The new Nest Cam is designed to watch out for your home and family – even when you can’t – and here is our review.
Nest Cam can use your phone’s location – and even your family’s phones – to know when you’re away. So when everyone leaves the house, Nest Cam will know to turn itself on automatically.
And with 24/7 live streaming, advanced Night Vision, and motion and sound alerts, Nest Cam helps you look after your home from anywhere.
Use Nest Cam as a pet cam or baby monitor. Or just feel better knowing that everything’s OK when you’re away. It only takes a moment to set up, and lets you stream securely – you’ll get a 130º wide-angle view and can zoom in for a closer look.
What’s in the Box?
The box contains the Nest Cam, guides, power cable and plug, wall mount and screws.
A Closer Look
Using the Nest Cam
Setting up and using the Nest Cam is very easy. Plug the Cam into the power cable and then install the Nest app (if you don’t already have it).
Once the app is running, you just tap on Add product, select Nest Cam and then follow the steps.
Once it’s all connected (which only takes a few moments) you can select the image quality. By default this is 720p but you can set it to be less (if you have a slow internet connection) or 1080p if you want better quality images and you have a fast internet connection. The app does warn you though that if you select 1080p the cam could become hot.
And that’s it! Next time you go into the app you will see the cam listed (in this case Living Room). All you need to do is tap on the cam you want to see.
Here is a video of the Nest Cam in action, from the Nest website:
Final Thoughts
As mentioned earlier, setting up the Nest Cam was really simple and only took a few minutes before it was up and running.
You can set up multiple Nest Cams throughout your house given you as much, or as little coverage as you want.
I already had a couple of the Nest Thermostats set up in my house, and so once the Nest Cam was set to Away, the cam was automatically turned on, and when it was set back to Home, the cam switched itself off. I liked that it did this without me having to remember to do it. After all, when you are out is when you want to have the cam or cams running.
The picture quality on the cam was excellent, even at night in the dark. You can easily make out everything, and with the app you can enhance certain areas easily.
When the cam detects activity in the area it will send you an alert. This means you don’t have to watch the video feed all the time! It also detects noise, but rather than just any noise it looks for certain types of noise like crashes or someone talking.
You can also talk through the cam – just tap the button and say what you want and it will come through the cam’s speakers. You can use it to calm a stressed pet for example.
Nest also have a subscription service called Nest Aware, and they provide a free 30 day trial when you first set up your cam. Starting at £8 a month, Nest Aware gives you 24/7 continuous recording so that you can go back and see what you’ve missed. It also uses powerful algorithms in the cloud to give you personalised alerts. This is definitely something you should consider, and the fact you get a 30 day trial to test it out is very useful.
I was really impressed with the Nest Cam, it is a incredibly useful bit of kit and easily integrates with any existing Nest set up. If you are in the market for a security camera then you should definitely take a look at the Nest Cam, you won’t be disappointed.
The Nest Cam retails for £159, but as always look around for the best deal.
