera. A lot of the 1 star reviews I've read like the camera, but people seem pretty irate about the cost of the plan. Maybe I'm missing something, but I actually see that as a good value. Not sure if the other people writing reviews have any experience with how much home security costs, but in the realm of monthly subscriptions, that is cheap and the product is worth it. Call me crazy, but I don't find it unacceptable, evil, or taking advantage of me to charge $100 a year for 24/7 HD monitoring that I can access for up to 10 days. To each their own. If you disagree, just make sure to leave a comment about how dumb I am. That will really show me. People mention "Arlo" as the cheaper option if you have a problem with the monthly subscription. I'm not saying anything about Arlo because I don't know anything about it, just make sure you do your research and know the difference of what you miss out on, if anything. I have a friend who uses Arlo and they love it. She showed me on her phone and the video quality looked good.
A tip to parents of young kids...this camera is much better quality than the baby monitor we bought for around the same price, HOWEVER, you would need to utilize the motion/audio sensor or just constantly monitor your phone or computer. I've not used it as a baby monitor so I'm not sure the drawbacks, but like I said, the image quality is amazing.
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Dennis Eichenlaub
5.0 out of 5 stars Nest Knows Best
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2019
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
I have three major complaints with most security cameras. First, it’s easy for hackers to attack them. Manufacturers are too busy developing new models to fix bugs in the old ones. Nest is a Google company. Google is very good with security. Of course, you must secure your Google account with a strong password and preferably with 2-factor authentication. If somebody breaks into your Google account, they can turn the camera off. Or they can turn it on, look around your home, and even talk to the babysitter. This would totally freak out any teenager I know, and rightfully so.
My second complaint is that the cameras work fine until a glitch or power failure causes the camera to drop the Wi-Fi connection. After that, they won’t work until you unplug the camera to reset it. The Nest camera is excellent hardware and very robust. After a glitch, the Nest camera reconnects to the Wi-Fi without fail. It also sends a notification so you know if the camera is disconnected from the Wi-Fi.
My third complaint is that most cameras are stupid. I had a camera send dozens of notifications a day because the answering machine light was blinking. Nest does intrusion detection on the server, not in the camera. Nest Aware is an option (with a monthly fee) that adds smart intrusion detection. “Sound” becomes “Person talking”, “Dog barking”, and “All other sounds”. “Motion” becomes “People” and “All other motion”. “People” detection works very well. If a person walks into the room, Nest servers will trigger a person event. As long as the person stays in the room, there are no more person events. If the person exits the room, then re-enters it a few seconds later, Nest triggers another person event. Nest Aware also records video and lets you make video clips.
Events don’t always trigger notifications. This drove me nuts. I was waving my arms in front of the camera and not getting notifications. The first 3 Nest support people I talked with didn’t know why. After a notification is sent, there are no additional notifications until a 10 to 15 minute “cool down” period is over. If a second event is detected halfway through the cool down, the timer starts over again. There must be no events for the entire cool down period before Nest sends another notification. Also, one can watch the video, see that events are declared, and receive no notifications (as I did). If someone is watching the video, they don’t need notifications. So says Nest.
Notifications can be sent to your smart phone as a push notification and/or sent to your Email. Email notifications come with an attached picture. If other family members install the Nest ap on their phone, they can share camera control and notifications using their Google account.
I like the privacy that Nest provides. A green light, which cannot be disabled, indicates when the camera is sending video to the server.
Here’s some things I don’t like about Nest. Because intrusion detection is done at the server, Nest continuously sends video when the camera is on. You can set “Bandwidth/Quality” to low, medium, or high. But if your internet service has restricted bandwidth or data limits, Nest may not be for you. The “pictures” attached to Email notifications are actually frame grabs from a compressed video. Even if video quality is set to High, there is not much detail in a person’s face. If you don’t use the monthly service, intrusion detection is stupid. You won’t get dozens of notifications a day from a blinking light. But you will get a notification every time the timer turns the lights on. Finally, Nest support people are friendly and helpful with normal setup options. But they don’t have good in-depth knowledge of how Nest works. (Hence this long review.)
Here’s a small nit that Google might eventually fix. My Nest ap is on my Android phone. If I turn on “Do not Disturb”, I don’t get a sound when I receive a notification. Do Not Disturb does not have a way of allowing Nest push notifications through. If I’m wrong about this, please let me know in the comments, because I would love to have this feature.
Nest is a great product. In my opinion, most of the negative reviews it has received are not warranted. Many of its important features are not appreciated. Buy the Nest and turn it on. It will do what you want it to do. But don’t try to figure out why it does what it does. It will drive you nuts.
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travelintheusa
5.0 out of 5 stars Great image quality and very easy to set up
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2019
Verified Purchase
I had initially balked at the cost of these cameras- and that you have to pay for a monthly subscription. Because of that, I purchased two different types of cameras that required a usb card instead. I couldn’t get either of these cameras to work (well one did for about 10 minutes). They both got returned and I sucked it up and bought a three pack of the nest cameras. What a difference! Had all three placed and working within a half hour! The images quality is terrific and with the 5$ a month subscription- really- this was a no brainer. I highly recommend these cameras
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NickTop Contributor: Baby
5.0 out of 5 stars Forget about Security - Top 3 Nursery Purchase
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
While Nest doesn't advertise this as a nursery camera, let me assure you that it makes a stellar camera for watching your little one. It's also entirely unique from dedicated nursery monitors that support video for the reasons described below.
We purchased the Nest when we realized that when my wife goes back to work overnight as a Nurse, she would of course be missing her baby. I did a lot of research and settled on the fact the Nest can stream video to any device on any internet connection. My wife could open the Nest app on her iPhone while taking a break and watching our baby sleeping soundly in her crib. It brought her some comfort, and on hard evenings she would sit and watch the baby sleeping to make her feel more connected.
Not only does the Nest video streaming work on any popular phone, tablet, PC etc, but it even has a microphone feature where we could talk into our devices and it would pipe through the Nest camera. We used this to talk to our baby when she was upset, yet we were indisposed (using the restroom comes to mind). Nothing like singing to your baby from the comfort of your toilet. Of course there were other more reasonable examples, like Mommy talking to baby when she was sitting in her car before returning home.
Another huge feature is that it detects "movement". An intended home security feature, but actually a really great way to analyze your baby's sleep patterns. You can rewind and observe how your baby slept the next morning, how much they were moving and when they were in their deepest sleep because no movement would be detected for a long stretch. This was extremely revealing and it actually helped us figure out our baby's 4 month sleep regression when it was happening. A hidden benefit if when you forgot what time your baby woke up from her nap, it's easy to rewind back and see when a big amount of movement was detected and know the time of her last wakeup.
Of course there are benefits if the Nest being always on, and always recording. Like the fact we caught her very first roll in her crib and was able to save it as a clip to download. The Nest Subscription service has been useful in recording back and capturing moments we thought were special.
A couple of cons to be aware of:
1. Always on, streaming to the internet means security concerns. While Nest has password protection by default llimits sharing to just you, the very fact it's an internet based service means it's going to be vulnerable to hacking. I think hackers would grow bored of watching a baby sleep but maybe that's just me.
2. Nest Aware is $10 a month while optional, is valuable for capturing moments and makes the camera much more useful overall. This adds up in cost significantly over the course of a year.
3. Needs to be used in conjunction with a real audio baby monitor. It's not going to replace the traditional baby monitor. It's vulnerable to hiccups with internet connection and power outages, and not super reliable overall.
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Mk
5.0 out of 5 stars Still holds up
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Given how long ago this model was released, it really does still hold up and is a lot better than most newer cameras. The set up was extremely easy and straight forward (so long as you actually read the prompts and can follow simple direction :) . We use it as a baby monitor and love it especially when paired with our hub and hub max. Alerts can be customized from movement and audio to just movement or just audio.
The field of few is really nice which makes up for not having a large pan field (again, I acknowledge that this is the older model and a lot of newer stuff has this.
What I really was surprised by and actually liked, was the weight of the product. It has a little weight to it and is very solid for its design. I actually like that cause I don't feel like I am going to break it if I look at it the wrong way like some other cameras. The mounting plate is also nice and I like that the camera attaches via magnet (don't worry it is strong). But there are other mounting options out there via 3rd party.
If you are looking for simple room monitoring, I highly recommend this product. Especially since you don't need to subscribe to Nest Aware if you don't want. Be warned though you will not have active video storage if you don't have nest aware. That wasn't a huge deal for me though.
However, if you are looking for a ton of different features with the latest and greatest in video quality, sounds and feature, then I would look elsewhere. If only for the fact that this came out 7 years ago and tech has come a long way. But be warned, a lot of the other stuff out there require subscriptions to their services, in order to access all the features.
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Tyler Baruch
5.0 out of 5 stars Nest = Great Baby Monitor
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
We purchased a Nest camera to use as a baby monitor when we transitioned our 5-month-old into her own bedroom. Although the Nest is not designed for this specific purpose, we LOVE using it as a monitor and plan to use it as a security camera when we no longer need it for our baby. We have been using it for three months. There are a few downsides (see below) to plan for but the Pros by far outweigh the Cons in our view.
Pros:
-The night vision is incredibly clear on our Nest. We have it hanging right above our baby's crib and can clearly see her regardless of the amount of light in her room.
-The phone alerts make it so easy to tell when our baby wakes from her naps and from sleep. We can be a floor away, get an alert, and pull up the camera to decide whether we should give her a minute to self-soothe or go upstairs to get her. In the morning, when I am sleeping lightly anyway, my phone vibrates with a Nest alert and I know the baby is starting to stir.
-We appreciate that Nest doesn't necessitate lugging an additional device around to monitor our baby since it works through our phones.
-When one or both of us is away from home and there is another caregiver with her we can still access our Nest to check in on naps, etc.
-When the app is opened the audio is crystal clear. We know if she is babbling, crying, or stirring. Since we sleep in a room close enough to hear her without a monitor at night, we LOVE that we don't have the sounds of a full-time audio monitor blaring into our bedroom (see Con below).
Cons:
-There is no "full time" audio function with the Nest since it was not initially designed as a baby monitor. As a result, if you want to "listen" to what is happening in the baby's room, you have to go into the app on your phone to tune in. This is a potential downfall for anyone who does not sleep in a bedroom close enough to hear their baby's cries without the aid of a monitor. The workaround for this is to turn your alerts on high when you go to bed, but then you are alerted every time there is a minor noise which may get annoying considering how many noises babies make at night that don't necessitate you waking up. So, if you want a monitor that allows you full-time hearing access in their room without turning on the app this may not be for you.
-It definitely looks like a camera (duh) and considering our baby's room is mostly neutral-colored it does stand out. The white cam might have been a little better but this is a minor issue and the camera does not take away from the overall aesthetic of the room.
5.0 out of 5 stars Works good, works with NEST software
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Exactly what I expected. Works fine, easily integrated into the NEST system and easily viewed remotely on smart phone.
Disappointing that you have to subscribe to have access to the recordings, but that was spelled out in the description. Can buy that cloud service, but cannot used any of the equipment I have to achieve the same results. Cannot combine with my other surveillance cams or the DVR.
FOV is wide and therefore makes a difficult image if you are using with a shorter focal length such as under 20 feet.
Example: When in use as a doggie cam in the house, image is distorted. Motion detection and setting options are good. You have excellent options when setting sensitivity and ability to select region to include/exclude from motion detection. Definitely want to exclude ceiling fans and TV from the motion detection zone. Or externally exclude any street traffic or blowing tree limbs. Software also seems to be able to discriminate between humans and not when choosing to "detect".
Audio functional, but not great. What can one expect from a small camera with built in speaker? Would be nice to have an audio-out option for plugging in better speaker or ability to record.
Probably easy to connect with Google Home Hub (base unit) -- had to have my wife do it as it was more involved than I had patience.
These cameras are still a little expensive for the function--compared to what you can have with options that do not have a NEST/ RING/ALEXA base unit compatibility-- and you still get the shake down to buy cloud space if you want the recordings archived at all. Had very short trial period and you get to test drive the community function which would be great for security conscious people. Ability to see what "events" have been reported by other participants around your vicinity.
The NEST system (doorbell included) was handy during trial period when someone crashed their car into my front yard and I could watch the people, police, and tow-truck tearing up my front yard. I was also able to communicate with police who came to my door to inform me, but I was grocery shopping.
Would recommend, but may wait until price comes down to buy again.
Would really get excited about this if there were options to record directly to my own equipment, without giving Google (and who knows who else) access to images (and audio) from inside my home.
You definitely want to remain aware of when it is ON/OFF.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely recommended, cameras are great, cons are semi-minor
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2017
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
These cameras are amazing. Video quality is great as the viewing angles are amazing. You may not think you are in the camera's view when you are. The nice is pretty good, though there is always some static like noise.
The biggest benefit to the Nest cameras is their software, though it may also be the greatest Con. The Nest app works great and gives you the ability to adjust each camera's settings individually. You want to temporarily turn a single camera off, just press the toggle in settings. Want video, but no sound? Same thing. You want notifications? No problem. It even allows you to choose which camera you want to be notified about, how, and during what situations. You can have notification lights for either when the camera is on or if someone is watching the feed currently.
CONS:
There are a couple of Cons though. First, these will not work independently from the Nest app. You cannot connect it to a HDD or other storage device. It has to be through the Nest app. This results in the second issue.
