Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've owned more than my fair share of security cameras, always looking for the next best thing that captures good video day and night and activates appropriately with motion, and identifies things correctly. Honestly the Nest Cam with Gemini seemed like the ticket, and maybe it is, but it seems I cannot use the features yet. Packaging: To start, the packaging for Google products is usually bare-bones and easy to deal with, unfortunately with this device that's not the case, it's weirdly overcomplicated to get out and uses far too much excess cardboard for no real good reason. Setup: Once you do manage to get it out of the packaging then setup is reasonably straightforward, scan the QR code, plug it into the wall and let the google home app finish the setup with a few basic questions. Use: I already had one Google Nest camera though it was an older generation, this one makes my second, the video is excellent, the person identification is good, though not always accurate, but the advertised Gemini feature constantly throws an error saying it's not available in my home yet. Unsure what that's about but hopefully it'll work soon. It did immediately identify a person that crossed in front of it, and with it being the primary camera for my driveway the vehicle identification is valuable and accurate. Bear in mind if you want long term recording storage you will need to get a subscription. Overall: It's a decent security camera, but the feature that it is touted to have with Gemini doesn't appear to work for me.

As someone who is fully steeped in the google home ecosystem, I am excited to explore adding to my google security products. This camera requires one of the two available Home Premium subscriptions that google offers to work. Of course there are monthly and annual plans, but they boil down to approximately $100 or $200 a year, and mostly give you access to the same alerts with differences in the amount of storage / storage time that they serve, and how you can access it. For the purposes of this review I'll go ahead and assume you have some kind of subscription, because this camera is mostly useless without it. Actually that is what caused me to knock it down one star, even thought I have an subscription and I tested it that way, the hardware + subscription model is a bit offensive to me, especially when there are ecosystems out there that operate without a subscription. That being said, the ability to add facial recognition and then search your video history is game changing! This camera is nice and crisp and clear day and night. I'm a little surprised that for a hardwired camera it doesn't do color at night as that seems to need more power. Overall this is a great camera, but you have to decide for yourself if the features are worth buying into a subscription for.

Great camera, just wish there was a wireless battery powered model. The integration to Gemini and 2k video are phenomenal.