Customer Ratings & Reviews

This camera is a solid choice for anyone looking for a tad more security since… what else is a camera for? Out of the box, this is minimal, solid packaging as you’re buying from a major tech company like Google, who gets what they’re doing. The camera is inside the box alongside warranty, setup instructions, mounting screws, and power plug. Setup was very simple as this is all pretty bare bones. The cord is probably 8ft as a guess, as they want you to be able to reach far off places. I didn’t mount my camera but used it in our loft to monitor the dog while I’m at work. The camera and base are stable, sturdy, and also happen to rotate with manual assistance, so you can get this setup at your preferred angle. As for setup, it was kind of easy? There was a QR code sticker on the front of the camera lense and I assumed you could scan that to get going, since that’d make the most sense. Wrong. Scanning that takes you to a Google search with irrelevant info. After glancing at the simple included instructions, it forward me to download the Google Home app. It’s a Google product so you can bet that first things first, you get to connect them to WiFi, give them access to your phone data, microphone, location, Bluetooth connectivity, camera, etc. sigh. Even setup had its hiccups though, as I didn’t see the need to give Google access to my phone camera, and nothing indicated that it was necessary, so I declined their request. Eventually I stalled out in my setup process but after troubleshooting, they couldn’t tell me what the issue was and the app gave no notice. Eventually I went back and gave them camera access and was able to complete my setup. Just be aware you’ll have to give them access to everything on your phone. Once setup, you’re off to the races. Picture quality is really solid. There’s a two way speaker on the camera so you can watch the feed from your phone and communicate back and forth. The audio is quite clear though there seems to be a very noticeable delay when trying to speak through the camera. Additionally it’s very unclear how, if at all to change the settings of camera audio. The audio is very sensitive to where if I’m in the same room, and decide to use my app to speak through the camera (for testing purposes cause why would you normally do that), it just creates an endless audio loop that eventually loops so much it’s piercing noise. You can’t seem to control the volume on the camera either, it just comes out at the predetermined volume whether you like it or not which is quite puzzling. The app will, without paying for a premium subscription, record and store any human movement within the last 5 hours. While helpful, I wish there was setting to capture animal movement but there doesn’t seem to be and it’s very good at distinguishing the two, so you’ll need even accidentally get animal recordings. All said, when it comes to ease of use and camera quality, this is a solid get, but leaves a bit to be desired on the setup process and execution.

I’m impressed with the hardware design of this camera. The camera mount is designed to work on either a flat surface or be twisted to support attaching flat against a wall while still allowing vertical and horizontal adjustment of the camera. It’s a fantastic design that requires no assembly. The 2K camera with HDR provides up to a 6x zoom capturing an excellent amount of detail for such a small device. 
On the software side, connecting to Google Home took a few seconds, and a new Cameras section appeared in the Google Home app with a thumbnail view of the live feed from the camera. Tapping it reveals a split screen navigation with the camera image on the top of the screen and a recent clips history below. The past clips default to a view telling you what you are looking for with a timestamp and a clip length followed by a looping fast video playback of the each clip. I love that the clips automatically fast play, giving me an almost instant understanding if the clip can be ignored or if it needs to be played back for a more detailed review. If you don’t like it, there’s a toggle switch to go to a traditional static timeline view without the auto clip playing. The software experience is easy to navigate and simple to use as long as you are currently using Google Home for your Smart Home. Where I start to get frustrated is that Nest continues to be a closed ecosystem where paid subscribers get great features, but the device is handicapped unless you subscribe. There’s no local storage on this device and no method to bring your own storage. I run Home Assistant and this device can not be brought into Home Assistant without first playing Google a fee to access the API’s and even then the cameras are not able to use my existing storage servers. Instead Google offers 6-hour video preview without a subscription, or moving up to Google Home Premium gets you 60 days of history. It’s only with Google Home Premium Plus subscriptions that you get access to continuous video recording, but archiving is only good for 60 days. Bottom line: if you are already a Google Nest User with a subscription, this is a great camera to upgrade to.