The second issue is that the Nest app is technically free, but it does not store any video for you so you basically have to watch live. In order to have Nest save your history, you of course must get as subscription PER camera. There are two options, one is Nest saves your data for 10 days, the second is 30 days. I am not sure what the prices are for 30 days, but for the 10 day option, if I recall correctly (it's paid automatically so it's been awhile), it's $10 for the first camera and $5 per camera after that. For 3 cameras (10 day history option), that's $20, $30 for 5 cameras.
Honestly not terrible pricing-wise, but would have preferred a truly "free" option after purchasing the actual cameras which aren't that cheap.
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Heather Ann
5.0 out of 5 stars Ai welcome
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2021
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
What is better than having family around with ulterior motives and a desire to push the ex wife out of the picture? Ai! Hi, I'm a single mom. My ex and how family, including my adoptive family, have ask made the last 5 years of my life hell. But now, with nest IQ indoor cameras, I have proof of my valuable parenting techniques in conjunction with hearsay proof of what's actually happening. I HIGHLY trust and reccomend these little guys to minitor and listen in on your loved ones. I have nothing to hide, and anything in my home will/can be used in court. Add a Google drive and drop box, external hardrives etc and your set to go. So sit back. Relax. And KNOW Ai has your back.
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JustUs
5.0 out of 5 stars Worked fine for us
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Purchased some months ago for keeping an eye on anyone entering the apartment & pets. Works fine, can see & talk to the pets fine. Haven't needed the subscription mentioned, if a photo needed would screenshot it before it purged. No problem with the app. Small enough & nice enough it's not a distraction sitting wherever you put it. I think it depends on what you are using it for, for just some added peace of mind this serves its purpose. If really about meeting security needs I'd be out at the store hands on & looking at pieces that might work together.
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joanerism
5.0 out of 5 stars So far, I’m thrilled
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I read so many reviews of this and other makes and models. All had really good and really bad reviews. I took a chance on this one because I already had a Nest thermostat and love that.
The set up took all of two minutes. I already had the app and it worked seamlessly with the new camera.
The wide angle lens is more than sufficient and shows me three rooms.
The picture quality is better than I ever expected. Zooming in is easy and sharp.
Looks great at night.
The talk feature is awesome.
Shut off /turn on is a flip of a switch on the app.
Works perfectly when I’m away from home.
Five stars all the way,
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Charles E Bradley Sr
5.0 out of 5 stars Very cautious GiGi
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I purchased this as I have one already in my living room. I put this one in the bedroom of my Special Needs granddaughter. Well worth the money. Gives me peace of mind when I’m away at work. Definitely recommend this. I’ve used Nest products since 2014 when I first got my granddaughter permanently. As with everything, things change overtime. I had to purchase a plan to have the ability to make clips and go back and see what happened earlier in the day. The price is more than my previous plan of $10, but I’m ok with this if it keeps her safe.
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Michelle
5.0 out of 5 stars What a great indoor cam
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
What a great indoor cam. It goes great with my Nest Secure. Very easy to setup and link with our Nest Secure. The cam can pick up the slightest sound.You can hear and speak through it. Yes you can talk to your pets through the mic and or if someone is in your home, you can say something to them right through the cam. It will pick up my cat eating her food and it can hear us talking on the second floor!! It will send you a notification that your camera hears a noise. My cat got busted doing things I never thought she would be doing when we aren't home. You can also view your camera at the Nest website or the app when you log in and you can turn it on and off and schedule a time to turn it on and off if you like. While our Nest camera is connected to our Nest Secure, you can use the camera separately. Make sure there is nothing obstructing the view of the camera such as plants, books etc. My only grip is the monthly fee if you want to save your videos to the cloud. It cost 10.00 a month.The app works great with it and although many complain about the pricing of this cam. You can find coupon codes online. I got mine on Cyber Monday and got it for a excellent price! The infrared night view is very clear and can see everything. You can pan around the area, picture quality is pretty good but not great but clear enough you can see details of the room you are viewing.
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Jessica Weissenburger
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing camera. The quality is great and it was ...
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
This is an amazing camera. The quality is great and it was super easy to link the camera to my phone. I decided to subscribe to Nest because it gives notifications and it saves 7 days of video. The subscription is $100 for a year or $10 per month for 7 days of storage or $300 for a year or $30 a month for 30 days of storage.
You can have the option of getting a phone or email notification anytime the Nest detects activity or sound. I decided to only get notifications by phone for activity because it does pick up pet movement. So if you have a lot of pets you will get a lot of notifications if they're moving around a lot. There are sometimes when I see movement from my pets and I did not get a notification, but so far I have gotten a notification anytime a person is moving around.
The night vision camera makes it very easy to view movement at night. It's very simple to navigate through footage and it uses bars for lengths of time where there was activity so you can skip past inactive time. You can watch the feed live and even use the mic on your phone to talk through the camera, which can potentially be fun.
The camera does pick up sound but there is a slight delay in the sound if you're watching live. You can have the option to turn off the camera using your phone or to have it not give notifications if you're home. You can use this on multiple phones with no problems. I have it set up on an iPhone and Android.
The camera is stationary, so you will want to position it to where you want to see activity. It does have a very wide view. I have it on top of a bookshelf in the corner and it gets about 2/3 of the room on the camera. The only part it misses is the space directly to the side and behind where the camera is positioned.
Update: I've had this camera for several months now and have had no issues. Works great and it even gives you a notification when the camera goes offline because of a power outage or if your internet goes down. It does need internet to function. While the internet was down it recorded nothing.
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mmollat
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Wireless Camera right now!!
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I love NEST. So it's no surprise that I purchase the indoor camera. I have three of their outdoor cameras and they are great! I highly recommend them for the video quality and style.
Their cloud storage though is really expensive compared to the competitors. But if you can swing it, the Nest Aware is an awesome app. I chose the 10-day option which is really plenty of days. If something should happen, it alerts you and you get to choose whether you want to download the event to keep for further investigation or if you need to provide evidence to the police.
Nest plans are as follows: Basic is 10-day video history, intelligent alerts, clips and time-lapse and you get to set activity zones. That will run you 10/month (100/yr) each additional camera is $50 on top of that. So I have a total of four. I pay $250/yr for cloud storage. Not bad because I have video surveillance and peace of mind. They also have the Extended which is 30-day video history which is 30/mo (300yr). I dont recommend it.
Nest makes it super easy to setup and start recording in no time. That's what makes this so appealing. And you may ask why Nest and not a POE system? Well, I like the fact that they are wireless (easier to install) and also you can communicate two-way with the Nest cameras.That was the reasoning.
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Tom Riddle
5.0 out of 5 stars Great camera for outdoor security as well (through a window)
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
We have been using these as front window security cameras. We cannot use the outdoor versions because wiring 2 on the second floor with outdoor outlets would require serious contractor work (magnets won't work and drilling into the synthetic insulation would ruin the insulation). Thankfully these "indoor" versions work very well as behind the front window security cameras. A plus for the indoor sec cams is that they are far less conspicuous than a big white bulbous outdoor nest cam. They are just little black circles peering on the edge of our living room and kitchen windows.
The app works great on my phone and the nest website never has an issue whenever I want to see what is going on. I also recently caught a city public worker throw an entire lunch out of his pickup truck window onto the street and saving the 10 second recording was easy peasy. One day I got home and I just saw a bunch of food and a brown bag in the middle of the street, thanks to our nest cams, we know the culprit lol. The saved clips are also fairly compact files (that clip was only around 500 kb).
We live in a bad neighborhood (Destroyed our doorbell on our gate, destroyed our cute houseplant pots along our driveway, randomly coming up onto our driveway and littering/shaking our front gate for no reason, etc.) and I am positive that an outdoor camera would be vandalized too (Someone could cut the power cord). Our cameras are probably safer indoors lol. A perfect setup would be an indoor and professionally installed outdoor nest cam but for now we have overlapping fields of vision with 2 indoor cams at a sub $500 pricepoint.
It would be nice to have a way to stick these onto windows. As of now I used a speaker stand to have it up against one of our windows.
4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall camera, but I really wish it had an option for ethernet or solar power
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Pretty good camera overall, although the subscription is pretty much required and fairly pricey. They are able to get away with a pricey subscription because of the amazing night vision, and motion detection. It is possibly worth it to upgrade and get the pricier nest iq version that has face detection. It is also really useful that this camera has the ability to record 24/7 to the cloud and allows you to look back over the footage and find what you need easily. It would be really difficult to find a camera with better features, night vision, overall quality, and use of artificial intelligence for this price. I really do wish I could connect it to ethernet because at times wifi is very unreliable. I also wish they had an option for a solar panel to power it, mainly for the outdoor cameras. I do recommend this camera only if you plan to pay for the subscription.
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Chris Reynolds
4.0 out of 5 stars Nest cams are the way to go
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2019
Verified Purchase
I use these for home and office, work great! The only thing that frustrates me is the subscriptions for the cameras. If one should happen to need to be replaced by warranty the entire subscription for that camera is canceled and must be repurchased when the new one is installed. They won't transfer the subscription to the new camera and you don't get refunded until the subscription renews a year later.
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Brad B
4.0 out of 5 stars Great for our doggie cam & another easy to use Nest product!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
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The camera arrived same day with my Prime membership. It took about a minute to set up, in part because I already have a Nest account, but it wouldn’t take much longer without one. It is basically, plug it in, click on add a device in the app, scan the barcode on the back of the camera and it connects to your account and your Wi-Fi… it is up and running.
The camera is easy to control in the app. We have our set up to turn off automatically when we are home (it knows by the proximity of our cell phones), and it notifies us if the dogs bark or if the camera sees a person (not a dog). The camera has an extremely wide viewing angle (130 degrees – but seems wider) and the 1080P resolution is phenomenal. While the camera itself does not pan zoom or tilt, the picture can be “zoomed in” on by using normal phone gestures on the smartphone app. You will obviously lose some resolution, but we have found it to be quite acceptable still.
The couple of negatives on this camera are 1) video storage is not free after the initial trial and 2) the app somehow recognizes dogs less than 10 pounds as people and we get some false alerts on our phone app. The video storage is not an issue for us as I am using the camera as a doggie cam, not a security cam. The alerts can be a bit annoying, but we just use them as an excuse to check in on our two dogs.
In addition to the camera, I bought a AC Outlet Mount by Wasserstein (also from Amazon) for $16.99 – in part because I hate cords! The camera snaps into it just like it mounts in the OEM base. The outlet mount comes with its own AC adapter and a short (~6”) micro USB cable. Using this setup, we could plug the camera in directly across from our dogs’ ex pen at their level and get a great view of them with the Nest Cam. I love that this really cleaned up the installation and look of the camera. Since our camera is mounted in a high traffic area, I wish the mount had a way to screw it to the outlet the way some surge protectors do, but thus far we have not had an issue with bumping it.
Overall, we love the Nest Cam and the Wasserstein AC Outlet Mount. I would give both 4-1/2 stars.
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Ken Lantz
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Camera! Nest Aware Subscription is Extra $ :(
Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have really been impressed with all of the Nest products. We also own the thermostat and several smoke detectors.
This camera has a great picture and is very quick and easy to set up. I like that I can see the video on any device just by logging into my Nest account. It has a wide field of view that allows me to see the entire room. I also like that I can zoom in and the video quality pretty much stays the same. I also like that it is able to sense activity and can record a clip.
The only thing I don't like is that after the 30 day trial period I will lose the ability to see the video history and to record clips. A Nest Aware subscription costs $10 a month. I would like this product much better if Nest Aware was included. Otherwise, I would have given it 5 stars.
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eight1178
4.0 out of 5 stars Muhahaha Muhahaha Muhahaha
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I chose this camera over all the other web cameras out there because I have the Nest Pro thermostat and wanted everything to be managed under the same Nest ecosystem. It's a premium camera for sure. Everything from the boxing, materials, looks and software makes it feel "top of the line". It was easy to set up, and image quality is amazing. The reason I gave it 4 stars is the subscription pricing to Nest Aware, which is the service that allows you to record and keep data footage in the cloud for "X" period of time. There are other cameras out there that offer this service for free and others that offer at a lower price. This is just an optional service, so you don't have to subscribe to it. If you don't subscribe to Nest Aware, you will still get motion alerts and instead of accessing a video recording of that particular moment through the Nest app, you'll will get a still image. Also keep in mind, Nest does allow you to try it out for free for the first 30 days. Overall, it's an awesome web camera. I doubt I'll be subscribing to Nest Aware, as I don't think it's something I really need. If someone does break into my condo, I'll have a crystal clear image of their face. Then I will go hunt them down and destroy them... muhahaha, muhahahha, muhahahah....
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Stacy
4.0 out of 5 stars Great cams, but there are a few things…
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I use these cameras for my daycare to monitor nap areas. They are wonderful because they alert me when there is unexpected sound or motion. If the power goes out there seems to be some issues and I kind of have to fuss around with them to get them working again. Also, there are two apps to use with these-google home and nest. I prefer nest because when I open the app I can see both cameras right away on one screen. The google home app requires me to open each camera individually. Both apps are a bit slow opening and connecting.
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Tammy W.
4.0 out of 5 stars These cameras work great
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I bought these cameras because we have a Nest doorbell camera and I wanted to monitor/talk to my dog (who suffers from anxiety) when we’re not home without using a different App. I’m really happy with the picture, it’s clear and has a wide angle view but I’d give these 5 stars if the camera could rotate. However, everything works exactly as described. I really like the Home/Away option so I don’t have to worry about unnecessarily capturing video on certain camera while I’m home. I was even able to talk to my husband on the camera one day when I was gone and he wasn’t near his phone. There was an emergency and I had been calling my husband but he wasn’t answering his phone. I turned on the cameras and saw him in the family room (where we have a camera) and was able to tell him what was going on even though his phone was in another part of the house.
