Nest Cam (indoor, wired) review
Our Verdict
The Nest Cam (indoor, wired) stands out for its video quality and non-subscription features, and while it doesn't necessarily check every box, it justifies its value well.
For
- three-hour video consequence history
- five GHz Wi-Fi radio
- Advanced movement processing without a subscription
- On-device facial recognition
- Colorful choices
- Intuitive app feel
Against
- No local storage
- No battery backup
- No extra privacy features
- Merely compatible with Google Home
- Certain on-device features cost extra
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Nest Cam (indoor, wired) stands out for its video quality and non-subscription features, and while it doesn't necessarily cheque every box, it justifies its value well.
Pros
- +
three-hr video event history
- +
v GHz Wi-Fi radio
- +
Advanced movement processing without a subscription
- +
On-device facial recognition
- +
Colorful choices
- +
Intuitive app experience
Cons
- -
No local storage
- -
No battery backup
- -
No extra privacy features
- -
Only compatible with Google Home
- -
Certain on-device features cost extra
Nest Cam (wired, indoor): Specs
Camera Size: 3.88 in H x ii.52 in W ten 2.24 in D
Video: 1080p/30 fps, HDR
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Field of view: 135° diagonal
Sensor: 2 MP
Night vision: Upward to 15 ft, 2 850 nm infrared LEDs
Wireless: 802.11b/chiliad/n/air-conditioning (2.four/5 GHz), Bluetooth Depression Energy
Weather Resistance: None, indoor only
Sound: Full-Duplex 2-way audio westward/noise counterfoil
Lighting: None
Ability: Wired only, x ft attached cable w/USB-A connector and vii.5W USB-A adapter
Google has updated its Nest line of cameras, dropping the IQ branding and sticking with simply "Nest Cam" followed by identifying features—in this case, Nest Cam (indoor, wired). This photographic camera shares a lot in mutual with its larger siblings, including a loving cup-like appearance and 1080p resolution, just its atomic footprint makes it easier to identify in your habitation. It'due south the only camera in the line that lacks an internal battery, backup or otherwise, so placement is limited to nearby outlets.
Information technology's too the cheapest selection of the 3 at $99—making it more expensive still than similar offerings from Ring and Wyze. This puts it in straight competition with the $100 Arlo Essential Indoor Camera or the Ring Stick Upwards Cam. I came away impressed with the video and sound quality of the camera, simply too wished it had some more indoor-specific features, and a built-in battery backup would be a nice bonus.
Read on to get details on Google's picayune indoor camera and figure out if this is the best abode security camera for you.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Blueprint
This Nest indoor camera adds some bulk to the base versus the IQ camera that preceded it, merely retains similar blueprint language. Google is at present, in the U.Due south., offering information technology in four color variants: Snow, Linen, Sand with maple wood base, and Fog. We looked at the Snow version, which of form is white; having not seen the others in person, it probably stands out the about in any home that doesn't look like a show firm for a planned community. That's not necessarily a bad matter, but the camera still looks like a photographic camera, which tin can brand people a little nervous when deployed indoors.
The camera head sits on a short stalk connected to a heavy, pod-similar base of operations, slightly evoking the appearance of the flat panel iMac G4 from the early aughts (although without nearly every bit much of that calculator's brilliant articulation). It's wall-mountable and you can flip the video if y'all desire to stick it on a ceiling, then orienting the camera however you want should be an like shooting fish in a barrel affair.
Information technology comes with a 10-foot USB cablevision that is, similar its predecessor, non-removable, terminating in a USB-A connector that plugs into an included 7.5-watt power adapter. This is somewhat unfortunate every bit it ways that if the cablevision goes bad, you'll need to supervene upon the photographic camera, so it's something to consider if you take a pet that's fond of power cables.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Setup
Setting up this camera was easy. Once yous've initiated the process from the Google Home app, y'all'll be directed to scan the included QR code. After that, if you lot have another Nest device, the camera will connect to that device to get connected to your network. You'll need Wi-Fi, of form. During setup, if this is the commencement of the new Nest cameras that you've set up, y'all'll exist given an opportunity to start a 30-solar day trial of Nest Aware (although the app doesn't make that immediately apparent—the app only asks if you'd similar to extend your video history and activate their "familiar face up detection" characteristic).
