I finally gave in and bought me a Nest camera…there is a reason though why I decided to do this…the last 3 weeks or so, Nest, finally offered a cheaper subscription instead of the 10 day..$10 a month per camera. Now, they are offering a 5 day 24/7 continous recording, intelligent alerts, share or download video clips or create timelapses and accurate motion detection using activity zones and this for $5/month or $50 bucks per year on one camera and the second or if you have more Nest cameras…they would be 50% off.
It is still not cheap but it is not as expensive as before…One major selling point of Nest is their 24/7 recording to the cloud which has its benefits but also will use a lot of data per month especially if you have multiple Nest cameras.
So, let’s check out some of the features of the Nest Cam outdoor version.
As the name implies, this is an outdoor, weatherproof IP65 camera which will endure rain or shine.
It will be recording 24/7 so you can check in at anytime.
It has person alerts…which with Nest Aware subscrption, you will have more accurate motion detection and it has 2 way audio so that you can talk to somebody on the camera and vice versa.
It has a 130 degree field of view and is a 1080p HD camera which records at 30 frames per second.
Alerts are pushed to your smart phone and this camera is designed to be installed easily and with it’s magenetic mount, you will have multiple angles of adjustments for the camera.
So, let’s open up the box…
We have the camera itself…which the power USB cable with a length of 10 feet is permanently attached to the camera. The camera and the cable looks and feels solid and durable. We have the USB plug at the other end which will be attached to the adapter.
We have some paperwork and the installation guide which is pretty thorough.
We have the magnetic mount…
mounting screws, plastic anchors and cable clips.
Then, we have the weatherproof power adapter which will be plugged in to the wall outlet. It has the mounting plate which you will screw in to the wall so as to secure the adapter in place. It has a 15 foot cable which with the camera installed, will give you a total of 25 feet. When installing this camera, you have to take into account that you will need a power outlet within 25 feet.
The magnetic mount is pretty strong and will definitely hold the camera in place and it will need a decent amount of force to move the camera. It comes with its mounting plate which needed to be screwed on to a wall or ceiling. You can also install this to any metal surface that the magnet will stick into..then you don’t need to screw it in.
Nest Outdoor Camera – amzn.to/2FklFjT
The USB plug connects directly to the adapter. You have to push it in and turn clockwise to lock it in place making sure the connections are weather tight.
Time to set it up..download the app from the app store or google play. In my case, I already have the app and have an account because I also have the Nest thermostat.
To add the camera, click on the gear icon on the upper right corner, scroll to the bottom and click add product.
It will open up your phone’s camera and you need to scan the QR code on the bottom side of the nest camera. Make sure the phone is around 12 inches away.
Now, you need to have your Wifi password ready and a power outlet nearby… then click next…
Choose a name for your camera..Nest has suggestions which to name it to where you are going to install… For now, if you scroll down, you have an option to type in a name. Click custom and I’ll name mine ” Nest” then click next…
It says here that the camera has an operating temperature from -4 degrees to 104 degrees fahrenheit.
Click continue…and now, you need to plug in the camera…
Click continue and choose the WiFi network you are going to connect to…
Type in the password…and wait for the app to finish setting up the camera…
You should now be able to see the live view…click next.. and time to install the nest cam outside…
You just need to mount or screw in the mounting plate to wherever you want to install the camera. The camera can either be mounted horizontally like in a ceiling or vertically like in a wall. I’m installing mine close to my Ring spotlight cam because the next video that I’ll do will be a comparison between the 2 cameras…
I’ll put in the magnetic mount..then attach the camera.. So, for now, I’ll just temporarily zip tie the cable to the power cable of the spotlight cam..
You can see that the power adapter stands out and needs the wall mount if you are going to permanently install this…If everything works out with this Nest cam, I’ll be installing this in my front yard. I plugged the camera in a lockable power outlet.
With a magnetic mount, you have a wider range of adjustments and you can easily fine tune the positioning of the camera…The magnet is pretty strong…
Let’s now go over the settings of the camera in the Nest app… On the main page of the app, you will see the devices that are connected. You will see the camera and also my thermostat.