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Bob
4.0 out of 5 stars If you need it, you would be hard pressed to find better.
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The camera itself is fairly easy to install. I had to purchase a new modem and router to gain the necessary speed to make it work. That really wasn't an issue for me, as the ones I had were 10 years old and needed replacing anyway. I had the camera up and running in minutes. The daylight picture on my HTC1 is crystal clear and the ability to scan the room and zoom is awesome. The night pictures, not so much. I have a lot of ambient light coming in my living room windows, but the image is still grainy and largely indistinguishable. If I didn't know what I was looking at during the night hours, I wouldn't know what I was looking at. I guess if someone was moving around the room, I would make that out easy enough. I bought it to keep an eye on the house while I'm traveling and it supplements my home security system. I would not depend on this as my only home security option. I haven't decided yet whether to pay for the monitoring or just use it as a live camera. If the software had the ability to take a snap picture from my phone, the camera would be perfect.
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Massoud Vaziri
4.0 out of 5 stars This is my 4th one
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I like these cameras, the only unfortunate part is that they were purchased my goggle. The original cameras were easier to setup and much more reliable, after goggle bought them, they are not as reliable and tend to drop off periodically for some reason. Also, every times i have an ios update, the nest aware function has to be reset, which again happened after goggle purchase. But overall they work fine, and i decided to replace my original one that was over 10 years old.
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J. Cook
4.0 out of 5 stars Buy it
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The camera was easy to setup and install. The phone application required a little figuring out to get things correct. The camera is dependent on your internet connection so if it's fast it will work better. The focal length is about one average size room. The zoom works but the quality of the video gets blurry. The camera when "programmed" on a computer works very well relating to detection zones, once setup correctly. I dislike the auto detection as it DRAINS your phone battery because it continually uses you location. I have found disabling that and using the manual setting works very well and fast. When you leave all you have to do is touch a button on the front of the application to activate it from "home" to "away." Very simple and fast. Overall, I am very satisfied with the product and do recommend it. When activated, when I walked into the detection zone I setup I got an email indicating activity before I could walk two rooms away. Very very nice.
4.0 out of 5 stars Great camera - just one problem
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I brought two of these to add to my older DropCam Pro.
As usual the camera comes in a well packaged box and the setup is so easy a child can do it in minutes. If you can manage to use a smart phone you can set this up.
The image quality has improved massively and there doesn't appear to be problems with bandwidth of having multiple cameras on one network that I was concerned about. The step up from my old camera is a world apart - such a good improvement. The colours are so much better and the low light performance is just astounding compared to the older model.
The only issue I have is with the storage side. I have no problems with paying or anything like that or even the tiers. The issue is for goodness sakes why is it not available for us in more countries - sort this out as to me its the most limiting problem. I want to use the feature but apparently I live in a country which is not deemed important enough to take full advantage of my camera. If you get this sorted Nest I will give you that extra star.
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CL
4.0 out of 5 stars Decent camera
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I am happy with it. The only thing I don't like is the lag on screen when I am watching it. I have it set up with a monitor, plus I can access it via the phone. I didn't have any lag with my prior camera. However, that isn't an actual camera issue, I don't think. Also, my other camera had awesome infrared, so when it was dark I could see real well. If not for the night light in the room where the camera is, I'd be lucky to see anything, since the quality is bad that way.
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SP
4.0 out of 5 stars this is a great camera! Yes
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I've had the Nest Cam and have used it as one of my children's monitor. I have to say, this is a great camera! Yes, the price is steep but the term, "you get what you pay for" definitely applies to security cameras in my opinion. We will have a nanny starting soon to watch our two children. Naturally, this prompted me to set up cameras in the home. After researching for a while, I decided to try getting a few more Nests Cams to get the house covered. In this process, here are a few things for you to consider if you are wanting to do the same:
Price. You should get it while the cameras are still $50 off. $200 for this camera is quite expensive. The $50 off makes it a little more bearable. You can only purchase two with this deal, unfortunately. If you need to buy more than two, you should buy two on amazon and two on their website.
Cord: Like all security cameras, the cord is always an issue. You can purchase a 25 ft long cord on Amazon. But you still need to deal with the intrusiveness of the cord. I've looked at wireless cameras because of this and it just seems like all the ones that are out currently doesn't have the image and build quality that comes with Nest. Fortunately for me, I have placements for all of my cameras where the cord is not going to be an issue nor an eye sore. But, keep this in mind.
App: The Nest app is well designed and easy to use! I love the features I have for my thermostat. However, a huge feature that the app is missing is being able to view multiple screens at once. For a security camera, this is incredibly disappointing and almost a deal breaker for me. My only hope is that Nest will update the software to support this!!! I hope their listening!
Overall, a great product. With a few tweaks and additions, it really could be one of the best.
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J Siddoway
4.0 out of 5 stars No connectivity issues, a must when used as a baby monitor
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
This review is in comparison to the Sri Camera, Arlo camera, and the Amazon Cloud Camera, also we use this as a baby monitor. I liked the Sri camera, which we had initially. It stopped working though. I'm sure from being dropped on the floor and not taking better care of it with little children around. We tried the Amazon Cloud Cam, which had the best picture quality and sound sensitivity of all four cameras, however it disconnected too often. We just got the Nest Cam and have had no issues with connectivity, which is why I'm giving it 4 stars. The picture quality and sound sensitivity are similar to the Sri Camera which is good, just not as AMAZING as the Amazon Cloud Cam, hence 4 instead of 5 stars. This Nest Cam also has a lot of neat features on it's app(my husband tells me), which also makes it 4 star noteworthy. Overall, the Nest Cam is a great camera. I realize I didn't mention Arlo. The Arlo Camera would sometimes emit a bright light which I thought was waking my baby and we started having connectivity issues with it. Picture quality was good on the Arlo, the same or a tad better than Sri and Nest.
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Naveed A
4.0 out of 5 stars Good purpose, but expensive (cost to buy as well as subscription)
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
What I like about nest cam:
1) very wide angle lense
2) low profile, these cameras are very small and hard to notice
3) setup is very easy. It really is plug and play. I've used many cameras in the past and i'm amazed how easy they have made it now.
4) you can setup alerts and zones. Zone is an area you can draw in your house that will send you alerts when there is motion detected in it. You can also setup alerts when you hear something loud or unexpected (window breaking, someone falling, etc.)
5) you can talk through your camera. You can communicate with others at the house directly from your camera by holding the talk button.
6) all videos and communication is encrypted
7) mounting is easy as it has a magnetic base
8) all your videos are stored in the cloud in real time. So if someone were to break the cameras, you will still have all your videos upto that point. I have subscription to save for 10 days.
9) they work very well in dark. they use infra light to capture footage.
Things I don't like:
1) its expensive.
2) if you want to save videos in the cloud, you have to pay subscription. $10 for the first camera and $5 for each camera after that. This is per month. I have 4 cameras so I pay $25 / month.
3) they are wired. You need to have a wire to power the cameras
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Zzyzx Oh
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost a Perfect, but Premium Priced
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I am a bit of a technjunkie, but I held off on wireless cameras after a less than satisfying experience with the old X-10 PLC devices, long ago. But I tired of waiting for the professions to give a decent response to my non-commercial, residential needs. I looked at the Nest zcsm and the Netgear and decided to give the fan-favorite a try.
I live in a house with multiple Wi-Fi access points. And I learned not to configure it where you open the box, but to configure it to be mounted. Otherwise, you might have trouble reaching the access point you configured it to use. It must be looking for more than SSID and password, and I had to delete and re-add the camera after I moved it or the viewing application clocked. I have limited experience in moving this around, and I hope I don't have similar issues with the Outdoor version if I do add one.
Once properly connected, the application keeps showing a banner to get you to subscribe to their retention service. I did see I had some Free Trial that expires in a month, and would have liked to opt-in to that trial when I had more time to play, rather than have it start without my knowledge. But the advertisement for the subscription is annoying, at best, and aggravating over time.
Well, the daylight images are excellent, and I like the ability to zoom in, even if it isn't the best quality on my viewing device. I placed this on my basement wall in a powered wall clock receptical, and the wide-angle was outstanding from the corner of a large area. At night with the ligts out, the large surfaces of ceiling and wall become an issue, since the night vision lighting reflects back and the other areas look much too dim. You are warned about this in the materials, so I was not surprised; I just did not have a choice.
At just under US$200 this seems pricey for a basic HD camera and a basic app. There is no obvious troubleshooting or debugging feature for connectivity, and having to delete and add it when you want to change the wireless configuration seems crazy. I purchased this as a test before ai made a more substantial multi-unit purchase, outdoor and indoor, and it has not caused me to jump back on and fill my cart - at least at this price point.
It is a nice visual design, in any color as long as it's black. It needs to come in some shade of white. The camera can't swivel, so your stand must and not many do exactly what you want. But, all in all, it's an approachable, novice-skill, wireless camera that has quite a few fans, even before it was acquired by Nest.
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Alex P.Top Contributor: Photography
VINE VOICE
4.0 out of 5 stars Works as advertised
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2016
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
So far so good. Set up was easy enough and went smoother than the nest protect (QR codes actually worked whereas with the protect I had to manually key in the identifiers). Bought the 3 pack as we want to be able to watch the animal while we are not at home plus it seems like you get a little bit of a discount. Video quality is good as is the night vision. No complaints yet.
Edit Mar 11, 2015 : subtracted a star : So the Nest cam in the garage wasn't getting good WiFi as the garage is across the yard so the camera was losing connectivity. I got an extender put on that side of the house. This is where it got weird. I needed to change the SSID of the network in the Nest cam. This was not easy. Trying to do it through the Nest app was a waste of 30 mins. It never took me to the network configuration and kept using the old configuration. I finally brought the Nest cam into the house and wired it to the Mac and used the app on the Nest cam to reconfigure the SSID. Either they removed the configuration change from the Nest app as all the help said I could change the SSID settings through the app or the help is plainly not in synch with the Nest app capabilities. So beware when you need to change the network configuration you will need to haul the cam over to a computer.
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James Carter
4.0 out of 5 stars Easy enough that anyone can set one up!
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Edit to add: There is a new "outdoor" model being released in September. If you are like me and are planning to use some of these outside it may be worth waiting for the new model. To use this model outside you will have to put it in a weatherproof enclosure which may reduce night vision or sound quality.
These things are delightfully simple to setup, and offer a good option for home monitoring to those of us who don't want to configure a router or run cables all over a house. There are trade offs to this simple solution however...a lot of them. First, if you have more than one or two, expect that video quality may intermittently degrade due to wifi/internet bandwidth issues. We use these in two homes, one home uses one and the other uses seven. The home with one is much more reliable and more often has good clear video. The home with seven has frequent episodes where video will pixelate and is prone to have cameras off line. Another trade off is that these things are expensive relative to standard home security type cameras. While I am really grateful that these cameras allow us to easily monitor a house 3000 miles away, it can also be an exercise in frustration. The software often hangs (you will get very used to swing a blue circle spinning in your screen) and requires a desktop computer and a paid subscription to use all features. Speaking of which, if you want to record any video wou will have to pay a subscription for each camera (discounted rates for each camera on the same plan after the first). Overall the cameras do work well, there is a 2-3 second lag but the quality is good. Audio works but two way conversation is clunky due to the lag. For me, this is an amazing product because it functions well enough and was easy enough that I could install 7 cameras in a day and a half (we installed many in outdoor/difficult to reach areas using weather proof enclosures which work great but added difficulty to the setup). Remember these are not totally wireless, you still need to provide power.
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HTB
4.0 out of 5 stars Nestcam Is working for me so far
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have been researching security/surveillance cameras and dropcam was on the list. I bought the nestcam because it seemed the easiest to set up and the cloud storage makes more sense than storing locally ( I had my computer stolen in a break in before).
Set up really was super easy--download app, scan code, and complete settings. The device is powered by long micro usb cord. The camera is black and the cord/plug white--I don't really like that. I tried using a shorter cord and a battery pack with success. A decent battery pack and judicious use of on/off allows it to be placed virtually anywhere.
I tried the camera in the house and facing out the front window. In both cases, picture is sharp--really quite impressive-- at both 1080 and 720. I really only notice the difference when zooming. I tested night vision in the house and it worked very well. It does not work in the window pointing out due to the glass. Quality of picture is better on my iPhone 6 than on my iPad Air, which is probably due to the devices.
Of importance to me is the distance it can capture detail. My porch is about 20 feet deep with another 20 feet to the street. While all activity is captured up to the horizon (houses on the opposite row), zooming in on details beyond about 30 feet will lack clarity. In other words, I can zoom in on a car license plate but not make out the numbers.
With the camera in the window, most of the motion activated is passing cars and people, but every so often I cannot make out a trigger--seems to be wind in the trees or maybe a bird.
I am not sure how long the software keeps history without a "nest aware" subscription; I signed up for the trial about 36 hours in, and all the history was still available. I was successful at taking screenshots of cars, etc on the iPad or iPhone, so that is an option if you don't need a week of history--you can take stills, just not video clips--for free.
Signing up for nest aware was glitchy--after trying the iPad, iPhone, and then computer with chrome, I was able to complete the transaction in internet explorer. The interface changes only on the computer--allowing you to make clips and set zones. The software does not work well in chrome--activated motion time does not show up.
I took off one star because remote access does not always work--sometimes it said camera was not connected or it could not reach Nest. I would close app and try again in a bit and it would usually work. I imagine with the new launch they are working out kinks, so I will re-assess and change rating accordingly in the future.