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Video and audio quality
Compared to the at present-discontinued $299 Nest IQ camera, the Nest Cam (indoor, wired) represents a significant price cut that comes with an on-paper degraded 1080p, 2-megapixel sensor, which is plain lower-spec than the former's viii-megapixel 4K sensor (which was besides limited to recording at 1080p resolution). Nonetheless, this new camera retains HDR and the new Nest Cam continues to take visual clarity that punches a bit above its cost. Like the Nest cameras in the current lineup, it retains more particular throughout, and videos tend to have more realistic colors, and an prototype that'south overall less washed-out than competitors' cameras.
I ready the Nest Cam on the same shelf as a Band Stick Upwards Cam and found that although footage looked very similar, background details revealed the Ring to have more than pinch artifacts, where the Nest held steady. There is also significant blurriness effectually the periphery of the 130-caste field of view of the Ring Stick Up Cam, where the Nest Cam maintains fifty-fifty sharpness beyond the entire viewable area. The Nest Cam has a slightly broader field of view at 135° horizontal that actually trumps the others' of the current Nest Cam lineup. It'due south non then large yous'd immediately find a divergence, just broader FOV is more ideal indoors, where spaces are more than cramped.
My basement bar may not exist the most platonic place for a camera for security reasons, but I chose it for testing because it enables the widest range of lighting, from vivid windows to its many dimmable track lights and in-ceiling bulbs that let me cheque both most-darkness and farthermost effulgence. In all of these situations, the Nest Cam performed well. However, it struggled with broader contrast more than than the bigger Nest cameras, blowing out details when they're too directly awash in low-cal. To exist fair, this is a mutual struggle with indoor cameras, as they tend to prefer lightening shadows at the expense of highlights to grab the most relevant footage possible. Conversely, the IR lights practise an fantabulous job taking up the slack when things go too dim and, similar the Nest Cam with Floodlight, video under low-or-no-calorie-free situations was crisp and gratis of motion blur.
Even without the IR lights, the camera performed adequately well in low light; I tested it with the lights in the line of sight of the camera dimmed to their lowest level, and you wouldn't know it from the video if it wasn't for the telltale sign of motion blur abaft backside me as I walked across the frame. It wasn't until I turned off the lights along the back wall and left the lights on the other stop of the basement at their lowest visible level that the video proved substantially useless. Of grade, indoors, you're going to ordinarily want those IR lights on, but there are scenarios where yous might not, such as when the camera is pointing out a window, where infrared beams tend to obscure what's on the other side.
Finally, while the speaker isn't as good as the outdoor version of the Nest Cam, the microphone remains very sensitive, and speech is very clear and piece of cake to understand, even when the person speaking is well out of frame, or whispering. I was as impressed with this aspect of the photographic camera equally I was with the Nest Cam with Floodlight.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: App
Once gear up up, you'll manage the photographic camera through the Google Home app. Without Nest Aware (which starts at $6/calendar month), you tin even so add activity zones, and even adjust the type of move recorded per zone, and whether you'd like to exist notified about it; while there are other cameras that back up multiple zones, they tend to only be used for more than fully cutting out areas you don't desire monitored for recording or notification, not give you individual settings per zone. Each of these zones has eight points of articulation, making them very easy to mold to the shape you'd similar.
