Customer Ratings & Reviews

I purchased the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor a little over a month ago, and so far I am very happy with it. Unlike the older Nest Cam, this one allows for a clean installation with the power cord completely hidden. It also has much higher resolution than the older camera, so the image quality is fantastic. I have a Nest Aware subscription, so I was able to define multiple activity zones, which makes it very easy to customize the alerts I get for different areas. For example, I was able to set up alerts for any motion at the garage door, but in the driveway I set it up to only alert me when it sees a person. That way, if the garage door goes up, I get an alert, but I won't get an alert if an animal walks across the driveway - only a person. It is also very easy to quickly review video history because there are indicators showing the periods of time where activity was noted in different zones. In just a few seconds, I can tell if anything suspicious happened overnight. The close-up tracking view is really cool. When reviewing video on the app, the image automatically zooms in on people and follows them as they move. The full image captured by the camera is still recorded, however - not just the zoomed image - so you are still able to see the complete image. The microphone is very sensitive and picks up sounds very well. When using the speaker to talk through the camera, a blue ring lights up in order to capture the attention (and face) of the person you're talking to. The speaker is loud and would definitely get someone's attention. The only feature I'm slightly disappointed in is the familiar face recognition. This feature actually works very well. The camera definitely learns faces and allows you to build a library of people you're familiar with. It also gets better at recognizing them over time. The only problem is that it does much better at recognizing faces when people are closer to it. In my particular setup, I have the camera mounted in a corner so that it has a view of the entire front of my property. From this vantage point, people walking up to the front door aren't always close enough for it to recognize. If I post the camera more in the middle, with a more direct view of people walking up to the door, it recognizes them well, but I can't get as complete a view of my property. So in my situation I chose to make a trade-off between the overall image I want to capture and less-frequent facial recognition. That said, however, I'm hopeful that with future software updates, the camera will probably become better at recognizing faces from further distances. This camera is definitely not the cheapest on the market, but like all Nest products, it is very well-made and very well thought out. Best in class.

About a month ago I dropped Vivint home security, which had their own cameras. Non-stop issues with cameras disconnecting, not picking up motion and so-so quality. I now have all Nest products and love them. The app and live video feeds load very fast (usually a second or two). Motion detection works great and the facial recognition actually recognizes people and tells me who's at which camera. The two-way mic works well too...I've had full conversations with people through my phone and outdoor IQ cam mounted approximately 9 feet off the ground. Installation took about an hour for both cameras...but connecting them to the App takes about 2-3 minutes (super easy).

Basically: This camera is expensive, but well worth it if you have good enough internet to supply it with. Nest App: Should start by saying that if you already own anything in the Nest catalog, this camera only makes for a great addition to an already great lineup. Plus, their proprietary app is terrific for integrating everything together for you to see. Almost eliminates the need for Apple or Android’s home integration apps altogether. We have a Nest thermostat, Protect smoke detector, and now this. Really cool to see everything on one simple screen. Makes us wish we had the Nest doorbell, to keep from having two separate video monitoring apps, but oh well... Maybe on the next house. Video Quality: Crazy good. Insanely good. Compared with our Ring Doorbell, night and day. And they’re both equidistant from our router. You can easily pick out someone’s face or a license plate from 30-40 feet away. And if someone walks by, it will automatically zoom in on them. Witchcraft. Makes home surveillance fun, which seems strange to say, but I’m always finding myself looking at the app when we get a notification, because we want to see it zoom in to see if it’s one of our neighbors walking by - maybe we know them! We are lame, I know. Size: It’s pretty big. Compared with some of our neighbors who have other brands, ours seems big by comparison, but I don’t really care. Can’t help but feel like because of the size, it should turn potential criminals away. It’s noticeable. Internet: Ours happens to live pretty close to our router. We have gigabit internet, so the connection is almost always insanely good, which provides us with a very sharp image. That being said, it’s my understanding that this camera does chew quite a bit of data. Certainly worth paying the $50/year for the 5 days worth of footage, because that is plenty. Just keep in mind that if you’re considering this camera, and you have so/so internet, it might not work very well for you. The image quality is only going to be as good as the internet you’re feeding the camera with. All in all: Buy this camera. It’s awesome. Especially if you already own a Nest product and know how great they are to live with. All of their products integrate really well together. I have no doubt in my mind that this camera will last a long time, and that is comforting as well. When you unbox it you will quickly notice how high quality the installation materials and camera are.