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mauricio rodriguez
4.0 out of 5 stars Great camera!
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2022
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Nice wide view (set it up on a dresser or shelf and you can see the WHOLE room!) Love the alerts I get on my phone for movement, or how long the camera has been offline (my toddlers like to unplug it). Also love that it has Night Vision!
My only two complaints are that I wish it wasn't stationary, so I could have a 360 view. And, that I wish it was wireless so my toddlers would stop unplugging it from the wall.
3.0 out of 5 stars Good Indoor Camera
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I like my new nest indoor camera. I was looking for one for a while that records continuously. I also didn't want one that I would have to worry about charging all the time. I have it place in my puppy's room to check up on him when I'm at work. First time mom to a fur baby and I worry! The free trail nest aware subscription was nice, but not worth $10 a month. If they ever make a $5 a month plan I would get that. The feed is clear on the app and on a computer. The camera picks up sound clearly and using the microphone to speak is pretty nice. The feed does seem to have a 3 second delay and will become distorted if you zoom in. It's get very warm at times, but it's plugged in so I expect that. Overall a good camera for my needs. I've had for about a month with no issues.
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Ron Ramirez
3.0 out of 5 stars Product itself works fine; service deteriorating
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Just want to leave a review to let people know that a year into using this, Google/Nest seem to have permanently deteriorated the streaming quality of the video, which basically ruins our use for it. We don't have any paid service, and only use the camera for about four hours once a week (unplugged and put away the rest of the time), but during those four hours, the quality of the video streaming is absolutely terrible, no matter what we set the bandwidth quality to. Placement of the camera has not changed, and no other connection/bandwidth issues have been detected in the household during this time -- just this camera. Makes me question if "free" users are just being given the shaft. Particularly saddening considering that upon purchase, I was more than happy with the video streaming quality. Will update if the quality ever improves again, with any possible fix discovered.
Additionally, we never found a reliable way to allow two different phones to simultaneously claim/view the camera within the Nest app. Adding it to one account will remove it from the other. I don't know if there's a paid feature that changes this, but it makes it extremely inconvenient, as it means that the phone can only be tied to one person's phone, which means, for example, a couple cannot independently use this camera to check up on their house while away.
Finally, one very annoying issue is that the camera, by default, records at a landscape orientation. The camera does rotate within its base so you can change it to portrait (or any other angle). However, there are no options to rotate the view within the app by 90 degrees (only a complete 180 degree flip), which means your view in a phone's standard portrait view will always be a landscape orientation, completely wasting half of the screen and meaning you have to zoom in to see anything in detail -- which also means you won't be looking at the entire camera view when you do zoom in to see things.
You can turn off portrait lock on your phone, of course, but if your camera is physically rotated 90 degrees to view portrait style, that means you will be looking at your camera view sideways -- and since phones tend to only lock to portrait, trying to view right side up means your view will either rotate back to portrait orientation (and still be sideways), or you will be forced to hold your phone upside-down just to see the camera at your intended angle. For a camera that gives you the option to change rotation in such a way, it's a glaring oversight that the app fails so dramatically. I have seen people bring up the issue to Nest tech support publicly online, only for the tech support to misunderstand the issue and repeatedly offer the 180 degree rotation as a solution (it is not). Make of that what you will.
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Conan
3.0 out of 5 stars DANGER: Security Breach Easy but Avoidable
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I bought tons of these google nest indoors because my neighbor has been spying on me and taking pictures of the inside of my home, as well as attempting a robbery. Insane stuff. Well, my neighbor got access to my google nest information because she was taking pictures of my room. So now she has all the information that is on the back of the google nest cameras. Now she has access to everything. To prevent this issue, once you set up your camera COVER THE BACK of the camera with the passwork/key with a sticker or something.
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AMAZON SHOPAHOLIC
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing. Here's why
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2020
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
I hate that I can only give Nest 3 stars. I was one of the first people to start with nest years ago. I had 2 cams at the time. One started showing in monochrome colors and though it was out of warrantee they sent me a refurbished replacement. That one suddenly stopped working within the year or less. The other I had in issue with because IT GOT HACKED!!!! Yes, admittedly by Nest because there was no way around what happen. The camera should have been off while I was home and as I walked by one day I realized the light was blue. I was shocked because I KNEW i had it turned off. I approached the camera and as I got closer and i was looking into it and it turned off. The person was looking into my loft as I was approaching. That freaked me out. Soon after that one suddenly stopped working as well.
So, recently I had an issue with crazy excessive noise from the upstairs neighbors and torturous retaliation they took because of my complaining to management, Its almost impossible to get someone evicted in the state of California so I needed proof of all the things they were doing to us so I bought 3 NestCams.
Unfortunately NestCams COULD NOT not pick up the terribly loud banging that iPhone picked up clearly. I don't understand why, so disappointing because that's what I bought them for. You could hear someone whisper on these cams but NO major sounds, it was BEYOND disappointing. I could only use them to visually capture us being startled awake at 5am each morning - luckily it was obvious by watching but it did not have the most important component I needed.
Also, the output mic sucks. My dog is skittish to say the least and she cannot hear when I speak into the mic...i don't understand why the audio/sound is SO BAD on these.
I ended up keeping them but I must say I still fear for my privacy and feel like I have to babysit them and flipping them downward when home or turning them off/unplugged.
Oh, that reminds me...the home/away option doesn't work, I have all the settings correctly programmed. They never turn off when we are home, ever, so you keep getting notifications every moment wheel they are on and the censors go off. The ones I had a few years ago didnt have the home/away working either. I thought by now that would have been fixed but no.
I hope these get better soon, they aren't cheap.
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Matt Basterson
3.0 out of 5 stars Not much has changed in 8 years
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2020
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
In 2011 or 2012 I purchased a Dropcam Pro, the predecessor to the Google Nest. I thought surely in the intervening 8 or 9 years the technology would have improved tremendously. Nope. This is almost the exact same camera that I purchased so long ago. I mean, the form factor is exactly the same (fits into the Dropcam frame), which is fine, but the disturbing part is that the video quality is also exactly the same. I was really hoping for much better night mode video. Nope. Took stills from both my old camera and new camera nighttime video feeds and you can't tell a difference. Pretty sad that Google hasn't invested anything to improve the technology at all. With that said, I think these are still better than Ring products but not as good as a $20 Wyze cam.
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Kevin
3.0 out of 5 stars Ehh, Former Canary User,
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
8 MONTHS IN EDIT:
It routinely misses things... something Canary did not. It costs more, and has the same issues as Canary. The search continues for a good home camera...
I'm a former Canary user who jumped ship to Nest Cam after Canary's famously unethical bait and switch around Sept 2017.
Coming from the Canary, this product costs about the same and is MUCH more polished. Features and help pages are better, prices are clearer and more upfront, and I love that it works with the Nest ecosystem. The 24/7 video recording is great, and the timelaspe features are pretty cool. Their "sightline" feature is amazing for quickly scrolling this 24/7 video feed. I'm very impressed
I plan on continuing the Nest Aware subscription, because I feel it is worth it (unlike Canary's).
Very happy with this product so far
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Adam
3.0 out of 5 stars I would recommend getting an IR emitter to really shed some light ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
While the Nest Cam certainly works and has the ability to see at night, it is quite limited in its range. If the subject you are monitoring is anything more than about 5' away, I would recommend getting an IR emitter to really shed some light on the subject. I ended up buying the LIFX + bulb and pointing it towards my door so that people are more visible when the lights are off. The LIFX bulb has an IR emitter built in so even if the light is turned "off", it is still bathing my front door in non-visible infrared light.
I would also warn you about a quirk in the camera's design. There is a setting to make it only turn on when you are away, based on proximity to a cell phone. (Not sure it works if multiple people are in the home with cell phones - but irrelevant for me). However, once I drive away, the camera recognizes I'm out of the home geo-fencing area and turns on. However, rather than getting an alert that says the camera just turned on, you will get an alert that says the camera "noticed some motion" which seems a little silly to me.
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Dodger Town
3.0 out of 5 stars Very good, to a point...
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
When I first starting using this I thought it was great. The picture is amazing. There's sound, you can speak through it, and the motion detector is very sensitive. However, the problem is that cloud storage is really necessary to see anything that has happened. They give a 30-day trial of the cloud storage (which starts immediately) and I thought that if I didn't sign up for it I would at least have 7-days worth of stored history. Not so. After the 30-days are up there is no ability to see anything except what's happening live. That really diminishes the usefulness of this camera. Cloud storage costs $10 a month or $100 a year.
I also just purchased the Ring doorbell/camera. While it is also amazing, it came with 1-year of free cloud storage. The cost of this doorbell/camera was about the same as this Nest cam, however it's a little different application.
One other thing. If you're looking at the various cameras available, it seems like the best would be one that is completely wireless. While some say they are wireless, in reality they're not completely wireless. So read closely. The most interesting to me is the Arlo camera. It is completely wireless, but it uses those expensive watch-type batteries and a lot of the reviews say the battery life is short especially if pointed outside.
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Chris
3.0 out of 5 stars Great Cameras but horrible company/support staff
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Have two indoor cams and one outdoor all nest products ...Reason for 3 stars is strictly customer service and a heads up to potential new nest customers ...
Pros
Camera extremely easy to setup
Works very well
Audio in and out
Alerts for everything
App streams well
Customization of settings
Night vision
Cons
Defective units get very hot to touch
No external storage for recording
30 days of 24 hr recording drops to 3 hrs once trial is over unless you pay per month
The Ugly
*Nest will send you replacement cameras no problem if your unit has an issue BUT they will send you refurbished cameras from a warehouse without the adapter and will not send out brand new cameras even if within warranty period or literally still brand new
**There is some kind of issue where nest becomes very concerned about the heat ot the cameras (if brought to there attention) and whether or not they pose a human or property threat ..
***Very confused and non helpful support staff with 30 min hold times for supervisors who have to help
Out generic staff
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Electronic Gadgetphile
VINE VOICE
3.0 out of 5 stars Fast and Easy Setup
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2015
Size: 1 PackVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )Verified Purchase
I have two homes and use the video cams to keep and eye on things that my alarm systems don't pick up. I have 4 different cams including 2 Belkin NetCams, 2 Panasonic BL-C230's (tough to configure), 3 DropCams and now 1 Nest Cam. The Nest Cam and the Drop Cams are the easiest to configure followed by the Belkin NetCams and lastly the Panasonic BL-C230's (not quite plug and play, not even close). The Dropcams and Nest Cam are literally plug and play so setup is fast and easy. The Nest Cam transmits in 1080p and the DropCams are rated at 720p max. The Panasonic and Blekin units are 640x480 pixels and 720p respectively. Only the Panasonic can pan and scan and none of them really have zoom other than software driven. The Nest and DropCam units do offer online recording (7 or 30 days) and notification when something enters a user selectable zone. Not cheap at $10/mo (7day) with $5/mo for each additional camera. The user cannot record the video other tha through the Nest service. The Belkin does offer notification of humans in the picture for $2.99/mo but I don't have any experience with this. The Panasonic offers free internet access but no recording or alert services that I am aware of. I have attached a series of screen captures from each cam - unfortunately all different since the cameras are distributed so you can judge the real world resolution for youself.
3.0 out of 5 stars not a true baby monitor/ notifications are problematic
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I really want to love the nestcam. The picture quality is amazing, and it was super easy to set up. If you are planning on using this as a baby monitor, I would keep looking.
I NEVER get any alerts sent to mobile devices for sound. I mean, that's why I got this thing, to let me know when my baby is crying. It'll send me notifications for movement, but I don't want those, just sound. So I'm stuck having my iphone or ipad on all the time, open in the app, which obviously kills the device rather quickly. Oh, and even if it was working, you only get 1 alert every 30 minutes, not alerts as they occur.
After dealing with their incredibly nice customer service for 3 days and not being able to figure out the problem, they finally told me, that this device isn't really intended for use as a baby monitor, and I'd be better off buying a different product!
UPDATE:
ok after talking for HOURS with several different technicians, I finally got the sound notifications to work! We actually had to totally delete my old profile and set up a different account with a different email address. So now I feel like I can give a better review after having successfully used the monitor for a month.
The picture quality is great, and it looks great even zoomed in. I can check in on my baby at anytime, anywhere and I never have an issue with it dropping service.
My biggest problem with this device is still with the notifications. Nest will only send an alert for a sound or motion detection every 30 minutes because they say they "don't want to annoy you with constant notifications". However, this is such a major flaw in so many ways. I should be able to say whether or not this is annoying to me, and be able to adjust how often I receive notifications. We're not living in 2001, the technology is there to do this.... it's just lazy engineering, or computer programming or whatnot. If they fixed this, I would probably give it 5 stars. However as it is, it's not a perfect baby monitor.
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Tim G
3.0 out of 5 stars Great camera when nest server is up.
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have had the nest camera for about a year now. It has worked well with or without a subscription. I tried both ways. Least for my intent of being able to watch my pet when I not at home.
My co worker enjoys it too when I was watching my pet who she likes.
Security of needing a phone confirmation code is nice for logins and a good method to protect account.
However lately the nest server goes down a few times making the camera useless and a paper weight. This is a big opportunity as there doesn’t seem to be any redundancy unlike the nest thermostat that can be used without any internet or service.
Contacting customer service via chat during an outage or upgrade. Didn’t get a clear answer to what was happening.
To me the conversation was mostly fluff and taking my comments to higher management. I didn’t feel that they were doing anything as mentioned above and to them it has happened a few times with there server going down.