Without a subscription, you lot also still get specific motion detection—no vehicle or package detection here, which makes sense given that information technology's intended to exist an indoor camera — simply information technology'll besides reduce the usefulness of the camera, should yous ignore Google's intent and apply it outdoors anyway. Finally, event-based video history is viewable up to three hours later on the outcome if you have no subscription, making this one of the more useful free tiers on whatever non-local-storage photographic camera. What's more, the photographic camera will still record fifty-fifty if your internet connexion goes downwards. It's not quite the local storage you'll notice with the Wyze Cam v3, only it's better than nada.
Managing the speaker with the Google Dwelling app was like shooting fish in a barrel enough. From the home screen, yous can either tap the photographic camera widget at the top of the screen, scroll down to find the camera in whatever room you've assigned it to, or tap the events history button at the lesser of the screen, next to the microphone push button for Google Assistant.
Navigating to the cameras from the Cameras widget will have you lot to a screen with tiles for each camera, and buttons for toggling the cameras on and off (or all of them, via the iii-dots bill of fare). Going into a specific camera here or from the home screen, you'll find the settings gear icon, where you tin can adapt your preferences for things like motility type you want recorded, activity zone setup, video quality, night vision, and audio volume (or even whether you want it to record sound).
Once the photographic camera was configured, I only e'er tapped that events history push button, as information technology takes y'all straight to the most recent events recorded by all of your home devices. You lot can further tap to get to a simple listing of event history, with each event accompanied by a short animated preview of the triggering result and a label for each indicating whether information technology was a person, animal, or vehicle, and, with subscription, whether information technology saw a familiar face or non.
Finally, similar the Nest IQ Indoor camera, the new Nest Cam has 5 GHz Wi-Fi back up and uses the 802.11ac—or Wi-Fi v—protocol, which means it is going to be capable of moving more data effectually at in one case; this manifests in a very high-quality live stream relative to other cameras, and information technology likewise ways recorded events evidence upward virtually immediately in the app's timeline, if the camera is sufficiently close to a decent Wi-Fi 5 router. The camera supports upwards to WPA3 encryption.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Subscription plans
If y'all practise cull to pay for a Nest Aware subscription, the cheapest plan ($6/month or $60/year) nets y'all 30 days of cloud-based video history and gives you admission to Familiar faces, besides as Fume/CO alarm detection and glass breaking detection, both of which can be listened for not but on your photographic camera, simply also the best Google Home speakers like the Nest Mini. Y'all'll also be able to employ any of those Google Banana devices to phone call 911 with your voice, every bit Google participates in e911—a certification program that allows devices that follow certain protocols (mostly to do with sharing of location data) telephone call local emergency services.
Upgrading to Nest Aware Plus for $12/month or $120/twelvemonth will cyberspace you 60 days of video history, and open up 24/7 continuous video for ten days back. Both plans cover every bit many cameras as you tin muster, so although the bones plan may be a trifle expensive—both Ring and Arlo offering $iii/calendar month plans for unmarried cameras—once y'all add 2 or iii cameras to the mix, it becomes a significantly ameliorate deal. (For a more detailed breakdown, please refer to our security photographic camera storage plans comparison.)
Speaking of familiar face detection, this is done entirely on device, which is fantastic for privacy, and absolutely preferable to sending that data to a server somewhere, merely existence a Google One storage subscriber, I would've liked to be able to download face up information from my Google Photos account, rather than build it from scratch. Still, for near homes, y'all only need to manage data for a handful of people at most, so building a library isn't particularly burdensome. As far as how well it works, it by and large did a decent job, though when I looked at the images it uses for its information, there was an paradigm of a friend of mine's daughter that was identified as me, and in some other instance, someone on a Television screen was identified equally my married woman; the app as well asked me to identify Steve Martin at one point.
