The Nest Cam is a Nifty Little Nanny Cam
Google has been busy the past few years spending up big on new commercial acquisitions. Most notable in 2014 was NestLabs, which includes smart thermostats, smoke detectors and the Nest Cam. Not forgetting that they also acquired Dropcam as well – so they have a hefty slice of the home surveillance and nanny cam business.
So Google now owns the Nest Cam, which is a sleek looking and robust nanny cam that not only looks awesome, but also has some great features as well.
What’s so good about the Nest Cam?
With the Nest Cam you have high definition video footage, a 130 degree wide angle lens, 2 way communication, a digital zoom (x8), bank level encryption, IR night vision, a variety of mounting options and push notifications.
So it has a lot of functionality, which is essential when you want to use it to protect your family, your home or your business.
The first things you notice about the Nest Cam is that it feels sturdy and it looks like a high quality product. The unique swivel joint, the wide angle lens and the magnetic base gives you plenty of flexibility, so it is easy to find the best angle and position for the Nest Cam (making up for the lack of a pan & tilt feature).
Multiple mounting options make the Nest Cam very useful around the home, and the magnetic base means that you can attach it to a garage door, a fridge or any other metal surface in your home.
One unusual feature is that there are no buttons on the Nest Cam, because all of the settings are controlled via the app. This might be a good security feature, because no-one without the app can change any of the functions, but it is one more step that is involved if you do need to change the settings for any reason.
Set up is really easy and simple with the Nest Cam, something that just about all customers agree on.
You just need to download the free app, scan the QR code with your smart phone’s camera and plug in your WiFi password – that it!
Another great feature of the Nest Cam is the crystal clear HD images, due to the 1/3″, 3 megapixel sensor, 1920 x 1080p resolution and the digital zoom (x8).
What’s so bad about the Nest Cam?
First of all, you don’t have any battery backup with the Nest Cam, so if the power goes off then so does your Nest Cam. This is not unusual, as many of the nanny cams don’t have a battery backup.
However, if a battery backup is important to you then you can check out my review of the D-Link DCS-855L nanny cam, which can be powered by an external USB battery. Also, the D-Link DCS-825L, DCS-850L, DCS-820L, DCS-800L and the iBaby M2 all can either be charged using an external USB battery or a lithium battery.
Another potential downside of the Nest Cam is that after the 30 day free trial of their Nest Aware Cloud service, if you don’t subscribe to their monthly plans – then you can’t access past video footage or even save any of the footage.
All you can do is view live recordings – which might be all you want anyway.
Monthly subscriptions are either $10/month or $30/month for access to the previous 10 or 30 days footage (respectively – correct at time of writing this article) and the ability to save your live videos as well.
The Nest Cam is also on the expensive side, so you might want to check out other options here.
Summing up the Nest Cam
If you want a sleek, sturdy nanny cam with lots of features, then the Nest Cam might be the one for you, particularly if you have other Nest products, such as the Nest Thermostat or Nest Protect.
The monthly subscription might be a problem to some people, so if you don’t want to be locked into a subscription service, then check out my top rated nanny cam – the Amcrest ProHD instead as it has the same functionality (plus pan & tilt) and you have the option of cloud storage or local storage using an SD card as well.
You can read my full review of the Nest Cam here.
Read my other nanny cam reviews here.