With the Nest Cam you can disable to audio recording feature of the camera – important in States where the recording of audio without permission is illegal.
Check out the sleek design of the Nest Cam
This is the successor to the Dropcam Pro (remember when Nest Labs owned by Google bought the Dropcam last year?), well they have now come out with the Nest Cam.
This is a lovely sleek looking nanny cam with 2-way communication, IR night vision, digital zoom (x8), live video streaming, bank level encryption, sound and motion alerts, cloud storage, 3 different mounting options and is easy to set up.
The Nest Cam is a Best Seller on Amazon, so clearly customers love this new little nanny cam, even though it doesn’t have a lot of features. So let’s take a look at the features the Nest Cam does have:
- 2 way communication
- Sound and motion alerts
- Wide angle lens
- IR night vision
- Optical zoom (x8)
- High quality images
- Live video streaming
- Cloud storage
- Easy setup
- Bank level encryption
- Works with other Nest devices
- Multiple mounting options
- No Pan & Tilt
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2 way communication
With a built in microphone, it is easy to chat to the baby sitter at home, your children, elderly relative or even tell your dog to get off the bed!
When you are working away from home it is nice to know that you can sing your baby a lullaby to help them drift off to sleep and also chat to your partner when they are feeding your baby – all the time you are watching on your smartphone or iPad.
Sound and motion alerts
When you subscribe to the Nest Aware service you can set up your own personalized alert notifications. With this subscription you have continuous recordings, so you can see exactly what happened to set off the sound or motion alerts. You can also create what they call ‘Activity Zones’ so you can keep an eye on specific areas of your home.
When sound or motion triggers an alert the camera will automatically video the event and push an alert notification to your mobile device. These notifications however are limited to one every 30 minutes and email notifications are not supported.
Wide angle lens
You might not have a pan & tilt function, but you do have a 130 degree wide angle lens which is big enough to see most of a room.
IR night vision
You have a 3 megapixel sensor which delivers 1080p video at 30 fps and 8 IR LEDs for perfect night vision, which automatically switch on in low light levels. So you have clear, sharp images even during the night time.
Live video streaming
With the Nest Cam you have live video streaming 24/7, but you can only record this video footage or go back in time to look at previous footage – if you have the Nest Aware subscription.
Cloud Storage
All of the live video footage is on the cloud, so you have to access the Nest Cam app on your mobile device or on their website to view your live recordings. You don’t have SD storage and you can’t record live to your PC or phone – all video goes to your Nest Cam account on the Nest website.
You can store the live recordings for 10 days or 30 days, depending on your subscription – but without a subscription you cannot store the video recordings -all you have are live videos.
Easy setup
The Nest Cam is controlled through the Nest app on your mobile device or via their website. If you have a number of Nest Cams in your home, you can see all of their live feeds using the app on your smart phone or tablet.
To setup the Nest Cam all you need to do is to plug it into a power source and download the free app onto your phone. Then use your smartphone’s camera to scan the QR code on the reverse of the Nest Cam and it takes about 30 seconds for it to find your WiFi – then enter your WiFi password and you are good to go.
In the settings menu you can schedule the Nest Cam to record at specific times, which is handy if you are away on holiday, working away from home or just want to catch the children when they come home from school.
Bank encryption
The Nest Cam connects to the Nest cloud using AES 128-bit SSL encryption and TLS (Transport Layer Security). Nest uses a non-reversible, slow, salted key-derivation function to protect your password and uses AWS (Amazon Web Services) for cloud servers and online storage.
Works with other Nest devices
If you already have Nest Protect or Nest Thermostat then the Nest Cam work easily with these other products. When you initially setup the Nest Cam, the app will show all of your other Nest devices and all you need to do is to click ‘Add a Product’.
Mounting options
You can position the Nest Cam on a flat surface, on a wall or because it also comes with a magnetic base, you can attach it to a metal surface.
This means that you have lots of options for where you position the Nest Cam, giving you super coverage in all areas of your home (you could even attach it to the fridge with the magnetic base).
Who uses the Nest Cam?
You can use the Nest Cam for a whole variety of reasons, because it is very sturdy and has multiple mounting options. So you can use it to monitor your:
- Your children or baby with the babysitter.
- Your children as they complete their homework or have dinner at home.
- Your partner as they feed or change your baby.
- Your toddlers first few steps.
- Your elderly relative to make sure they are safe at home.
- Your pets when they are home alone.
- Your home office, the front porch and any external doorways.
- Your business offices and storerooms.
Customer Reviews
When more than 5000 customers write reviews about a product, you know they either love it or hate it. Well it turns out that more than 80% of customers have given the Nest Cam a 4 or 5 star rating, so they really like this nanny cam.
The main comments are that they love how easy it is to set up, the different mounting options and that the videos are of a very high quality.
Features I like in the Nest Cam nanny cam
The sleek design looks absolutely fabulous and will suit most decors. The night time vision is souped up, so it is much clearer at night and the images (day or night) are crystal clear. You also have more mounting options than usual and it is easy to set up.
Points to note about the Nest Cam nanny cam
From a functional point of view the Nest Cam has no pan & tilt, no SD card storage, no lullabies or temperature sensor.
To make the most of the Nest Cam, you need to subscribe to the Nest Cam Cloud Service for $10/month or $30/month (correct at the time of writing this review), which gives you a 10 day video history or a 30 day video history, depending on your subscription. Without this subscription you can view live recordings, but you cannot record and save them.
Conclusion
The Nest Cam looks great and customers really love its high quality images and easy set up.
You have 2-way communication, IR night time vision, a digital zoom (x8), a wide angle lens (no pan & tilt), push sound and motion notifications, lots of mounting options and an easy setup.
The only downside is that you really need to subscribe to the Nest Cloud to use all of its functionality, otherwise you can’t view or save past video recordings. All up, the Nest Cam is a robust, sleek nanny cam with lots of functionality and great HD images.
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