Google - Nest Hello Smart Wi-Fi Video Doorbell

If you are looking for a video doorbell, this is the one you need to get. I have used other video doorbells and the NEST HELLO is by far the best one I have ever seen. Installation is extremely easy. Nest Hello needs to be wired in order to stay powered on to deliver 24/7 streaming, so if you don’t have a current wired doorbell, you would have to have the wiring installed by an electrician first. If you have a wired doorbell, chances are it would be compatible with Nest Hello, but the first thing you need to do is make sure. On the Nest website, they have a great compatibility checker and instructions to help you find out if the Hello will work for you. Nest Hello needs to be powered by wires delivering 16- 24 VAC, and at least 10 VA. Once you have confirmed that Hello will work with your wiring, they give you everything in the box to get up and running. If you don’t feel comfortable installing yourself, you can hire a Nest Pro through their website, but honestly installation can be done by anyone that can follow step by step instructions and operate a screwdriver and drill. Nest gives you all the instructions you need, in both a YouTube video and the Nest App. So even if you’re not “handy”, trust me you can install this. The area where my doorbell is, it sits on a piece of trim that’s very narrow and is right next to brick. Nest includes a 15-degree wedge piece that helps mount the doorbell in tight spots and helps improve the camera angle/view when right next to obstructions. The Hello is much narrower than competing doorbells, so you should have an easy time mounting it just about anywhere. I had the doorbell unboxed and installed in about 45 mins. A lot of that time was spent trying to find the breaker the doorbell wiring was on. I also have the Nest Outdoor cam, so I already have the Nest app and account. If you don’t, you need to sign up for a Nest account through the Nest app. It’s super fast and easy. In my app I just needed to click “Add Product” and the app did the rest. Walked me through all the installation instructions, and once it recognized the doorbell, it automatically assigned all my Wi-Fi settings to it. I can’t emphasize how simply it was to install. The video quality is amazing. The video is up to 1600 x 1200 @ 30fps (you can set the video quality to Low/Med/High depending on your preference and bandwidth) and is 4:3 aspect. It is H.264 encoded and has HDR, and has 160 degree field of view. The 4:3 aspect was interesting. I’m used to viewing video through my other cameras at 16:9, but having the 4:3 on the doorbell is perfect. You can see everything. This aspect ratio is perfect for a doorbell camera. I was super impressed with the overall quality of the video. Crystal clear and full of color and sharpness. The night vision is the best I’ve seen on any outdoor camera. The audio is also very clear and bright, and the two way talk works incredibly well. Notifications are instantaneous when someone pushed the button, and if they don’t and only trigger the motion sensor, the notification still comes to the phone super fast, much faster than I’ve experienced with other doorbells and even some outdoor stand alone wifi cameras. And like with their other cameras, the Hello can be configured with trigger zones of activity in front and around the camera field of view, so you can fine tune when you get notified of activity. Familiar faces is a game changer. The doorbell will zoom in on the person’s face ringing your doorbell, and then ask you through the app if you recognize them or not. If you do, you can save that face (the doorbell takes a series of facial images in a burst) and name it, so that the next time that same person comes to the door, the app will let you know who is at the door. It is amazing. And if you have Google smart home products like the Google Home, it will announce who is at the door alongside your doorbell chime. I had been waiting for this doorbell since Google and Nest announced it, and it has not disappointed. It is by far the best video doorbell on the market in my opinion.

The Google - Nest Hello provides us peace of mind! We moved to a single-family home and our Great Room is located it on the second floor now. It's convenient to be able to tailor and receive face/package/noise/etc. alerts without having to go up and down the stairs. It comes with a 15 degree wedge to help us angle it towards the street. It's nice that they provide a drill bit to help with install, but the diameter was a bit too small compared to the anchors. The install took us longer than anticipated, so definitely double check before you try to shove the anchors in! Overall, instruction videos and set up process with Nest app was very clear and easy. Love to have everything connected to our Google Smart Home.