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KH
3.0 out of 5 stars Cloud Storage is the way to go for some applications
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have the original Dropcam Pro as well as 4 Nest Cams. Although I like the original better the Nest Cams have so far performed fine. Camera is not as wide angle and 1080p is not supported but 720 is fine and reduces the network load. Eventually you'll be charged for how much data you transfer on your network (some already are) so the reduced picture quality so far is acceptable for me.
I like the cloud storage, yes a bit costly but I use (2) of these camera for security at work and (2) others to monitor elderly parents. I especially like being able to playback earlier day events to make sure caregivers are treating my parents properly. I also have (3) higher end Panasonic camera's for monitoring vacation property. Their picture quality is far worse and the cameras cost more. The setup of the Panasonic was difficult as well and not for the average person. Nest setup was only a couple of minutes for the first and maybe 30 seconds for the others after you get use to it. Am using the standard Verizon Actiontec wireless router and it works fine with that, have not tried any others yet.
The Panasonic cameras are better with motion detection and emailing pictures, Nest great with streaming and playback. Depends on your needs but this camera is far easier to setup than any others I've seen, including Foscam.
Edit: Just dropped it a star. Got another camera and could not set it up on the Verizon Fios network that I use the Dropcam on. Had to use my iPhone to do the setup. Now working fine but could not set it up using my laptop. Thankfully iPhone setup worked on the same network.
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Jerry
3.0 out of 5 stars Solid Camera
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
First off, this is a solid camera. The material seems durable, does not feel cheaply made. The Picture quality is very good, even has night vision with a clear picture. The sound quality I have not really tried using the two way talk, I have tried using with me in the room with the cam and the quality does not sound clear. The app is easy to use, you can also see a live feed from a desktop/laptop by going to Nest, the camera was easy to setup. As far as the functionality of the camera, I will echo what everyone else is saying in that you will need to purchase a subscription to use to its full potential. Once the 30 day trial ends, you only get still pictures when the camera detects motion, sometimes not even that. The camera motion could go off for any little thing, wind gust, an insect flying in front of the camera, etc.. Due to needing to purchase a subscription to keep a log of the videos I am giving it 3 stars. I did notice that Nest has come up with a new lower priced subscription plan but I will probably just use the live video feed feature for now.
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Jason
3.0 out of 5 stars Pricey compact design
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
It can be expected to pay extra for Nest products because they have great quality, pleasant customer service, and flawless functionality. However, Nest really tries to nickel and dime their customers by charging a hefty monthly subscription for Nest Aware with each camera. For residential users who might periodically use a camera to check on their home during vacation or on a pet when away these cameras aren’t worth the cost. Like all of Nest’s other products, the camera integrates seamlessly into the website and has a slew of controls. The weighted stand allows for simple placement throughout your house as long as it’s in close proximity to an electrical outlet. The motion alert feature is great for when you are away, but I wish Nest would concede some short amount of video history for casual users.
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Sashy
3.0 out of 5 stars Works well but some minor glitches and expensive subscription
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Setup is easy, it always detects motion, and it's easy to tell it to ignore certain areas. But considering the high price of the camera as well as the Nest Aware recording service, there are some annoying glitches:
- In the Android app's history section, there are little animated thumbnails for each motion event. But when you tap a thumbnail to play the video full size, the timing is usually off so you miss the beginning or end of the event.
- There's a similar problem on the website (although you can work around it easily); the little dots on the timeline for motion events are not quite in the right spot; if you click directly on the dot, the playback won't show the entire event; you have to click a a little bit to one side.
- One of the touted benefits of Nest Aware subscription, in addition to the continuous recording, is that it's supposed to be better at ignoring things like moving shadows and reflections that can cause false motion events. But I still get those things recorded frequently.
- The Android app often shows a message complaining about my phone's location. But none of my other apps ever mention this, or ever seem to have problems with location.
- Posting a video clip to YouTube never works. It acts like it did, but no video ever shows up in my YouTube account. Posting to Facebook is OK (you can also post to Twitter but I haven't tried that).
- You can turn off the camera LED in settings - but if the camera loses its internet connection, the LED will turn on anyway. This could clue savvy criminals that the camera isn't working.
None of these issues would be a big deal in a less expensive product. When my annual subscription runs out in about 9 months, I'm going to start looking carefully at the competition; it shouldn't be that hard for someone to build something cheaper that's just as good. I've tried the Yi camera and though it's cheaper, it's not as good (yet), and since video is stored in the camera instead of the cloud, if something happens to the camera your video is gone too.
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Mike K
3.0 out of 5 stars - Pretty good video quality
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The positives:
- Pretty good video quality. Looks like they're using some heavy compression though (and my own bandwidth isn't an issue), so that can make it a bit blocky/blurry. I am extremely impressed with its low-light performance. I can't use the night vision mode because I'm behind a window, but I almost don't even need it!
- The size and mounting options are excellent!
- Very long usb/power cable.
The negatives:
- They require a subscription for even basic features that other WiFi cams have built-in, like setting up zones for motion alerts.
- Cloud-based ONLY. There's NO option for local storage at all!
- Motion detection is all over the place. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it tells me when a single leaf blows across the yard. Other times it's missed a human being walking on the far end of my yard.
- Proprietary. It's not a true IP cam. That means their app is the only possible way to use this thing, and in addition to the first 2 negatives I've mentioned this far, that means a subscription is practically a requirement just to make this thing usable.
It's a good camera, but I don't like being artificially locked into their apps and services. It should be a camera, first and foremost. I don't know who they think they are by doing that, but they'll be quickly surpassed by the competition if it keeps up. I'd be buying a few more at the drop of a hat if it was an actual IP cam instead of a glorified excuse to sell you a subscription, even with the higher price over most competitors. But hey, if you don't mind the subscriptions and lack of open IP cam protocols, it's ease of setup and quality should make you happy.
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jtsholtod
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but a few flaws and pricey.
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I purchased two Nest cameras after doing a lot of research. I had other Nest products, so this made buying Nest more of a known quantity. It was (what I thought) to be the best solution for me, which was to provide a level of security, and also monitor pets while away. A decent investment, but not a replacement for a security system.
Pros:
-Undoubtedly well made: these are solid metal frames with tightly-fitting camera bezels and strong mounting magnets. Theoretically, these will stand up to years of (indoor) abuse, which they should not face anyway.
-Flawless set-up: I was up and running very quickly, and using the basic features in minutes.
-Compatibility: As with other Nest products, these are compatible with nearly every hub and system out there.
Cons:
-Resolution: It's just not as crisp as I would have expected for the price. In many cases under the "auto" resolution this could be due to the selection based on the internet speed, but even manually at 1080p, the picture isn't crystal clear as I expected. It's not bad, but it's just not great.
-Recurring cost: $150 per year ($100 for first camera, $50 for second) is just ridiculous to pay for a Nest Aware subscription. Alas, I did it, but I'm not happy about it. At that ongoing price, you could get a basic security monitoring system, with many more features. Also, I knew that the Nest Aware subscription would come at a price, but I did not know that "zones" are also only available with a subscription. I feel as though I have to pay for a neat, but key piece of basic monitoring software.
-Notifications: For me, these just do not work properly, and hours of support from Nest have not been able to resolve it. Basically, there are many manual and automatic options of when you turn your cameras on and off, what decides when you are home and away. In short, I want my cameras always on, but to only receive activity notifications (possible intruders, etc.) when I am away. There is a perfect option to disable notifications when home (yay!), but it just doesn't work (boo!). I get notifications all the time when I am home, despite many attempts to alter settings and correct the issue. Nest won't admit it's a flaw, but has said they are working on a number of enhancements, of which this may (or may not) be one.
In the end, I still like the promise of the Nest cam. It has simplicity on its side, but it is only as capable as _you_ make it and are willing to fiddle with it on an ongoing basis. In the end, for the price, there are perhaps other security cameras that are better for others.
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Doug F.
3.0 out of 5 stars Black and white mode gets stuck.
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
By design, video flips from black and white in night mode to color in the daytime. However, I have to turn the camera on and off most every day with the soft switch in settings to get color to kick in in broad daylight. Is this a SW or HW problem? Considering a return. My Nest outdoor cameras don’t have to be toggled. Frustrating for a high priced security camera. Also Nest Aware is too expensive of a service to keep going with multiple cameras once the freebie trial is over. $$$.
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Hitmanray
3.0 out of 5 stars A step down from the previous iteration of this device
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I'm a bit torn on this device. I recently had 2 Drop cams that we installed and worked flawlessly for a long time. When the Nest Cam came out I was excited by the increase in resolution and so bought 2 more to install. The main problem behind the Nest Cam is the significant change in the interface software. Things just don't seem as intuitive to set up or access. Access seems a bit more clunky.
As an example of the new technical complications, we had 2 drop cams that were both subscribed to the recording service. I wanted to replace one of the drop cams (to get the higher resolution in that area) and move the drop cam in that location to a new location were I would not require the recording service. In order to switch the recording service from one device to the other I had to completely disconnect all the devices from my account and then reconnect them in order, starting with the ones that wanted to be on the recording system first. Now this wasn't a big hassle as I was only playing with 3 cameras, but it is a huge oversight in terms of integrated functionality in my view. If I had more cameras and wanted to move around the subscription this would become a fairly arduous task.
Anecdotally we also seem to be having more problems with the Nest Cam server service these days than we used to. Of course as these cams only work when they are connected to the server that kills all functionality pretty much straight away.
The cameras do still provide a great quality picture and the widest angle I have found anywhere, but as a security device I am starting to weight up other options as there are just too many issues for the premium price associated with this device.
2.0 out of 5 stars Overpriced Webcam, but works great (until they try to get you to buy the subscription)
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
An expensive webcam with great quality video. Works pretty flawlessly. The WORST thing about it is the subscription they want you to buy to view your video after the 30 day free trial expires. I just use this thing to watch my dog during the day so now it's kind of pointless, but once the 30 day subscription expired, you can no longer view the video clips/recording. What you CAN see is a few random screen shots of activity, but you cannot actually play the video which is so weird. I thought I would at least be able to view 3 hours of video that was previously recorded, but this is not the case. It's really just the past 3 hours of screen shots. I refuse to pay any subscription fee for this thing.
Facial recognition is pretty good - it even recognizes faces on TV. My only issue is the cost of the subscription, which I refuse to pay for and hope others do too.
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Elizabeth
2.0 out of 5 stars Cameras are fine, customer service is so terrible as to make the service mostly unusable
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2018
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
The cameras work fine but the customer service and self-service options on the account dashboard have to be the absolute worst of any subscription-service I've seen. Every issue requires a 20-40 minute phone conversation (or more accurately, sitting on hold waiting for an agent) for such simple issues as de-activating and then re-activating a subscription (why is this not possible via self-service on the dashboard?), or re-charging a payment method that didn't go through at first (again, why do I need to call customer service to get this done?). I have not had an exchange with customer service that has not frustrated the absolute life out of me which is amazing as it seems their issues could very simply be solved by a) hiring more staff, b) better training that staff, and c) integrating more functionality into their dashboard so customers can solve extremely simple issues on their own.
I have been subscribing to the camera history feature for over a year now but given my difficulties in reaching a competent agent (please, Nest, just recharge the credit card - that is literally all that needs to be done, just re-run the card), I'm giving up and sticking to the free streaming as it is just too frustrating to continue to try to get help. Congrats on talking yourself out of my $20/month subscription, I guess. If I had to do it all over again I would certainly avoid purchasing cameras from Nest for the sole reason that their customer service is frustrating to deal with beyond belief.
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Pismo
2.0 out of 5 stars Unreliable
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I am very much in the NEST eco-system and this is by far their worst device. It quite frequently disconnects from the wifi and spontaneously reboots itself. This is problematic because then the app on the phone shows no activity and goes to sleep. Given we use this as a baby monitor it makes it useless to us. The frequent nagging to get their subscription service is also really frustrating. If I opt out of it stop asking me to sign up!
I was initially concerned that the wifi disconnection was on my end but I've placed an Arlo camera in the room to see if it disconnected from my wifi too. After 3 weeks we've seen no disconnects from the Arlo and the NEST disconnects at least once a day. Needless to say the NEST is getting taken down now especially since it doesn't work with the new Echo Show and the competing Arlo does.
Love the thermostat and protect but this camera is overpriced and unreliable.
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Gabe G.
2.0 out of 5 stars No Local storage!!
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The Camera itself is great! The reasons why I rated it 2 rather than 5 is that there is no local storage or viewing.
- If the internet goes out it is useless.
- With Comcast's new data cap it makes it an even harder sell. It uploads 24-7, so if you have it set on 1080p (which looks awesome, by the way) it will eat up close to 500GB of data on its's own. You can set it to only be on during certain times, but that is not realistic for my application.
- Also, if you want to take advantage of any of its features (besides live viewing) you MUST pay a monthly fee which makes an expensive product even more expensive.
Like I said, the build quality and picture quality is awesome, but be prepared to keep paying for it through the subscription service and additional data if you have a cap. I would not recommend this camera to a friend due to it being exclusively tied to the internet ($$$)
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el
2.0 out of 5 stars Nice but shouldn't be considered for actual security needs
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The Nest Cam is a great camera for someone who isn't technically savy or doesn't have actual security needs to address. I'll summarize the pros and cons below and give a mor thorough review after that.
