Review: Nest Cam watches over your home so you don’t have to

Nest Cam is Alphabet's way of fully folding the Dropcam brand into its smart home ecosystem. Nest acquired Dropcam in 2014, and almost exactly a year later, it's launching a newer, better version of the home security camera. While Nest still supports existing Dropcams with its software, it wants to entice the newly smart home curious with a tiny Wi-Fi-connected camera that's a no-brainer to use and that quietly watches over your home without much input on your part.

But while it's simple to set up and use, the $199 Nest Cam is like most other Wi-Fi security cameras in that it's limited by a subscription paywall that prevents you from using some of its best features unless you pay up. Surveillance doesn't come cheap, but Nest Cam does have solid features that make it a decent security camera and an even better watchful eye.

Design

Dropcam slimmed down, at least in frame, to become Nest Cam. The neck of the device, which connects the bulbous camera head to its magnetic base, is much thinner than the Dropcam Pro's. The pivot joint is more adjustable, too, allowing you to turn the cam sideways and tilt it up and down to get the best angle to view the room it's in. You can twist the back of the device's head to spin the lens and the indicator light a full 360 degrees.

The magnetic base is great if you plan on placing Nest Cam on top of appliances in the kitchen, and it feels sturdy enough to resist getting knocked over easily. Nest gives you a wall mount for the camera, so you can use it instead of the magnetic base and attach the camera to a wall.

It takes only a few minutes to set up Nest Cam. After unboxing it, you plug it into a power source with the AC adapter and scan the QR code on the back of the camera with the Android or iOS app. You'll then be asked to sign into your Wi-Fi network with your password, and once you're connected, the camera turns on and begins recording.

Image quality

Nest Cam features 1080p video recording, which is a step up from Dropcam's 720p video but otherwise standard in comparison to cameras such as Canary and Netatmo's Welcome. The video stream was pretty clear and crisp, but there was about a one-second delay in playback when I watched from my iPhone or from my laptop.

The lens is circled by eight LEDs that help improve the quality of the camera's night vision. The light combined with the higher-resolution video make the night vision clear and easy to watch, but still grainy compared to regular recording in a lit room. While figures closer to the camera had more detail, you're still able to easily pick out figures, moving or immobile, in the room in the dark. You also don't have to turn on night vision manually—by default, the camera automatically turns the feature on during the night and when it senses the lights go out.

Features

Nest Cam has motion and sound detection, so its main purpose is to alert you when it senses either in your home. You can set it so the camera only detects one or the other if you prefer, but when you're out of the house, both come in handy if you want to catch burglars or just keep an eye on your children and pets.

You could have the camera on at all times, but then your smartphone would be bombarded with notifications. Instead, you can schedule times for each day of the week when you want the Nest Cam to automatically turn on and off. This makes it easy to monitor your home when you're at work or when you know no one will be home to keep an eye on things.

Alphabet's Nest Cam, the slimmer, sleeker successor to Dropcam.

Valentina Palladino

Alphabet's Nest Cam, the slimmer, sleeker successor to Dropcam. Valentina Palladino

It has a 3-megapixel camera, capable of shooting up to 1080p video.

Valentina Palladino

It has a 3-megapixel camera, capable of shooting up to 1080p video. Valentina Palladino

Just above the lens is an indicator light. Green means it's recording and blue means the camera is trying to connect to your network.

Valentina Palladino

Just above the lens is an indicator light. Green means it's recording and blue means the camera is trying to connect to your network. Valentina Palladino

It has a 3-megapixel camera, capable of shooting up to 1080p video. Valentina Palladino

Just above the lens is an indicator light. Green means it's recording and blue means the camera is trying to connect to your network. Valentina Palladino

Nest Cam now works with Nest Weave to speak with other non-Nest smart home devices.

Valentina Palladino

Surrounding the camera are eight LEDs for better night vision recording.

Valentina Palladino

The neck of the Nest Cam is much thinner than that of the Dropcam.

Valentina Palladino

Twisting the bigger, flat side will turn the front of the camera, adjusting the viewing angle.

Valentina Palladino

The back of the device has its unique QR code, used in setup.

Valentina Palladino

You can turn and bend the camera from its base to get the best monitoring position.

Valentina Palladino

The improved pivot at the camera's base is easy to move.

Valentina Palladino

The microUSB port provides power to the camera via a cable and AC adaptor.

Valentina Palladino

The Nest Cam is small enough to put in hidden corners of an apartment or house.

Valentina Palladino

The other option, Home/Away, can work in tandem with schedules or by itself. With this feature enabled, you can manually set when you're home or away by tapping the circular button on the homepage of the app. The Nest Cam will turn on when you indicate you're away and then turn off when you switch back to Home. If you're busy and forgetful like me, you'll want to use both schedules with Home/Away as a backup—I mostly relied on schedules, but when I left my apartment randomly, I could turn on the camera by switching it to Away in the app as I rushed out the door.

When Nest Cam is on and detects a disturbance in the force, it pings your mobile device and you can check out a live video feed in the app. With the device's two-way audio, you could talk to the children or pets at this point by simply speaking into your smartphone or tablet. They'll be able to hear you and you'll be able to hear them—while that's hardly a major security feature, it provides peace of mind to busy people who want to make sure the rest of their household is safe and sound even when they aren't around.

One caveat to the alerts is that you'll only get one every 30 minutes when the camera detects activity. Let's say you accidentally trigger an alert as you're on your way out the door—for the next 30 minutes, if there's any other motion or sound disturbance, the camera won't alert you to it. That's a big oversight, especially if a thief were to see you leave and immediately try to break in to your home. And unlike Canary, Nest Cam doesn't have an alarm you can trigger remotely, so you may be able to spot a thief, but you'll have to make your next move on your own.