This camera is wired and is intended for indoor use (should be obvious, but...). I got this camera to replace a previous generation indoor camera that I will recycle to another part of our home. There are a few fundamental differences between the prior generation and the third-generation cameras. One is camera resolution - 2K video (for both day and night) for the third-generation product versus 1080p for the second-generation product. Another is the integration of Google Gemini AI, which is Google's AI chatbot. Yet one more is there are two additional color offerings for the third-generation indoor camers - berry and hazel. Both nice colors, but white worked best for our home. My experience with Google Gemini AI is limited at this time, but it does appear to offer some compelling benefits, such as searching for a specific item or event by way of a query. It is possible to define activity zones so that other areas can be excluded, and, conversely, the activity zone becomes the primary area of focus for alerts. We purchased the advanced subscription, and that get us 60 days of event-based video history, ten days of 24/7 continuous video history, descriptive notifications, the ability to search video history, event descriptions, and daily summaries. While the review is about the camera, many of the camera's benefits (for our use-case, at least) and intertwined with this subscription service. This is a tremendous camera for the money.

I love these little Google cameras. We had a previous model and it worked great until it took a fall it didn't survive but otherwise these hold up to life with kids and pets pretty well. This is probably the fastest and easiest device setup I've experienced with testing various brands and styles. The Google home app is pretty straightforward and it takes a couple mins to get things set up and updated. After that you've got a solid camera that doesn't look like an ugly home security device ready to go. The cord is nice and long and allows for mounting pretty much anywhere without worries. I like how clear the picture is even when zooming in. Might vision is clearer on this camera than any other option I've tried in the past. It's easy to manage multiple cameras with the app if you'd like as well. The red color was too hard to pass up, it adds a nice little touch. We ended up using this one as more of a security camera and have it facing our front door. This is used to double check doors are locked as needed and also alerts if someone were to enter the home unexpectedly. I like these so much I've purchased some to share with family.

We have really enjoyed the Google nest cam indoor. It is a wired camera and their latest model. We currently have it set up in our garage. This is a 2000 square foot area not attached to our house. My husband uses this garage for work. Now that we know we can check on it at any time, It makes it a lot less stressful. I would highly recommend this camera if you already used other nest products. We haven't dug super deep into the AI Gemini features. But we have really liked The sharper image that this camera has with the 2K video. The clarity at night has been great. I have done a couple searches with the video history, nothing super crazy but it's definitely helpful. We have not set up any automations sent. It's just in our garage. I do like that the field of view is much larger than the battery powered, and that it keeps 6 hours of video previews. All in all if you are looking for an indoor nest camera we definitely recommend this one. You can't go wrong with clear pictures and good memory.

Ive owned all types of security camera both wired and wireless and some are much easier to use than others and switching my entire home eco system infrastructure over to Google was the smartest decision I made for my smart home. Not only do these camera hold up to any type of climate and environment, they are easy to set up and sync with the Google Home app and also syncs with my other smart home products like doorbells, locks etc. This camera also has a very long cord to mount this magnetically anywhere in your home, which I did like, and you can mount on a wall or just have it sitting on a shelf or table. It gives a clear picture, recording time is adequate and it helps to keep your home secure. This also has night vision which helps to give a nice glimpse of what is happening day or night in your home. With the ease of use and ease of setup, it provides serious competition to several others in a very crowded security camera market with many that are similar but not the quality build Google provides.

The Nest Cam Indoor (wired, 3rd gen) is a clean, low-profile security cam that actually delivers. I got it for indoor monitoring, and it’s been sharp—literally. The 2K HDR video gives you crisp detail, even in low light. Wired setup means no battery drama, and it’s been rock solid on Wi-Fi. What really sets it apart is Gemini: it doesn’t just detect motion, it tells you what’s happening. You can ask it things like “What did the dog do today?” and it’ll pull clips. That’s next-level smart, but you’ll need the Google Home Premium plan to unlock those features. Setup’s easy through the Google Home app (not the old Nest app), and it can ID people, pets, and vehicles. Familiar face recognition is a nice touch too. Downsides? You’ll need decent internet for full 2K streaming, and some Gemini features are still rolling out. For $99.99, it’s a strong pick if you want smart indoor coverage with real context—not just motion blur and vague alerts. Great for keeping tabs on pets, family, or your space without going full surveillance mode.