Pros:
• easy setup
• decent picture and sound
• one of the more intuitive apps
• two-way audio
• nice mounting bracket
Cons:
• no local stream
• no local storage option
• paid subscription isn't very economical
• no POE or POE adapter from Nest
• USB only of power
• pricey for what it does
• would not consider this a security device
Before I go any further, I want to say I like this camera and I will probably buy another down the road when I have spare money for novelty items. That being said, if you need something to address actual security issues this might not be the best camera for you. It is 100% reliant on the internet to do anything. It has no local options at the time of this review and if you want recorded footage you have to pay a monthly fee.
For those out there who aren't as technical and might wonder "why does this matter?", consider the following point - if you are genuinely concerned with security or reliability of seeing the camera at any given time, do you really want to depend on having a camera that can only be viewed when your internet connection is working? Think about service outages with bad weather or general issues with internet providers where you still have power at your house or office but the internet goes out.
Real security devices have to be reliable and highly available. This is neither. It is as reliable and available as your connection to the internet. Nest could do a few things to improve this, such as add a local streaming option that would allow you to at least view the camera on local wifi, or add edge recording that would let you record to a micro SD card for redundancy. I'm not sure that fits into their business model of IoT paid subscriptions though.
The lack or power options also makes it hard to take this camera serious. It's great that any one can simply plug it into the wall and it's ready to go, but that works the same in the sense that if you're putting this camera in a easily accessible spot by a plug, it would be too hard for someone to unplug it either intentionally or accidentally. You can resolve this with third party USB POE injectors, but this would require a little more work than most people would want to do.
I understand this camera is marketed as an easy to use, ready to go out of the box solution, but it's not a real security device and for all intensive purposes it is a glorified web cam that only works through the internet.
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Steve, the man...
2.0 out of 5 stars Give tech another 2 years to sort this product out.
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Jumped in and bought the Nest Cam... my first security camera ever. What's the hype about? This camera is so over-priced for what it does. Resolution or lack of... I can sit 12 feet from the camera with a large window casting daylight on me and I'm so grainy that you could NOT pick me out of a lineup of 5 guys after looking at my image for 10 minutes. Seriously. Forget trying to prosecute an intruder, it's not going to happen. This camera is good for two things only... 1) watching your pets rest comfortably and 2) providing a revenue stream for Nest through the Nest Aware subscription service,$$. My experience with the free 30-day trial period of Nest Aware was disappointing at best. It couldn't be more obvious that Nest's servers cannot keep up with the video demand all the subscribers are putting on them. This Nest product isn't ready for Prime-Time. I'll give technology another couple years and look again at home security cameras. The good?... Camera showed up well-packaged.
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R Brown
2.0 out of 5 stars Not a great value.
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2021
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
I have ten security cameras. Great hardware, stupid software. Since Google bought out Nest, software is barely functional. It’s a security system that won’t let you focus on just “people” for alerts unless you pay monthly for upgrades. “People”, those entities most likely to steal your stuff. So it alerts on everything, even stuff you cannot see or hear. Before Google, the system worked great for six years without monthly payments. With Google’s software changes to notification for “all activity”, in a vacant home I was getting +/- 40 notifications each day. So I stopped paying attention. The “cry wolf” syndrome. Called Google Nest, spent three hours with three employees who did not know the software and could not help. In frustration, I spoke with a supervisor who did help. I no longer get all the notifications. Actually I get no alerts now so I’m not really sure if I will get notified if there is an intrusion. Bottom line, today there are many other security systems out there, much less expensive than Google Nest that likely work better without monthly fees to achieve anticipated results. If you don’t mind paying additional monthly fees, it might work for you.
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Safetylady49
2.0 out of 5 stars poor performance when compared with LOT cheaper ones out there
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have had 3 of these for the last couple of years. I use them in windows looking outside because if a camera is outside it is vulnerable to vandalism and I bought these before they repackaged for outside. Now I have been scrutinizing for the last few months and see it FAILS TO ALERT RANDOM ACTIVITIES TOO MUCH!! UPS or mail deliveries - even me driving into the driveway. It alerts for swaying branches of trees yet completely misses some deliveries and vehicles. Well, it only needs to miss alerting THE ONE WHERE THEY STEAL OR VANDALIZE for the thing to become somewhat worthless. 'Night vision' sucks so I have motion activated floodlights in several critical areas. I have to use an ipad to really review later at home (because the software for viewing on PC sorta sucks in comparison - and I would rather view while at work on a PC...) So, I paid $30 for a minion cam and have spent the last few days with them side by side. View is actually a tad better on the cheaper cam - and the cheaper cam picks up more than the $200 cam. AND, the subscription is $10 per month with unlimited number of cameras!! bye bye nest.
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Dan-O
2.0 out of 5 stars Setup In App Sucks
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
The quality is okay, but the Nest app really sucks a$$. Seriously. Granted that I have it in an area where the WiFi is sketchy. However when it loses connection, to reconnect it, I have to take it down and rescan it to reconnect to WiFi. Why? I just need to reconnect the WiFi. There is zero reason to require rescanning the code printed on it just to reconnect. I've complained about this in the app, but no changes have been made. For the price they charge for this camera, that should work a lot better. Bad form Google.
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Porcupine racer
2.0 out of 5 stars Privacy is of no concern
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2019
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
These cameras worked fairly well when they were on. I paid for the subscription and they recorded, caught a decent enough picture and sound. The location ability of their app in correlation with my iPhone X was terrible. They would sometimes not turn on (despite the app indicating I was not at home) and they would sometimes turn on (while the app indicated I was at home). This first issue was more prevalent with all 3 cameras, while I did have an issue with 2 cameras turning on while I was home. Nothing in location had changed, in fact, my phone was still sitting on my desk the whole time. I realized it had turned on when I stood up from my meeting and got a notification that there was motion (I guess the motion detection works, but the noise coming from my speaker phone did not notify me, you could at least hear it on the recordings). Nest's technical support answer was to uninstall/reinstall, unplug, reset, blah blah blah. They ended up with not having a true solution and credited me with $50. Which I will not use because I cannot use a service where my expectation of privacy is violated and no true solution developed.
2.0 out of 5 stars Been waiting for homekit for years.
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Get False alarms constantly and the cameras sit in a bedroom with no one in it most of the day. Maybe the sun?
The cameras connector constantly breaks. We’ve gone through a couple already, and although nest has replaced the cameras we are now outside of our warranty window (I believe) and the connector is breaking again so it’ll be interesting to see if nest is going to replace it again.
Also.. after years of waiting nest still has not even announced plans to integrate Apple home kit, and they have now disabled the Apple Watch app, and the entire works with nest program (ifttt and others). They are constantly withdrawing from everything except for google which seems to be their new business strategy, perhaps to get you to jump into the google eco system. For me, however, it’s having just the opposite effect. I’m highly disappointed in this because I really liked nest from the very beginning (the first nest protects and thermostat) and we have several nest products.. but now I feel like they are abandoning their entire Apple fan base. So i do not want to purchase anything from nest anymore and I’m about to need another camera. Instead of buying another nest I’m likely going to replace my two cameras With arlo and buy an additional third with arlo which is providing homekit integration.
This is a huge disappointment to me and I cannot understand why it makes business sense to just throw away a huge chunk of their customer base (Apple users).
My review will be updated if homekit is ever further considered by the company but I have high doubts.
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C. Spock
2.0 out of 5 stars Returned it because it costs much more and does much less than other similar cameras
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Good:
+ Wide viewing angle
+ Relatively fast connecting to video feed (takes about 6-12 seconds with a good connection)
+ Sturdy metal base
Bad:
- No video playback without additional monthly fees
- No local data storage
- Power light can be dimmed, but can not be turned off
- Motion detection only captures single photo for review, not video clip (unless paying additional monthly fees) so often difficult to discern what moved
- Motion detection extremely haphazard - sometimes a passing car would trigger it, sometimes a passing car would not trigger it
- Significantly more expensive, even without monthly subscription, than similar resolution cameras with more features right out of the box at 1/4th the price.
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N. E.
2.0 out of 5 stars Broke
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I purchased this camera about a year ago and I've been using it indoors ever since. There are two types of issues that had I known I would not have opted for it. First, my settings are always the same - once I am away from home, turn on the camera automatically, based on the GPS coordinates of my cell phone. That function seems to change on its own every so often, by itself. The only way I know that it's not working is because I stop getting my usual daily notifications when my cats trigger the camera by walking within the motion detection zone. Then I manually need to turn on the camera, if I am away. That to me is a big flaw as, again, I do not change any settings, yet sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.
The second flaw is that the other day I gently tried to unplug the camera from the electrical outlet and the box where the wiring is, came loose and would no longer hold the camera plugged. There is no screw that holds the box together and it appears that the cover of it was glued to the rest of the box. I find that hard to believe, but there is absolutely nothing visible that would prove opposite. I glued the cover back together and I am just hoping that I do not need to unplug the camera anytime soon. Seeing what this camera cost (around $180 in 2018), I would not buy it again, nor would I recommend it. These two flaws are significant enough not to find the product worth the cost.
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seattle_outdoors
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor connectivity, serious delay issues.
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2020
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
-- update --
The video delay is just getting worse, sometimes near a minute, and at times it's simply not connecting to the camera (just a spinning blue wheel). Super frustrating, especially when our Amazon Cloud Cam has zero issues on the same router, internet (we're on fiber), etc. I would avoid this product.
-- old review --
We used an Amazon cloud cam for our first child baby monitor, which worked out great, but sadly they've discontinued it. People seemed to like the Nest as a replacement, so we tried it out. Overall it's slightly worse in our experience for video quality, though daytime looks better than the Amazon camera (not a huge deal for baby monitors). There are some other weird things. First, the field of view is really wide, so we have to place the camera very close to the crib (hung ~4 feet away). This might be better for some people, but it certainly makes the camera front-and-center to the crib (including it's lights). Second, the delay is significantly worse than our Amazon camera. The Nest web interface is maybe 10 seconds behind, which is a bit annoying if you're watching for the puke-up or to try an preempt a screaming kid. The Amazon is only a second or two (with the same internet, etc). Overall ok as a basic monitor.
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RLC Palm Springs
2.0 out of 5 stars UPDATE: doesn't work with Firefox browser
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
After considerable research and trial-and-error, I finally determined Nest doesn't play well with my preferred Firefox web browser, even though Nest support says it is compatible. I made sure I'm running the latest version of Firefox but found that switching to Chrome or Internet Explorer (and their invasive user tracking and ads) alleviates the playback issues. So, I can either use IE and put up with Microsoft watching my webcam, or use Google and hope my video history doesn't wind up in their cloud somewhere so I can use Nest as intended. Or, just drop Nest and purchase a security system with local storage .....
Disappointed in my second nest cam. The first cam worked flawlessly - immediate alerts, and video history "on demand". My second cam hasn't been so reliable. After a few days of use it still captures video, and you can see the history in the (tiny) thumbnail view but it will not load 'full screen' (I don't have this issue with the original cam - it continues to work as expected). I contacted Nest support and was told to disconnect and re-connect the cam to my wifi network (odd, since the history is stored on their cloud and I can view it in the thumbnail but can't view full-screen - how is reconnecting to my wifi going to resolve that???) So, unhappy with the response and the monthly fee. I plan to disconnect Nest, return the latest cam and purchase something more reliable. So much for "the cloud"...
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Gunther Sanderson
2.0 out of 5 stars Great hardware, but has several blind spots
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Ended up returning this item after a few weeks of use. Key points that led to my return:
1) Watermark logo on images blocked robber's face. My car was burgled; caught it on camera, robber walk right at the camera... into the watermark. Whoops.
2) Not that easy to set up. No where near the one minute setup they claim.
3) All traffic goes through their Amazon EC2 instances. EC2 went down one morning, taking the camera down with it. I couldn't access video on a camera 25 feet away from me...
4) On the day that EC2 went down, Nest sent me an email saying that I would lose my video history unless I paid for a $10/month subscription. Bad timing... whoops. Sorry Nest, $500+ for this camera over a 3 year period is really not worth it.
5) Camera overheated and stopped working in direct sunlight.
6) No local storage.
Things I liked about this camera:
1) Fantastic streaming quality (1080). The quality of the recorded history seemed to not be as good. Great night vision.
2) Nice mobile app. Better than almost all the other ones I've seen, not perfect, but still very good.
3) Nice footprint.
If they had dropped the subscription price to $5/month, I would have considered keeping it. However, the real downside of this camera seems to be bad product decisions. The hardware is fantastic, the software is good, it's the overall product that isn't good. Case in point - the watermark on the image screams product manager ego, at the expense of usability.
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars I hate that I have to pay a subscription for every ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Camera is okay. I hate that I have to pay a subscription for every damn camera I have if I want to see what happened later that day. And it's $10/ camera. And I have a few too. So it ain't cheap. If you don't get the subscription, you are ONLY able to see 3hrs back. And then it starts erasing. Sucks at night, night vision isn't so great unless you have some sort of lighting near by. Like the porch light or something like that. Other than that, you won't be able to see the person or their face. I wish I would've known about all this before purchase. I would've spent a little more money for better one's. This is just my opinion so hope it helps.
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Tony M
2.0 out of 5 stars Unreliable unit for a high price tag.
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Not a good baby monitor for several reasons-
Not travel friendly. This thing requires WI-FI (which is fine) but if it can't store multiple wi-fi locations if I move it from place to place with me/ Let me store multiple wifi's so its easy to connect.
Not reliable- Nest went down (the website and service) as I am trying to explain to my wife and mother-in-law the value of this unit. The app wouldn't explain why I couldn't connect. It just kept saying- try later. In reading the Nest status widget, looks like there's been an outage every week. Why make us use the almighty cloud if it isn't reliable?