It's also worth noting that Nest Cam now works with the new Nest Weave smart home system. Originally developed to help the Nest Protect smoke detectors communicate with other detectors in the home, Nest Weave uses Thread to create a mesh network for many of the smart home products you have. This means you can connect the Nest Cam to other devices, like a smart door lock or Wi-Fi or light bulb, and set actions that will control multiple devices in tandem. For example, if your smart door lock senses someone inputting too many wrong passcodes, it could trigger a Nest Cam to begin recording to catch any potential thieves breaking and entering.

Smartphone app and Web portal

The free Nest apps for Android and iOS control the camera, Nest Thermostats, and Nest Protect smoke alarms. Once you set up the Nest Cam, a small circle will appear on the homepage of the app that will show you a live video feed or indicate that the camera is currently off.

Begin setting up the Nest Cam by tapping the "+" sign above "Add."

Begin setting up the Nest Cam by tapping the "+" sign above "Add."

Choose the Nest Cam out of the Nest products to set it up.

Choose the Nest Cam out of the Nest products to set it up.

Pick where the Nest Cam will be located in your home.

Pick where the Nest Cam will be located in your home.

Choose the Nest Cam out of the Nest products to set it up.

Pick where the Nest Cam will be located in your home.

The Nest Cam will connect to your Wi-Fi as soon as you put in your password.

Follow the warnings to make sure the Nest Cam is in a safe location.

Enable Home & Away to manually turn the camera on when you're leaving home.

Home & Away can be set directly from the app's homepage.

You can manage your Nest Aware subscription directly from the app's settings.

Setting schedules lets you forget about the Nest Cam on a daily basis, as it turns on and off automatically.

You can change the camera's video quality, bumping it up to as much as 1080p.

Night Vision is set to auto by default, but you can change it to be always on.

Otherwise, the homepage is pretty clean, featuring another button for managing Home/Away settings for the Nest Cam, an account icon at the top-left corner, and a settings icon at the top-right. To spice the app up, Nest makes the background change with the weather of your current location; mine unfortunately had streams of wispy clouds running over it as Brooklyn suffered through a gloomy streak.

The account icon lets you see your profile settings, any messages Nest might have sent you, and a support page full of helpful tips and directions for all Nest devices. In Settings, you can add a bunch of details about your home if you want, including your energy company (Nest has partnered with companies such as ComEd and Direct Energy), the type of home you live in, the size of your home, and when it was constructed. These details are likely more useful when you have more than one smart home device installed.

In Settings, you can manage the specific settings for each Nest device you own, including Nest Cam. All of your cameras are listed with their room names next to them—tap on one and you see a bunch of settings to manipulate including Home/Away, schedules, image quality, night vision, talk and listen tones, and notifications. If you have more than one Nest Cam, these individualized settings make it easy to customize the surveillance in different parts of your home, but it can quickly become tedious if you have to manage a number of cameras all with different settings.

Nest's Web portal is a stretched-out mirror image of the mobile app, weather-changing background and all. The biggest difference is what you can do when you're watching live video from your desktop: with the Nest Aware subscription service, you can create activity zones and clips from recorded video. With activity zones, you designate a certain area of a room you want to keep a close eye on by drawing a box around it. You can name and change the color of these activity zones, and when movement or sound is detected in those areas, it will be marked on your video timeline with its color. Not only does this make it easy to find when you review past recordings, but you'll get specific alerts if Nest Cam detects movement in those zones.

Nest Aware lets you save video clips from recorded videos as well. When reviewing your timeline, you can section off a part of the video to download and save, or you can share over social media instantly. This could come in handy for anyone who wants to share a clip of their cat launching off the bookcase and missing the couch by an inch, and it's useful if you need to save any video of a home invasion to hand over to the authorities.

It's just a bummer that you need to subscribe to Nest Aware to save clips at all, and I wish that you could create clips and save or share them from the mobile app—chances are, if I see my animal do something crazy when I'm not home, I'm going to want to share it ASAP, no matter where I am.

The Nest Web portal looks just like the homepage of the mobile app.

The Nest Web portal looks just like the homepage of the mobile app.

You can see past video by using the calendar and clicking on the desired day.

You can see past video by using the calendar and clicking on the desired day.

These are the settings for the Nest Cam you can change online, which are identical to those available in the mobile app.

These are the settings for the Nest Cam you can change online, which are identical to those available in the mobile app.

You can see past video by using the calendar and clicking on the desired day.

These are the settings for the Nest Cam you can change online, which are identical to those available in the mobile app.

Nest Aware members can create clips online to download and save or share over social media.

Nest Aware members can create Activity Zones to keep a closer eye on certain areas.

Moving the endpoints of the Activity Zone box let you make it as big or as small as you want.

Nest Aware subscription

If you want to look back on past video, you'll have to pay for it: Nest Aware is the subscription service offered for Nest Cam that makes this happen. For $10 per month (or $100 a year) you can access up to 10 days of past video, and you can bump that up to $30 per month (or $300 per year) for 30 days worth of video. While that includes activity zones and clips, it also includes small snippets of video when the Nest Cam alerts you to detected motion or sound—you can open the alert on your mobile device and check out a clip of what triggered the camera.

While Nest's subscription plan is comparable to Canary's pricing, it can get really expensive really fast if you want to add more Nest Cams to your home. Each additional camera adds half of the plan price to your bill each month. If you have two Nest Cams each with a 30-day Nest Aware subscription, you'll pay $45 per month to cover both of them—not to mention the $199 just to purchase each additional camera.