I upgraded our home security cameras in 2018 from Drop Cam Pro to Nest Indoor IQ & Outdoor IQ Cameras with Facial Recognition & Familiar Face Alerts. I was thrilled to learn about "Hello", a smart doorbell with the same features when Nest announced it last Fall. It is even better than I had hoped! THE GREAT: 1- Ridiculously SHARP Image! Show this to your friends who own the "other" smart doorbell - and catch their mouth - open disbelief when they see the clear image without the delay! I attached an image captured from my front porch. 2- Facial Recognition works! 3- Familiar Face Alert works! 4- Beautiful integration with Google Home. When anyone presses the doorbell button, all Google Home devices announce "Someone is at the front door!", at the same time their photo appears on your cellphone. Once you enter the guest's name as a Familiar Face on the app, the doorbell will announce them by name at the door! "Hello" even announces the names of multiple guests. 5- Perfect Nest integration with all Nest Cameras. Even shares the Familiar Faces with the master library that includes all Nest IQ Outdoor & Indoor Cameras & pulls faces from that established library & vice versa. 6- Optional Aluminum 15 degree angled wedge allows you to point doorbell away from a wall. See my photos showing this in use & showing the resulting image. 7- Microphone is very sensitive & picks up whispers! 8- Best looking Smart Doorbell on the market. 9- Includes push-on quick connects to simplify installation. 10- Video compression is selectable with 4) settings, 800 to 2,000 Kbps of upload bandwidth. This is a huge benefit: select the highest quality / lowest compression for the best quality image if your WiFi can support the bandwidth. On the other extreme, select the low end (800 Kbps) to use less WiFi bandwidth - or 2 levels in between. Nest IQ Cameras share this great benefit. 11- Easy installation with YouTube Video & photos make this a fun and quick install, whether you have ever installed a doorbell before. 12- Masonry drill bit is included if you need to drill into brick or stone. 13- 1600 X 1200 DPI HD UXGA image, up to 30 Frames / Second, H.264 encoding & HDR. 14- Ultra wide 160 Degree diagonal field of view. Very wide, very high floor to ceiling to see packages on the porch, all clear with an 8X zoom. 15- Speaker quality is sharp and clear. It does not sound like a tin horn. 16- Narrower than most smart doorbells allows placement in tight quarters. Dimensions: 4.6" Tall X 1.7" W X 1.0" Deep. The 1.7" width was a big help for me. See my photos of the installation. 17- Works with any doorbell transformer measuring 10V to 24 V. 18- Brightest IR for Night Vision that really lights up a large area without the extreme red IR used by lesser cameras. These are 850nm infrared LED's, same as on Nest IQ Cameras. 850nm LEDs produce a very slight red glow when operating, which is visible to the human eye. 19- Other Nest products set up "Hello" doorbell for you! They literally do all of the Wi-Fi settings, even the password. It took about 30 seconds for another Nest product to set everything up! 20- The delay that has been an issue with other doorbells can be greatly reduced or even eliminated on "Hello". See point # 10 "Video Compression" in this review. The 4) selectable quality settings can be used to reduce bandwidth requirement, which greatly reduces the "spinning wheel" & makes the visitor pop up faster after a guest rings the doorbell. THE LESS THAN GREAT: Absolutely NONE!! Hello is a Great security & convenience appliance. CONCLUSION: Nest "Hello" raises the bar for Smart Doorbells to a level unattainable by any competitor today & earns my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!!

I tried a couple other doorbell systems before, but Nest Hello just blew my mind! They really fixed a lot of problems other door bells have. Let's start with installation: Nest web site does have a quick compatibility check tool that you should use to verify your existing door bell is compatible. Nest tells you in the manual that you have to install the supplied "power pack" or "chime connector" next to your chime, however if you have 2 indoor chimes - you'll need to find your door bell transformer and install the connector there. Just make sure you have both wires going to your chimes connected to the "chime connector" as Nest recommends - red wires from the chimes to the dark wire on the connector and white wires from the chimes to the white wire on the "connector", then the other two wires on the connector (transformer side with 2 push-in couplings), red wire to the transformer, white wire to the white wire going to the door bell button, red wire from the door bell button to the other tap of the transformer. Pay attention to the transformer you have, if it's only a 10VA one - I strongly recommend getting 30VA version, it's inexpensive but will guarantee plenty of power for your door bell system even if you have 2 chimes. When it came to the actual physical installation of the door bell - I found that my existing holes I had for the standard NuTone button did actually match Nest Hello's mounting holes perfectly so I did not had to drill into the brick. That was a major install time saving! Can you install Nest Hello if you don't currently have a wired chime? Sure - if you can run a wire to it! Just don't hookup anything to the "chime" side of the "chime connector" and make sure to insulate the leads. Once physical install is complete - follow directions in the app to setup your account, name the door bell, etc. What happens when someone comes to your door? First of all - Nest Hello has a white ring around the button that starts glowing - indicating that person's presense has been noticed and prompting them to push the button. Once the button is pressed - chimes sound instantly in the house (unlike the other door bell system I tried that had a second delay), and within 1-2 seconds you'll get a push notification on your phone/watch/tablet - every device you've got setup for that. There is where the main difference comes into play - push notification from Nest would actually have a short 2 second clip in it clearly showing you the person! (It's not like you have to open up the app and wait 4-5 seconds for the video to come up and by that time they are gone like with the other door bells I had). You would also be given 3 choices of pre-recorded phrases: "We'll be right there", "You can leave it" and "No one can come to the door right now, but we are notified of your visit". If you happen to have a Google Home in your house - it could also announce that "Someone is at the door" or even mention person's name if Nest Hello recognized the person as "familiar face". You still get notified if visitor did not push the button and just walked away as well. Nest Hello does work with the 3rd party apps but would just show up as a regular Nest camera. Overall - it's a very positive experience and I'm finally feel like I have a smart door bell, not something I have to wait 10-15 seconds just to show me my empty porch. Nest Hello's picture quality is very nice and night vision works perfect. With plenty of installation options and a very good app response time - this makes Nest Hello the best door bell system on the market at this time!

