Customer Ratings & Reviews

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quite responsive device. Setup was a bit challenging but can be completed. Don’t trash anything…what is a sticker covering the camera display is a QR code needed for setup. Hold onto instructions and the box.

It's a pain in the butt to set up. I tried adding it half a dozen times to my Google home and it gets stuck out can't find device or doesn't connect once added.