My fourth security camera company I’ve tried and I am now finally happy with the quality that I have found in the nest products. This camera quality is beyond what I expected and has far surpassed the capabilities that other camera companies claimed to offer and have fallen short. Not the case with these ones. Both night time and day time quality is unmatched and although I was weary with the price tag it came with. I’d have to say the piece of mind these cameras bring is well worth it and from install, setup and continued use with their app throughout my day, I couldn’t be happier with what I’m able to do and the capabilities and service best provides. Trust me when I tell you to skip the other products and go with nest, I only wish I did sooner.

I ordered a set of Nest Cam iQ cameras since I live in a more rural area and no way to visualize certain areas of my house. The cameras were easy to set up and use via the Nest app. I subscribed to the new Nest Aware and have 24/8 video for 10 days. The clarity is amazing and the ability to communicate via the cameras is a nice feature. The night vision is excellent. I paired these with a Nest Hello doorbell and now can see the important entrances to my home.

I wish I could give this 5 stars ,but the persistent issue with connectivity is definitely a down point. I used these to replace a set of cameras connected to a DVR system. The house is wired with CAT 8 cable, the routers are equipped with WIFI-6 and the WIFI access points were also upgraded to the AX11000. The device is set to be a priority device and my WIFI manager system says the throughput to the device is over 300MPBS. MY ISP provides symmetrical gigabit speed (1,000 up and 1,000 down) ... For some reason, the dang cameras ALWAYS gets disconnected or goes offline for some unknown reason. There's no warning, no notice.. just a black screen! Sometimes it will be offline for up to 15 minutes for no reason at all. I hope Google fixes this with a patch or looks into this issue. Trying to troubleshoot it with Google is always the same. "disconnect it from power, wait X time, reconnect it." or "try removing and adding back the WIFI, or try a different WIFI network." -- -it is obviously NOT a power or wifi issue. Other than this fatal flaw, the quality is excellent, set up and installation was a breeze too. I think I'll try a different product when it comes time to replace them.

So I have both the indoor and outdoor cameras and the doorbell. Oh, and the thermostats at my house and office. I also have Ring at the office. Definitely love the Nest!! Simple to set up. Simple to use. And the outdoor camera is awesome. It automatically follows a person and zooms in and out. So cool. I will be changing my office to Nest shortly!!!

I’ve had the Outdoor IQ for 3 weeks now and I like it. I have experience using a number of outdoor cameras.( Arlo Pro, Pro 2, Nest outdoor cam (original) and Ring door bells. The picture quality is good but not much better than my Arlo Pro 2. The 2 way communications works the best out of all my smart cameras and I like that I can plug it in and never have to pull it down to charge it. (I drilled a hole through the exterior of my garage and ran the cable through the wall.) My main complaint about this device is it’s not worth the $400 price tag. I was expecting it to be way better than the original Nest outdoor cam and it’s not. The tracking feature isn’t that cool and the facial recognition feature isn’t something I need for my home.(Some people may really like this feature for front door access) I do like the wire hides 100% behind the base unlike the original nest cam but is that worth an extra $200? It’s nice but, is it the most practical option? Probably not.

I originally installed Ring cameras around my property. They were okay when they worked properly, but more often than not the video would freeze, skip, or just record blank. They only record when motion is detected, but were awful at it. I upgraded my internet speeds to gigabit and also installed a powerful mesh WiFi system, but the cameras still had issues with video quality. I decided to try out Nest due to 24/7 recording. I also was over troubleshooting the Ring cameras. With Nest, after the initial setup everything works exactly as its supposed to. The video is crystal clear, and I never notice any freezing, skipping, or other video issues like with Ring. Motion notifications are exactly as I set them. No false alerts or missed alerts like with Ring.