Tap the camera view to go the the camera’s timeline or sightline where it defaults to the live view of the camera… tap the calendar icon to browse the video history…it depends on your subscription if get a 5, 10 or 30 day review…currently, I’m on the trial subscription for 30 days and I have access to 5 days worth of videos.
You can scroll up or down on the sightline to view the footage that you want to watch. The grey line or dots you will see means the camera recorded an activity that is outside the activity zone..which I haven’t setup yet…
You can also turn your phone to landscape mode to get a better and bigger view of the footage. The camera also defaults to recording audio which is pretty good with this camera..
Clicking the gear icon on the upper right corner gets you to the settings page..
where you can turn on or off the camera, home /away assist which is geofencing – turns on the camera when you are out and turns it off when you are inside and it uses the GPS on your phone….
Set the schedule..which I usually don’t use…you can set the days of the week and also the time range to turn on or off the camera.
Then we have the notifications…which you can get notified using push notifications on your phone or email…you can also specify which activity you want to get notified on…
Then, we have the Nest Aware which I’m on a free trial for 30 days…
One of the benefits of the Nest Aware is that you can specify activity zones…but you need to set this up in a computer and not in the app…
You can also download video clips and make timelapses…
Also, to sign up for Nest Aware, you need to subscribe through their website and not through the app…
On the video settings, there is the quality and bandwidth selection. Nest cam records 24/7 so it continously uploads footage in the cloud which eats up your internet usage…It says here that Nest will do its best to only use 120 GB of data per month.. Just imagine if you have 3-5 nest cams and how much data it uses…Funny thing on the bottom it says…your internet provider may limit your bandwidth usage or charge extra if you use too much…Sometimes you have to think if 24/7 cloud recording is beneficial.
We have the night vision..which you can turn on…auto…and always on…
We can also rotate the image if you installed the camera upside down and camera sharing if you want members of your family to have access to the camera.
We have the status light which you can turn on or off..continuous green light means the camera is recording and blinking green when somebody is watching the video. I’ll turn it off on mine.
We have the microphone setting which you have the option to turn it on or off…
Change the microphone’s sensitivity and if you want audio recording to be on or off…
There is the talk and listen tone in which the camera will play a chime before you talk..
And WiFi connection if you want to change your WiFi settings.
Where is the name of your camera which I named my Nest…
With the Nest cameras, you can also access your camera and change the settings when you log in to your account on their website.
The settings page is the same as the one on their app…
One thing that you can only do on the website is setting up activity zones…
And as you can see I already set up mine and you can click and drag the dots to modify and customized the area that you want to monitor and you want to have alerts and notifications set up.
Click done to save. You can have up to 4 different zones if you want.
The next one are the clips..you can create a clip which you can dowload or share to social media. Just drag the blue area to where you are going to start and end the video clip. Click save when you are done.
You can also make a time lapse and just select the time range..click save when done.
Time for some video footage..
Time to setup Alexa…which is pretty easy..just go to skills on the Alexa app…
Search for Nest camera… and click enable..
Log in to your Nest account…Click accept…and now the Nest camera should be all set up to use with Alexa…close the window and click discover devices…
and you will see that the Nest camera has been added.
Now, let’s try it out…first with my amazon Echo show…
Or if you have a Fire TV..
Now, I have a couple of things that I noticed. First, the notification has some delay on it. You will hear my Ring’s notification first…
… and some 12 seconds later before Nest notifies me…I like that it sends a thumbnail picture on the notification. It would be nice if we can change the alert tone like the Ring’s.
Second is the 2 way communication… which is intercom style and you need to push on the mic to talk and you need to push it again to cancel and listen.
It also set to chime before and after you talk to cue the other person to respond but you will notice that the chime will cause a delay and my son already responded before the response tone goes off……. as you can see in this clip.
Turning off the talk and listen tone on the app will probably eliminate this but it would be better if instead of push to talk, there is a conference or hands free option…Also, recorded footage will only record audio from the camera, meaning the conversation from the phone end will not be recorded.