Great quality video doorbell. Chose this one over the ring because google nest is more than a doorbell. You can tie your entire house together with the hub max, outdoor cameras and more

We love this doorbell more than I can say! Integrated perfectly with our existing Google Home setup and video stream quality is AMAZING. I feel safer at home and more comfortable when we’re away. Cancel whatever overpriced ADT system you’re paying for. This is just as good, and a lot sleeker.

My house has a massive screen door on it that blocks the use of the peep hole, so a doorbell like this was more for security reasons and less for smart home functionality. However, this is a great option for a smart door bell. Pros: 1. Clean audio and crisp HD video. The most important feature of a smart doorbell is the camera and audio, the wide angle of this camera helps pick up the entire entry way to my house as well as the door so you can see as people enter/exit. Great! 2. Customizability: probably a feature of all smart doorbells, but you can actually turn the chime off and just receive notifications on your phone! huge bonus when we just had a newborn that we don't want to disturb! 3. Google. i'm a huge google fan and being the largest ecosystem of products just means your future-proofing yourself as the smart home universe evolves 4. Design: obviously a subjective metric, but i love the style of this. i also paired it with an elago Wall Plate for even cleaner look 5. Easy-ish install. if you've ever replaced a light switch in your house, this is pretty much as easy as that. Figure out what fuse your bell is on, locate the transformer, and you're good to go. Google also has a great video on the YT 6. "Plug and Play" Packaging: the system comes with a drill bit, screws, and wall anchors for mounting the doorbell. Cons: 1. Sloppy-ish Install: living in arizona, our homes are textured stucco on the outside. the non-flat surface makes mounting this somewhat difficult. also, the hole pattern for the bell is only slightly larger than the diameter of the standard round doorbell that comes on every house. This meant the wall anchors did not grip well. also the bell was too narrow to cover the hole left behind the original doorbell. i opted for lag bolts and the above mentioned elango Wall Plate. If you already have the bolts, the wall plate is less than $15 and makes for a much more professional install. 2. Still too soon integration: yes, you're future-proofing yourself by going with google, but the Nest Hello is still not fully integrated with the Google Home app, which seems to be the main hub app for Google going forward. This means there's not too much integration with the rest of your smart home. However, this will probably not be in issue in 5 years. let's face it, this is a set it and forget it type of product 3. Runs a little hot: can't compare with other bells, because i did not try any, but it will be a little warm to touch. not that it's a risk to you but if you have anything you don't want heating up, keep it a little clear. Also concerned how this will fare in the AZ summer, so we'll see 4. Responsiveness of alerts: with any doorbell system there is going to be a slight delay between a live action at the front door and the system notifying you. Same goes for you speaking to the visitors if you use that feature from your phone. This can be annoying to some people but comes with the territory All in all, great device, well worth it, wouldn't replace it.

I have quite a few nest products, and I am always amazed at how well they work together. I bought the Nest Hello to replace a Ring doorbell that was installed on my house when I moved in. Setup took about 20 minutes, after turning off the doorbell transformer power and hooking up the wires. I appreciate that nest includes an angled bracket in the box, as our doorbell is able to cover more of the porch this way. Setup with the Nest app was simple (make sure you grab the QR setup code or the setup code off the device before mounting it). Once setup and connected to your home network, you can set up video quality, motion zones and alerts, familiar faces, and more. My favorite smart feature of this doorbell is that it syncs up with any google home devices in your house to use them as doorbell chimes, or even live views of who is at the door. Nest is also one of the only devices on the market that is constantly recording, which means that you can rest assured knowing that you did not miss anything because a recording event was not triggered. I know many people with Ring devices that missed out on an event because of that very reason. Video quality is excellent both during the day, and at night, mostly due to how well Nest handles HDR video. (see pictures for daytime vs nighttime) The speaker on the device is decent, as is the microphone. If you need to talk to someone over the Nest Hello, there is a slight delay in the audio, but it is managable.