Other than that, it was accurate the vast majority of the time, but I would definitely not recommend pointing the camera at a Goggle box. I find it disappointing that this characteristic, similar the on-device Fume/CO alarm and glass breakage detection, is deactivated without a subscription—it may be sensible where features require cloud computing admission, but this is akin to needing to pay extra to open up a door in your house.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Smart habitation compatibility
Like the other Nest cameras, Google's photographic camera has no compatibility outside of the search giant'southward Google Home app; even IFTTT, which was once supported, no longer offers more than than legacy integration for longtime Nest users who never migrated their Nest accounts over to Google Home. This is i of the big drawbacks of the Nest system, if you have committed to 1 of the other smart home platforms similar Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings, or Amazon Alexa, and is an additional area where this Nest camera loses out to Arlo'southward similarly priced, far more platform-agnostic Essential Indoor Camera. Ring's $60 Indoor Cam likewise offers more than, thanks to its compatibility with Amazon Alexa and IFTTT, and for fiddling more than half the cost.
If y'all're in Google'southward garden, however, the Nest Cam's integration with the Google Home app is nice. The camera feed loads quickly in the app, as I said, just it besides (rather obscurely) supports geofencing—somehow during the course of setup, I missed the photographic camera offer me the option to utilize my phone's location for geofencing, and only discovered it nigh the finish of my testing period. This is because Google rolls geofencing into a characteristic called "presence sensing" which allows y'all to use your phone's location to automate whether the camera is active or not, simply also uses other Nest devices––Nest Thermostats, Protects, Detects, and Guards to determine whether someone is dwelling that isn't office of your home. Now, personally, I like to go along my exterior cameras agile at all times, but for interior cameras, I would prefer they not exist active while I'k abode.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Competition
As price goes, the Nest Cam is in the same realm as the Arlo Essential Indoor Camera, which nosotros have nonetheless to review, but which shares much in common with the Arlo Essential Spotlight) Arlo's camera has a nice feature in its privacy shield, but lacks HDR and whatsoever smart features or storage, unless of course yous have Arlo'southward SmartHub or Base Station devices. Otherwise, the two offer very similar specs: 1080p HD video, IR night vision, and full duplex two-manner sound, to name a few.
The Nest's leg-upward is once more its free tier — without paying Arlo money or buying one of their hubs, your camera is essentially just an expensive motion detector, where Google'due south photographic camera still offers person, creature, and vehicle detection and limited video history.
Bargain hunters unmoved by the sharper video or non-subscription features offered by the Nest will likely find a more appealing packet in the Wyze Cam V3, which at $35 remains i of the best values on the market, thank you to its 1080p resolution, complimentary local storage — including continuous video recording — so long equally you buy a compatible SD Bill of fare, and ultra-cheap $2/calendar month subscription plan. It fifty-fifty promises to add together facial recognition earlier the year is out. And, it'southward IFTTT-compatible and plays squeamish with Alexa and Google Assistant. Withal, before you start shoving your money down the cyberspace tubes to fill Wyze's coffers, yous'll want to note that its camera only records at twenty fps max, and while it offers a 1080p camera, video quality is going to leave something to exist desired when compared to the Nest Cam. Sound is significantly worse than the Nest Cam'southward, likewise.
In the middle, Band offers an indoor photographic camera for $60, which volition have similar quality video to the Stick Up Cam, but to go the full benefit of the camera, you lot volition need at least a unmarried-camera, $3/month subscription — otherwise, you'll go no storage or special prototype processing.
Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) review: Verdict
The Nest Cam (indoor, wired) offers, for better or for worse, nearly the exact aforementioned feel as its larger and pricier siblings, which means information technology has dandy video quality and a meliorate-than-boilerplate costless tier that actually includes some of the features, similar person, animal, and vehicle detection, that most other photographic camera makers lock away behind subscriptions.
Information technology would be nice if the camera offered more options for indoor utilise, such every bit a privacy shutter, and greater smart habitation compatibility would go a long style hither. Still, while information technology'southward not a total slam douse versus the many other excellent options for indoor cameras, the Nest Cam (wired, indoor) is a stable, reliable camera with a premium experience that does non feel oversold at $99 — and of course, let's not forget those colorful options.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/nest-cam-indoor-wired
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