This is my first indoor camera. I have half a dozen outdoor cameras. With this camera you get Google Gemini capabilities. More on that later. This camera records full 2K color video night or day. The camera has a full 2K 152-degree diagonal view as opposed to the previous version’s 1080P 130-degree view. This camera requires a Google Home Premium Subscription. It is simple to connect to your Google Home Network and once you do, Gemini gives you lots of power that you didn’t have before. You can get daily summaries of everything that the camera sees throughout the day. You can go back to see what you missed. The screen shows 10 second previews for up to 6 hours of activities. The videos will have Gemini generated detailed event descriptions. You can zoom in on the videos to see what is important, and crop out what doesn’t matter. The camera also has the ability to do continuous recording as opposed to just event recording. Gemini allows you to automate tasks by just talking to the application. You could for example tell Gemini to “Set the inside camera to continuous recording whenever nobody is home.” Gemini will then write an automation that sets the camera to continuous recording whenever there is nobody home and you are in away mode. The fact that it creates detailed event descriptions allows you to use plain language searches. You can for example ask it “Which of the dogs ate my shoe?” and it will bring up videos that show your dogs eating a shoe. Overall it’s a nice camera. The resolution is much better than the previous version and the integration with Gemini makes it a lot easier to use. My big complaint is that fact that in order to use the new Gemini features, you must be a subscriber of Google Home Premium. It can only store up to 6 hours of clips and many of the features require that subscription. They offer 2 versions, Standard and Advanced. Standard costs $10 per month or $100 for a year and Advanced costs $20 per month or $200 per year. That can be a significant cost to factor into your purchase. While I have been a big Google Home user for a number of years, I personally feel that the price of integrating Gemini is higher than I am willing to pay. As a result, I don’t recommend this camera.

There’s always a tradeoff when it comes to buying into an ecosystem. In this case, Google’s device ecosystem can be both a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately for the Nest Cam Indoor, it’s the latter. That isn’t to say that the hardware is bad. It’s the functionality of the camera and the software that runs with it. The good part is the camera itself works great and integrates well with Google’s Home ecosystem. The video quality is good with a pretty high field of view. But what you gain in tight integration with Google’s ecosystem, you lose out in small conveniences. There is no way to save clips to an alternative storage device (ie. a NAS). And lengthy video storage requires a subscription. As an indoor camera, the functionality is fairly basic if you choose to not subscribe to Google’s “Home Premium” subscription. Yet despite its basic featureset, it handles motion sensing and notifications as one expected for an indoor camera. It handles motion zones so that activity is only picked up within the defined zone. There’s no recognition at all and is locked behind Google’s Home Premium subscription. Sadly there are competing alternatives that can almost match the hardware specs this camera has with better prices. Additionally, those alternatives can potentially utilize local storage (built in or SDcards) or NAS for video storage. With these in mind, it’s very hard to recommend the camera at all. If you’re heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem, perhaps all the drawbacks won’t matter. Still, there are good reasons to seek a different indoor camera that doesn’t rely on cloud storage and a paid subscription. The Good: Wide field of view, tight integration with Google Home app The Bad: no local or NAS storage, subscription optional The Ugly: the thought of having a big pile of service subscription bills Verdict: not recommended, unless you already have many Google/Nest hardware

The video is very crisp! I already had a Nest Hub Max but the live video rarely plays correctly, so I was skeptical on this purchase. However, it's much more responsive and way better for viewing. Also it's super tiny! The cable is long and much appreciated. I have no complaints thus far!