I bought these to add to my other Nest cameras. These provide clear video and can be adjusted to alert you in zones and have facial recognition built in. They are easy to install, and recording is not as expensive as it used to be. I would easily recommend the Nest system

The Nest CAM IQs have great video quality with some additional "smart" capabilities to boot which are useful (auto-tracking and zooming in). I also use the Nest Hello doorbell and am invested in the Nest ecosystem which is also why I chose these cameras. They are on the pricier end compared to some of the alternatives but the image quality, ease of use, and overall ecosystem makes up for it in my opinion. Google recently revamped the pricing structure for the Nest Aware subscriptions and made it more cost-effective but the cameras do lose some of the additional functionality if you don't pay for these services and is something to keep in mind when evaluating. I would not purchase these at regular price as I think the MSRP is a bit inflated but if you find them on sale I think the incremental price difference is worth it if you are tied into the ecosystem and are will use the Nest Aware subscription in conjunction with the cameras.

Very good video quality. Zooms in automatically on a person. Night vision is quite good. Sound & motion detection also quite good. Downsides are cost (Buy on sale) and potential issues with Google and privacy. Too long to get into here, but be aware.

Great Camera/ Easy and FAST to install. / Sound and motion detectors are HIGHLY sensitive. Shadows and clouds can set it off. Night vision is incredible. Fantastic. The gen2 no longer has that stupid magnetic base,allowing people to steal the camera. Worth every penny.

I'm very happy with the Nest IQ Outdoor camera. I had several Arlo Pro 2 devices outside my house, three of which were powered for the additional functionality (3 second look-back and CVR, which I paid extra for) and the Nest cams are at least one or two classes above the Arlos. The image quality is much better which fewer compression artifacts. There are no ghosting anomalies and the CVR scrolling functionality just works. The Arlo Pro 2's CVR timeline was constantly out of sync which made the feature useless. The Nest cameras are very well built and I find the software to be intuitive. Absolutely no more false alarms now that I setup Nest Aware to only alert me when it spots humans in view. I was so happy with these cameras after the first one that I drove to 3 other Best Buys over the course of a week to pick up the remaining stock in my area for a 4 camera system at this point. I highly recommend this camera.

My wife and I tried the Arlo Ultra first, but immediately regretted it. It lost connection constantly, didn't detect motion accurately, and most importantly the application was cumbersome and not easy to navigate through. Nest is definitely the pricier option, but my goodness is it worth it. The application displays the livestream of all your cameras from the home page so there's no need to click on them individually if you don't wish to. Installation was easier as well if you are looking for a hardwired product. I had my Arlos hooked up to power, but I still couldn't get them to maintain consistent connection. Not a single outtage event with the Nest's and the smart features are worth every penny. For real, go buy these if you are looking for a reliable and intuitive smart home security camera.

great product. great picture. easy installation!! Has panning feature that I didn’t know about. Facial recognition works great! with the new nest aware. you can install as many cameras as you want with one subscription.

The NEST IQ Outdoor Security cameras certainly exceed the quality that I expected from NEST and Google. They've helped give my family peace of mind when we think someone is outside the home and want to take a look (but in a safe way). They are built to last and very durable. Thru snow, ice, and rain, they continue to delivery excellent quality video at a competitive price. Can you get other cameras for less $ ? Sure....but remember that "You get what you pay for !" holds true with nearly all consumer electronics. I've used Arlo cameras before and others that are battery operated and more affordable, but they're such a pain to keep the batteries adequately charged. The always on Google Nest Outdoor IQ cameras are so much nicer. You won't be disappointed.

Exchanged Arlo for this Next I do love it but hate the high price too expensive for what it is But excellent build quality and looks good too as I generally hate bullet style cams - Nest can you make a dome camera? That looks so much better mounted outside. But images great no problems with setup Now I just have to mount high enough so ppl can’t steal my expensive camera This bugs me too as the higher you go u only get the top of ppls heads not the face Also I wanted a silicon cover and only found one vendor that supplies

An awesome camera. Although I wouldn't call it as much of an upgrade from the regular NestCam Outdoor. The 4K sensor is great but if you're going to review video from the past saved history it won't be in 4K. The only advantage the higher resolution sensor has is being able to zoom when viewing Live and focus in (on say a license plate) but we don't usually sit and look at license plates on our outdoor cameras unless something happened and we want to go BACK and view a license plate in which the resolution would be blurred and illegible. For the price, I would just stick with the regular Outdoor camera.

Great cameras. Easy to install and setup. Great picture and like feature where it moves and follows person in camera. Only issue, sometimes will alert to things outside of target areas.