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These rugged smart home devices, which can withstand rain, snow, and extreme temperatures, typically connect to your home Wi-Fi network and allow you to view live video footage of activities occurring outside your home. They can also send an alert to your phone when someone or something is out there, record video of the event, and, depending on features, let you speak with whoever is on your property, all without requiring you to open your door (or even be inside your house). Monitoring the outside of your house makes a lot of sense – especially if there’s been a spate of break-ins in your area. The difficulty is that outdoor cameras have traditionally been a bit of a pain to set up and configure. The Nest Cam Outdoor hopes to change that, thanks to painless installation, smart monitoring and a design that makes the camera actually look good when it’s installed. Design and Build
The closest competition is the Netatmo Presence, which can tell the difference (mostly) between people, animals and cars. It’s more expensive than the Nest Cam Outdoor, but it has no monthly subscription cost, integrating for free with Dropbox or an FTP server. The downside is that Netatmo’s camera is harder to install, and the overall experience isn’t quite as neat. VerdictImage quality is excellent. In daylight, the picture is sharp, and faces can clearly be seen. Some detail is blurred out in uniform areas, such as grass, but the important information is kept. Using the web app only, not the mobile version, you can set Activity Zones to monitor certain areas of the image. This is a handy way of further cutting down on notifications. With Zones set, you can choose which ones to be notified about and which ones you’re happy to ignore.
You can also schedule the camera to turn on and off. I’ve got mine configured to record from roughly when it gets dark, until 9am in the morning. Nest’s scheduling is a little confusing to use at first, as the app displays bars that you naturally want to touch and slide but can’t. This is a minor complaint, though, and once your schedule is set correctly, you’re unlikely to need to touch this setting. As you can probably tell from the name of the product, this is both an indoor and outdoor camera, and it’s battery operated, although you can also permanently power it. Built-in storage and smart on-device object detection mean that you don’t need to worry about a cloud subscription, although opt for Nest Aware and you’ll get some advanced features. Find the right Nest camera for your home. App Requires Google Home app Requires Google Home app Requires Google Home app Smart floodlight Weather-resistant Included alerts 1 Motion, people, vehicles, animals Motion, people, vehicles, animals Motion, people, vehicles, animals Three-hour event video history 1 Video clips Video clips Video clips 1080p HD video with HDR and Night Vision 24/7 live streaming Up to 60 days of event video history with Nest Aware 1,2 24/7 video history with Nest Aware Plus 1,2,3 When wired Power cable sold separately Talk and Listen Records during a Wi-Fi outage Up to one hour Up to one hour Up to one hour Power source Battery or wired Power cable sold separately Wired Wired Field of view You do need to manage profiles carefully, deleting incorrectly categorised snapshots, and merging duplicate profiles, or facial recognition can get things wrong. Properly looked after, it’s a system that works really well.
Cleverly, if your Wi-Fi goes down or power is cut to your camera, the Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) can record up to three hours of video on battery power, uploading the results when the connection is restored. That makes this camera more reliable than the cloud-only competition. Cameras that capture 4K (Ultra HD) or 2K video are also available, but you need a strong network connection to stream such high-res video without choppiness or lag, plus lots of room to store recordings; that last requirement may add significantly to the cost for cloud storage fees. Installation is now via the Google Home app, rather than the old Nest app. This is a clear sign that Google tends to remove the Nest app, as only older products, such as the still-available Nest Cam Outdoor, will use this.
Still, what you get here is video footage that’s more than good enough for its intended purpose. Final thoughts With this, you can choose to have your camera turn on and off automatically, or you can choose to only get notifications when you’re away from home. It’s a good tool but not as comprehensive as the competition. With Ring, if you have the Ring Alarm, you can adjust cameras based on the mode of the alarm: different settings for whether the alarm is set to on, at home or turned off. If you prefer, you can use a tripod mount, using the screw thread underneath, or you can buy the optional stand for indoor use. Many outdoor cameras do more than just record video and send alerts; they also integrate with other smart devices. Many recent outdoor Wi-Fi cameras support IFTTT, an internet service that lets you create applets that link the camera with other IFTTT-enabled devices. For example, you can configure a smart plug to turn on a lamp indoors or activate an external siren when the camera detects motion. With cameras, such as the Arlo Pro 3, you can use geolocation and a schedule, and you can adjust mode using SmartThings or IFTTT. Both Ring and Arlo have more powerful control, which can be important. After all, nobody really wants to record lots of footage of themselves.If you’re running the camera on battery power, Google recommends that you don’t turn on all-motion recording, as this can reduce battery life.
Savings claim based on purchasing each of the items included with the bundle separately at their total current selling price. Look for an outdoor Wi-Fi camera that can connect to either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio band to alleviate network congestion. If you have trouble getting a good signal outside, try boosting it with a wireless range extender. Google Nest Cam (Outdoor or Indoor, Battery) (Credit: Google) The 1080p camera actually defaults to 720p mode and we think it looks good in either resolution. Ten IR sensors ensure that it can see clearly in the dark as well. A microphone and speaker are built-in for two-way audio communication, but you won’t find a microSD card slot for local video storage. At night when it gets dark, the camera switches to IR mode. It’s not fooled into switching modes by a torch being shone at it, either, so you know that the Nest Cam Outdoor will record reliably. I was impressed by the IR light, which clearly illuminated my 40ft garden, all the way to the shed at the bottom.As the Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) installs via the Google Home app it’s only compatible with the Google Assistant, and it doesn’t have IFTTT support. With a smart display, such as the Nest Hub (2nd generation), you can view the live feed. There’s no Alexa support, although the launch of Matter in the future may change that. Video quality You can manually turn the camera on and off using the Google Home app. If you want to automate it, then you need to enable the Home/Away routines in the app, which can use your phone (and those of other people in your household) to detect who’s at home to change mode automatically. However, you can use any magnetic mount: outside, I had the old Nest Cam Outdoor, so just repurposed that mount instead, although Google has said that the smaller mount here may not be able to take the weight, so use the provided one instead.
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