Unit would get really hot. I'm concerned on the longevity of the unit if it can't be on for a couple of hours without burning up.
Only comes in black? Baby first just starred the camera down like a focal point. Our newest white monitor is in the same position, and baby doesn't even see it.
No on/off switch- as stated early, unit gets real hot. The only way to turn unit on or off is from the app or unplug the power..
Pro:
Loved that it could be mounted to a gorillapod
Pretty high quality video compared to most baby cams
But in this case- the Cons severely outweighed the Pros, so we went with Infant Optics DXR-8 Video Baby Monitor With Interchangeable Optical Lens, White/Biege , and we are pretty happy with the selection.
My experience with this unit was solely as a baby monitor. I'm sure it's good for other things as well, but it does advertise as a baby monitor on the site, so I don't feel too bad having better expectations for the unit.
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Eric
2.0 out of 5 stars High Quality Solution, but Geo-Blocked
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
CONS:
Software is Geo-blocked. While the camera & software works, they are geoblocking setting your home address. You have to first put in a US based address, then move the pin on the map to your real location. I really do not understand why they are doing this.
NestAware starts getting very expensive when you start adding more cameras ($150 a year for each additional camera)
You can not use this easily with your own NVR.I haven't been able to get it to work with QNAP Surveillance Station, but it sort of works with TinyCam on Android.
PROS:
High-quality software and website. I have tried a few different cameras and Nest really shines here. You can tell this is a high-end solution compared to others like Samsung. The Samsung App is very clunky compared to Nest.
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LB
2.0 out of 5 stars Some big issues
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
*UPDATE* When I posted my original review (below) Nest recommended decreasing the zone sizes to improve accuracy. So I kept the original zone and added 2 smaller ones on either end over top to see if this resolved the issue. Unfortunately, it has not so I have removed a star.
Original Review: 3 Stars
At first I loved this thing and was ready to by several more. The quality of video is great, the sounds made in close proximity comes through and once set up its really easy to use. I bought this primarily because you can edit zones and notification settings and that it plugs in (instead of batteries). The motion and sound only indicators in the history make reviewing long time periods a lot easier. I also like being able to save and download video clips. I do have it inside a window, so at night the night vision does not really work with ambient indoor light reflecting off the window. This was easily resolved as the porch light outside reduces the reflection and turns off the night vision. But of course my distance at night is a little more limited.
The most concerning issue is with zones not consistently picking up activity. At first I thought it was a contrast issue (e.g. black car driving through a zone's area of shade) but have determined that isn't the issue. In the beginning I wasn't as concerned about this as it seemed to be showing at least that there was motion in the history. But the other day I had an unknown car come through a zone and it never even showed a motion on the history, I happened to be looking at the live stream when it happened otherwise I would never have known. To make matters worse, there are times that I received a zone alert only to find out that it was a change in sunlight/cloud coverage or that its a car driving by at night (headlight halo seems to be the trigger). So now I am really questioning how much I am missing by relying on the motion and zone alerts in the history. Combine this with the cost of not only the camera but the Nest Aware (stores the history for 7+ days depending on your subscription) and this seems overpriced at best.
1.0 out of 5 stars Buyer Beware - good product, lousy business strategy.
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I purchased four of these cameras to be used at two separate locations - primarily because of the notification feature that will send you an email if a camera detects movement or a noise. What Nest fails to mention in their promotional material is that their software that minimizes false alerts is only active if you subscribe to their Nest Aware monthly subscription service. Without this software active, minute movements (a small bug, sunlight, shadows, etc) will trigger a false email activity alert. I literally get dozens of erroneous email alerts a day. I spoke with Joshua in Nest's product support group. He's confirmed the only fix to the problem is to subscribe to Nest's monthly service. Subscription to Nest Aware would cost more in one year than I paid for the cameras. What's worse is that they include one month of Nest Aware with your initial hardware purchase so the multitude of false email alerts doesn't begin until you've passed your 30 refund period. There are better options available.
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Laarnie
1.0 out of 5 stars MAJOR DEAL BREAKER is the forced monthly subscription price. Bad talk back option.
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Worked great except for its talk back option.
When you are talking on it, it mutes the sound you hear and you cannot carry a conversation on it like you can on a walkie talkie or phone.
Why it mutes the sound from you hearing what people are speaking back to you? I don't know, but this was a deal breaker for me because I have 2 3 and 5 year olds. When I'm in the garage working out, and I see them doing something and I need to say something to them, they can only hear me but I can't hear what my kids area saying back. Plus, the volume of my voice is very low. I should of bought the outdoor cam because it had bigger speakers, plus being made for outdoors makes it more durable.
THE MAJOR DEAL BREAKER is the forced monthly subscription price. If you opt out, you only get 3 hours of rollback time, and it continuously deletes everything every minute it passes 3 hours. I mean, who buys an expensive piece of equipment for 3hours of playback?
I would of kept it if it allowed 1 week of free cloud memory playback access, but combination of bad talk-back and subscription makes this a dud.
I was planning on buying 5 more Nest Cameras too total close to $1000.
I decided to steer away from NEST CAM.
I am looking into Wyze Cam. 14 days free cloud memory, no monthly subscriptions and it has all the features this has. Right now it is flying off the shelves for $25 bucks a cam. I bought 6 already on back order for the price of one Nest Cam. Ridiculous right????
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Digital Nomad
1.0 out of 5 stars AVOID!!! The camera costs ~178 and the 3 year cost to run them is $360! They are three times the price you see here! Bad show!
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
This is a return item for us. It's a fantastic product that works extremely well, but the subscription service behind these cameras is unscalable and expensive at $10/mo per device with no quantity discount. I bought two of them, and found myself facing the daunting prospect of paying $240/yr on subscription service alone just to use them. Without the subscription service, most of the useful features are *disabled*.
Until the service is brought in line with competitors pricing (like Ring, which is $99/yr for unlimited devices), Nest cameras should be avoided. Not sure what they're trying to pull here, but as a longtime Nest customer this is my first return and I am profoundly disappointed in the company for the awful and greedy contract. We bought them sight unseen just on the basis of the house full of Nest equipment we have had nothing bus positive experiences with, but the service makes these untenable. We will be seriously rethinking whether or not to continue buying Nest products after this.
Bad show Nest. Get it together. As a longtime customer, I am returning these, and will be seriously rethinking whether or not to continue to support you as a business after this poor performance. Assuming these last three years (which I would consider bare minimum), these will cost *twice as much to run as they do to purchase* even in that *short* timeframe. That's outrageous. Especially when you consider the total lack of quantity discount for multiple devices.
Honestly, I was outraged, and felt completely ripped off. I strong encourage others to avoid then.
In all other ways, these seem to be excellent product, so if Nest actually started selling these with a competitive contract and brought their pricing inline with any of the other top-end providers in the market, I would consider changing this review.
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Junkyard Brewing Co.
1.0 out of 5 stars Subscription problems are a crippling defect in this product
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2019
Verified Purchase
Everything else about Nest cameras is great; great picture, great application, great night vision, and all around nice features and quality. The part where it all comes crashing down is when you try to deal with subscriptions.
Problem number 1: You have to CANCEL your subscription and lose all your saved footage before you can upgrade to a new subscription with longer storage. This is a huge problem because it leaves you with gaps in your surveillance.
Problem number 2: It takes Nest systems a long time to synchronize subscription information with cameras. You cannot simply cancel and resubscribe. You will have to cancel and wait hours or days for the subscription information to be synchronized, and only then will Nest accept your payment for a new subscription. This is an incredibly bad way to run a business in today's marketplace where payments are, and should be, immediate.
Do a google search and you will find these problems with their subscription service are widespread and ongoing, also well known to their tech support people, whom I have spoken with.
Otherwise everything else about these cameras is great. It's really too bad that Nest shoots itself in the foot with the subscriptions. It seems that subscriptions would be a big source of income for them, but unfortunately it's a laughably terrible system.
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Raymond L.
1.0 out of 5 stars Buggy software and you must buy a subscription to make these cameras useful
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I did a lot of research before choosing the NEST cams. And I really wanted to like them… But after using them (one indoor, one outdoor) for two months I simply cannot recommend. It was a very frustrating experience and I wouldn’t buy if I had to do it all over again. I tried to be as specific as possible to clearly define my exact issues and complaints. Perhaps folks can suggest solutions/workarounds.
The NEST app is not intuitive, difficult to navigate, and buggy --- to the point of being maddening when you first start using it. My whole reason for going with NEST is that I thought the interface and features would be well-designed. I was wrong. I expected better from them. Here are my main issues:
1. After initial setup I had to delete & reinstall both my cameras because each was under a different ‘Home’. If you use the “+” button in upper right corner it will add a 2nd Home… you must go under 1st Home and choose “Add Product” under the tools pulldown in order to add additional cameras --- completely non-intuitive and not how most apps use the “+” button (eg. TP-Link KASA app uses the same “+” button to add devices). I would think that many users would fall into this same trap. The only way out is to delete everything and start over. Not a good way to start…
2. NEST has ensured that this camera is not useful unless you pay for a subscription. They do this by eliminating most of the features if you don’t have one (Zone motion triggers, person detection, see past video, etc). Without a subscription you get ZERO video archive (some reviewers were saying it was limited to 3hrs or 12hrs, but this is false). You only get a still picture of motion or generic sound alarm that occurred WITHIN THE LAST 3 HOURS, and the still may or may not actually have the image of what generated the alarm. So if something happens in the middle of the night you won’t have a record of it the next morning. They are trying very hard to make this camera equivalent to a live-only camera unless you buy their subscription!
3. This is a cloud-based system, meaning that you have NO WAY to view any video unless sending to the cloud. The bandwidth usage is completely outrageous! I got an email from my internet provider after two weeks stating that I exceeded my quota of 300GB/mo. I was uploading 5GB per day for ‘Medium’ quality! For two cameras on high quality it consumes 600GB per month! The app gives data/bandwidth requirements under “Quality and Bandwidth” pulldown, along with data hog warning – see screencap below. This is ridiculous and will exceed most internet provider data plans. So I can only turn on the cameras for a few hours each day and reduce the video quality --- so what’s the point of paying for “high def” cameras if I can’t use them? And why pay even more for a subscription if I can’t fully utilize it? And it isn’t possible to use cameras at all without sending to cloud, so now I am wishing I had bought something else…
4. The NEST app provides integration with the TP-Link ‘KASA’ app, specifically: When toggling between “Home/Away” mode you can trigger specific SCENES. I have my TP-Link color LED bulb in Foyer turn GREEN or RED (RED=Away, GREEN=Home) anytime the NEST app sees that I physically leave my house (linked to my phone location) or someone manually toggles “Home/Away” which also turns my cameras ON/OFF. This manual toggle can be done either within NEST app OR the KASA app (icon added under devices—see screencap below). In KASA, my wife can see the color of the bulb and shows what time I left (or arrived) at the house.
- Note: You can independently schedule cam ON/OFF times and this does not impact “Home/Away” status (ie. lights do not change status)
- Warning: Periodically my indoor cam does not shut off when status changes to “Home”. If I don’t notice right away, eats up a lot of my data quota!
- Warning: Every time you logout and log back in you will have to reconfigure the “Home/Away” settings – no way around this. Bad software!
- Warning: The linkage between the KASA and the NEST app keeps breaking… doesn’t work as advertised. I completely wasted my money…
5. Software issues on the NEST side --- all day 1/4/18 I was unable to view live video or turn the cameras ON or OFF. The cams were indeed working and could view past video from this timeframe. After more than 1hr of troubleshooting I gave up. Today everything is suddenly working properly again. I figure it must have been an issue on the NEST side… That is the problem with cloud-based systems, you are dependent on their systems to work as well as yours.
6. Not a big deal, but every time you install a new camera (or delete and reinstall existing camera) as I have had to do numerous times, it gives completion error msg: “Oh No! Something has gone wrong”, even though everything has installed correctly. I really hate this software.
In summary, the NEST cameras are not reliable and I will avoid NEST products in the future.
Customer imageCustomer image
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Striders
1.0 out of 5 stars Location-based notification no longer work and the app is very buggy compared to the original Dropcam
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have owned the Dropcam Pro (before Nest bought Dropcam) for a loooong time and it works very reliably:
1). Location-based notification:
The camera will ONLY send notification if I am not at home. This is done through the iPhone app that check my phone location.
2). Customized zones:
I want to receive notification only for certain "zone" of the camera view. I.e. area near my front door and balcony only and ignore the rest of the house. It never failed to do so.
The Nest Cam went on sale during the 2016 Holiday Season, so I picked one up. Bad move! The camera has a lot of issue that NONE of the above works properly:
1). I received notification even at home.
2). When I received notification and open it through the iPhone app, the video hang. Just a circle going around and around.
3). I now receive notification for ANYTHING in the camera view. The camera just ignored my "zone" setting above.
No changes to the iPhone app setting nor my network, so it is definitely the camera. Nest support is also stumped and couldn't help.
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Harold
1.0 out of 5 stars It Boggles The Mind How Problems Are Not Fixed
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have three of these cameras. Of the three, one consistently does not power up and reconnect after a power outage.
It completely boggles the mind how a problem like this can have gone literally YEARS without being fixed. Reports of this problem began in 2018, and proliferated subsequently. The Google response, which is about as close to brain-dead as possible, is that you need to unplug and re-power-on the camera in order for it to reconnect. While this works, what are we supposed to do about cameras that are remote?? As I said, it boggles the mind that any respectable company does not fix problems like this for literally years.
Another thing to be aware of is that the AI features touted for this camera and software is almost completely bogus. A two-year old child can do significantly better than this camera in distinguishing moving shadows from people. Again, it is as if the marketing people for this product are almost completely detached from reality.
Please note that I am not talking about any kind of advanced features here. EVERY SINGLE OTHER DEVICE I OWN reconnects after a power outage. That a SECURITY camera like this does not should be an embarrassment. And the subsequently stated requirement that it needs to be manually replugged in order to reconnect seems to indicate a customer service department that totally does not "get it".
Update 5/23/21: In trying to use audio with this camera, I discovered that it only supports half-duplex audio. You have to press a button on your device, speak, then press a button to indicate that you have finished speaking and that the person near the camera can talk. (Google searches indicate that their IQ models do support full-duplex audio.) I feel that that is totally ridiculous, and that anybody marketing a device like this with half-duplex audio capability should be ashamed of themselves. I accordingly knocked down my rating to one star. And that doesn't begin to convey my disappointment.
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Ben
1.0 out of 5 stars Buggy, mediocre product
Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2021
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
1 - There seems to be a power design issue where the camera will often not come back after a power outage without being physically unplugged and replugged. Don't ask me how this is even possible, but it's a prevalent issue in the forums.
2 - The person detection is awful. It detects light reflecting on my wall from cars as people all the time to the point that I had to just turn it off. How a company that's a leader in AI could screw that up I do not know, but it's pretty pathetic.
3 - The subscription model for recording and notifications is just the worst, especially considering it's total inability to accurately detect things.
I thought Nest made products that were more expensive but worth it because they worked so well and were easy to use. I've been disabused of that notion.
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Jeff Bezos
1.0 out of 5 stars Buyers Beware: Google Is Dropping IFTTT Support
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Thanks to Google (who owns Nest) and their corporate greed, I am returning my Nest products and will no longer be a customer of any of their products. They have stated that they will NO LONGER be providing open API access to Nest products, and will be discontinuing the "Works With Nest" program. This means that I will no longer be able to use If This Then That (IFTTT) for triggers, nor any third party access applications. They have stated that they will now only be allowing control of products through Google Home and/or Google Assistant. IFTTT has also let users no that as of August 31, Nest support will no longer be supported. What a low blow to hundreds of thousands of consumers. So, as previously stated, I will no longer be supporting and using Nest products, and will instead be switching to a more third-party friendly company. Thanks, Google, you've just lost one of (what will likely be VERY many) your loyal customers.
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Eric D. Stein
1.0 out of 5 stars Light always on now. Criminals now know where to find the camera
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
No longer recommend Nest cams. I have 4 and spend the money every year for nest service. However they recently rolled out an "upgrade" that removed the ability to turn off the camera light. So now criminals can easily spot my outdoor camera, my indoor cameras, and the one in my infants room glares constantly. Terrible practice after spending $1000+ dollars on cameras. So disappointing. Otherwise a fine camera but I will never buy another.
1.0 out of 5 stars Good camera with very disappointing app
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2016
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
*NEWEST UPDATE* ... I cannot tell you how much I have come to hate the Nest Cam. I don't think the camera, itself, is even workable anymore. It goes offline at random. And when it is online, it pauses at any sign of movement, which is really beside the point. My dog gets out of her bed, the camera freezes. Someone breaks into my apartment, the camera freezes. So, yeah ... get a different camera.
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I purchased this camera to watch over my senior dog while I was away from home, and while the camera is pretty good in terms of range and resolution, it's impossible to give five stars to this product because the Nest app that controls it is far too unreliable. It kinda sucks, actually. The app crashes far too often (there's been an outage for the last 10 minutes, and I can't access either my camera or my thermostat remotely ... and I know it's not my wifi, because my other smart home apps are still connected and working).
I can no longer get good resolution when I zoom ... it simply hyper zooms beyond the point I've established, and all I see is pixelation.
Let's talk alerts. I'm not getting any, despite setting very specific alerts. One day, I got tons of alerts, every time my dog got out of her crate ... but I didn't get an alert when the maintenance guy entered my home. If I were relying on it as a security device, I'd give it a big, fat fail.
UPDATE:
I can no longer recommend the Nest Indoor Cam. Any movement causes the screen to freeze. And that kind of defeats the purpose of the camera. If you're looking for an indoor security cam, look elsewhere.
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M. West
1.0 out of 5 stars Leave it to Google the destroy what was a good product.
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2020
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Leave it to Google to support the bad guys. Now that Google has purchased the rights to the nest cam , Google is disabling the ability to turn off the camera light when the camera is doing the job of securing your home. It will now broadcast a friendly happy light whenever it's being used to let the bad guys know they're being monitored. Way to go Google very typical. And since Google seems to be so concerned about the privacy of bad guys, now that they own the nest cameras I am going to disable all Cloud functionality and transition away from the cameras in general hlsince Google is not exactly what I would call a company that takes my privacy seriously. Thanks for screwing up a good product. I'm out.
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Allan RTop Contributor: Cycling
1.0 out of 5 stars Camera video quality is terrible, but their app and website are even WORSE!
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2018
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
First of all, the picture quality on this camera is not good. I have top of the line high speed internet, and even set to the highest resolution, the picture quality is very poor. It seems to correct itself once in a while, but keeps reverting back to very blocky, blurry picture. Almost unusable.
However, the worst part of Nest is their support products, such as the app and website. If I had known what I know now about them, I would have NEVER EVER EVER purchased a camera from Nest. The app is a straight up joke. Virtually none of the features work, including the Home/Away assist feature, which is only sort of important! It's supposed to work with phone location, and change your notification preferences depending on whether you are home or not. I do not want constant notifications when I am home, but more importantly, I DO want notifications when a person approaches my house and I am away. But of course this feature simply does not work. I have to manually change it every time. Also, even when I am away, and I have it set properly, many times it does not work. I will go back and review the activity from the app, and I will see a time when a person or something should have triggered a notification to my phone, and it did not happen. The solution from customer support is always to "uninstall the app" or attempt some other ridiculous ways to try and fix problems. It's almost as if they are sitting around laughing, seeing how many different stupid hoops they can make users jump through, as a joke. "Sir, the solution to this is you need to stand on your head and eat your shoe, this should clear up the problem".
Despite repeated please to Nest customer support to add custom notification sounds, it still has not been added. As with any smartphone, I am bombarded by various notifications throughout the day, from text messages, phone calls, emails, other apps, etc. It would be nice to be able to personalize a chime so that I know it's a Nest notification, and I can view it right away.
As far as the website goes, I recently tried to input a new payment method. Did not work properly, and did not make the new card the default payment method. The solution offered is to unsubscribe to my Nest Aware, then get a partial refund on the unused portion of my subscription, delete my old payment method, then input a new card, and re-subscribe. Of course be sure to pay in full for the new subscription, even though this is our fault for our website not working properly!
I could write a 100-page book on the many problems with their app and website, but I think you get the idea. It's a complete nightmare, and clearly they have no idea how to fix their many problems, as the solution is always to "just start over". Delete everything, uninstall everything, see if that helps. Save yourself the headache and find another "smart" camera system that works better. It's not a high bar to clear.
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dd71
1.0 out of 5 stars Bugs and lousy support - Not recommended
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2016
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
I purchased the Nest Cam Security Camera 3-pack. It arrived on time and was beautifully packaged. Set-up took a little time, but was made easier thanks to smart use of bar codes on the back of each camera, in conjunction with the Nest App. So far so good. For most home users, the cameras are useless without a cloud storage subscription. With a subscription, video is stored in the cloud, and you can review historic activity at any point in your history (10 or 30 days) or upon events for example if motion or sound was detected. Without a subscription, you can only watch the video live. Not very useful for security purposes. Nest will not allow you to use third party cloud storage providers so you're locked into using their facility, which is priced much higher than regular cloud storage.
So I purchased a 3-pack of licenses to go with the three cameras. Unfortunately, Nest only associated two of the licenses with two of my cameras, leaving the third camera without a storage ability, despite paying for it. The third license, according to my account, will be applied to my next camera purchase, essentially rendering one of my three cameras useless. I have no plans to buy another camera. Clearly a bug in their system caused one of my cameras and licenses not to be matched. I contacted Nest support and they would not associate the unmatched license and camera. They told me they may re-review the case once the camera storage trial storage period expired. Despite buying three cameras and three licenses, I have one camera which i useless one license which Nest are trying to get me to buy a fourth camera to use it. Worse, for a business in the security business, they will only review this case once my home is unsecure.
Up to this point I've loved Nest's smoke alarm product. I have five of them and they have served me well. But I'd warn people away from the nest security cams until Nest have fixed the bugs and improved the level of their support, which is close to non-existant. I'm very disappointed with this product.
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Alexander Offermann
1.0 out of 5 stars We liked our Dropcam, but then it became Nest and we are done...
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2015
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
We had Drop Cam for a couple of years, but eventually the company was purchased by Nest, and they forced us to move over to their system and software/apps, which did not have all the same features. Why would you force people to move over if you don't have all the features yet? Anyway, eventually our registered credit card expired and we were asked to update (in a not very friendly manner btw), which we tried to do that but frankly could not figure out how. Needless to say, the experience was not very user friendly (and frankly we were not especially motivated to jump through hoops anyway). So we unplugged the camera, sighed a little with relief that we won't be constantly using part of our internet bandwidth anymore or paying a subscription fee for something we don't use all that much), and said goodbye to the camera as we put it in a drawer. We are looking for a better camera to use moving forward, hopefully one that won't require a subscription. Oh, and we were finally inspired to write this review today when we received this not-so-friendly e-mail from Nest:
"We haven’t gotten your Nest Aware subscription payment for the last 60 days. We’ve canceled your subscription and deleted your Video History.
Still need Nest Aware? You can purchase it again with a valid credit card here. If you have any questions, contact Nest Support."
Yep, we've summarily deleted all your saved videos.Thanks Nest! That really makes us want to return!
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Mark
1.0 out of 5 stars basically I have the best HW. I have other cameras and they are ...
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2017
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
update and further review(09/17/2017)
This cam can really get you mad when you need to review history, I have business comcast 150MBS (tested 210 MBS upload, 26 MBS download speeds), and subscribed to cloud service by the company, it has been always difficult to view same day of yesterday clips, weather on my iphone or on my regular or game PC/Laptops (with Navdia GTX 1080, GTX 1080), basically I have the best HW. I have other cameras and they are cheaper but never experience the same slow or no response of nestcam in history viewing, I thought nestcam is the best, I hate to admit, it is the worst in all I have used in over 1 year of have it. Please, IMPROVE IT. Sincerely.
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Stumpus
1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible Product and Service Now
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
Size: 3 PackVerified Purchase
This product as Dropcam was great. Enter Google. Now everything about it is mediocre at best. The service downgrades video quality storage and playback in the interest of being cheap on the backend. What is the point of HD if you are going to downsample everything? The service has gotten worse every year. Notifications straight up don't work anymore. I had someone enter my apartment, and I never knew. The app has gotten slower and slower, and since being forced over to a Google account, I am constantly having to log back in. Great job, Google. I've literally had a time sensitive event where I needed to see the camera THEN. Nope, we need you to log in again. And last but certainly not the least, we have Google's infamous tech support. I'm out of this ecosystem. I give up. Wyze and ecobee have proven far better, which wasn't hard given how low the bar has fallen.
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Dan Wallenberg
1.0 out of 5 stars Google is incompetent
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
Camera used to be great. Google had ruined this product. It’s frustrating to buy a Product, be very happy and then the mfg does stupid stuff and ruined the product after you buy it. Google can’t engineer its way out of a paper bag. I use 3 of these as baby cameras. Google decided to change the settings to require the thing to have blinking led lights for “privacy” issues. Well that renders it uses less as a baby camera. I “fixed” this with some electrical tape. Now google forces users to merge next accounts with google account. This merge process doesn’t work kicking the iOS app to a website and then doesn’t remember credentials. A baby am that requires 2 factor authentication to look at the baby is just stupid. Pure incompetence. Google manager in charge of nest should be fired for incompetence
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars Obnoxious Aug 2019 update
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
I have always been a big promoter of Nest products. Requiring me to use a bright green flashing light on my cameras changes that. The ability to leave it on was always there. Why change it? Those who wanted it on could leave it on. Those who wanted it off could have it off. Now everyone is stuck with an obnoxious BRIGHT green flashing light when cameras are being viewed. (And yes, I set the light to its dimmest setting. As soon as you view that camera the brightness goes right back up to call attention to itself.) I’ve temporarily solved this by covering the light with some black electrical tape, hoping that this new “update” is reversed. If not, I’ll have no choice but to switch products.
Terrible, Google Nest. Terrible.
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H. Sahni
1.0 out of 5 stars Decent camera, good UI, but poor business practices and tone deaf support
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2019
Size: 1 PackVerified Purchase
We've used these cameras for about two years. The UI for the mobile app and the website are good and much better than what Arlo Pros had two years ago. The constant recording is also nice. But Google recently decided that you should no longer be able to disable the status light on these cameras, which limits their usefulness. Now everyone will always see the cameras and also know when the feed is actively being watched. This limits the application of these cameras for a multitude of purposes that are all reasonable for a security camera.
Yes, you could put some tape over the LED, and that is exactly what I have done. But the bigger issue is that Google changed how this camera operates two years after I bought it and decided that it was the right change for me without giving me a choice. That speaks volumes.
(BTW, These work wonderfully to cover the LEDs on the camera and you can't even tell they're on: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009WSN8PK)
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