Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great flood light camera. Easy install and camera quality is quite impressive. No regrets.

The light output is great and the light & camera are highly adjustable. The packaging is high end and the installation design considerations make the install intuitive and easy. Only works with Google Home app, not Nest app.

User friendly It just works great at I would definitely recommend this one

Purchased this product for my mom & it is awesome. Lights up her entire front door & yard. The camera has a wide coverage as well. The motion censor picks up a good distance as well for any moving object or person!!! Mom absolutely loves it & feels more safe.

The Google Nest Floodlight Cam is a hardwired camera/light setup that is meant to replace an existing floodlight. I have been using the cam/light for a little over a week now, and I have gotten pretty familiar with it. Design of the floodlight and camera is pretty simple and not overly stylized. The design does a good job of blending in with the outside of my house – it replaced my motion sensor triggered floodlight over my garage. Overall size was pretty similar to my old floodlight, with the only difference is it sticks out about 4 inches further. Google calls the color of the cam Snow, but its really just an off-white. I’m not sure if different colors will be made available in the future, but it would be nice to see this available in black (the light it replaced was black). The lights are pushing out 2400 lumens at 4000K color temp, which is plenty bright and a good color temp for a residential area. For comparison my old light used 2 GE Ultrabright PAR38 LED bulbs that produced 1400 lumens each (2800 lumens total) and had a daylight color temp. Installing the camera was easy – you can just wing it if you are experienced with these things or you can follow along with the install steps/video in the app. I took the wing it route and it took me about 30 min from killing the power to flipping the breaker back on. I did follow along the app led instruction video afterwards, and it matched up exactly with what I did. I removed my old floodlight and set it aside to save (I plan to put the old light back when I sell my house and move). My light was mounted to a vinyl siding mounting block, so I am not sure how well this will mount to the corrugated surface of siding. The cam light comes with all the hardware you need to install it. The hardest part was separating the mounting base and the cover bezel from each other. There are only 3 wires to deal with – Hot (black), Neutral (white), and Ground (green). The hot and neutral wires already come out of the light base itself, but the ground gets attached to mounting plate via a screw. All the hardware you need is included in the kit – there are 3 options for box screws, so you should be covered. Making sure to line up everything before tightening stuff down in crucial – there are little arrow indicators on parts to help you line things up. The camera itself doesn’t bolt down to the base – its held on with a very strong magnet. There is a security screw that attaches to the camera through the power tether, which gives it some theft deterrence (but not a lot). Google really should have used a security torx screw or some other special keyed screw instead of a little Allen wrench hex drive that is common. The final step (from the app) is to seal around the mounting base with silicon caulking. The mounting plate has a rubber gasket, and in my install location that is sufficient to seal water out. My mounting point is against a flat surface (vinyl siding mounting block) and its tucked up underneath the eaves/roof overhang of my garage, which doesn’t see any excessive water runoff at all. If you are mounting where the camera is more exposed or directly against corrugated siding, then I would absolutely follow this step. Setting up the camera has to be done through the Google Home app – the Nest app will not work for this camera like it did for earlier Nest Cams. That being said this is my first Nest device, so that didn’t bother me. I have been a Google Home user for years, so just using the Home app was a real bonus for me. Setting up the device required me to add the cam in the app and then scan the QR code from the camera packaging. This let me link my camera up and complete the setup in a pretty short amount of time – I think it took 2 minutes total to connect and add the camera to my Home. My house does have excellent Wi-Fi coverage with a large mesh network, and the camera sits well within range of a node. I’m not sure how well the camera will do if you try to place it too far from your router or nearest access point/node. There camera has a lot of features and settings to mess with. You can create activity zones, set notifications for different types of events, familiar face detection, floodlight brightness and sensitivity, video clip length, and more. I created 2 different zones and tailored it based on what I wanted to detect. I have my driveway zone and my yard zone. The driveway looks for people and vehicles and the yard looks for people and animals. I have familiar face detection turned out, and I have trained the camera to recognize 8 people so far. The notification that is pushed to your phone is tailored based on the alert – animal detected in the front yard, my partner detected in the driveway, and unrecognized person detected in the driveway. These are informative if you are just checking the notification lines as they popup on your phone. The only thing I wish it did better was to provide a longer preview of the event you view the notification on your phone. My Arlo’s give me 4-5 seconds of the event to preview on my phone which is often enough for me to know what’s going on. The Nest gives maybe 1 second – not enough at all. The notifications to my phone are super quick. I also have Arlo Utra 4K wireless cameras (installed earlier this year), and one looks at my driveway/yard/door right now until I relocate it to view where the Nest cam doesn’t see well. While there is an overlap in coverage, I have been able to time the notification delay – the Nest notification comes in about 2-3 seconds faster than the Arlo notification. Not a huge difference, but it’s a little bit faster and lets you react more in real time. As far as video delay – there’s none when I’m at home, and barely any delay when I’m away. I was traveling for work and holding a conversation with my mom and kids in Missouri, while I was in New York in real time. For my Arlo there is a 1-2 second delay, so if you try to use the camera to talk to someone there’s always that lag to deal with. As far as the 2-way talking goes the Nest camera is great – think of it like a video call through Skype or Duo. The biggest downside is the speaker is so quiet – it becomes hard to hear at 15 feet. I tried talking through 3 different phones (all Android – Samsung, LG, and Motorola) and my volume level for the speaker was maxed out, and it still wasn’t all that loud. I tried with a headset connected to my phone – no change there either. My Arlo is also not super loud, but its noticeably louder than the Nest cam. I’ve read this was an issue on earlier Nest Cams as well, but that people accessing the camera through a browser were heard much louder. There’s no browser portal for the Home app yet (heard its coming in ’22), so there’s no way to check this work around. Hopefully Google can patch this and boost the sound a lot more. I have had it feedback/echo my voice a couple times while standing outside having a conversation with my partner, and my echo was twice as loud as she was coming through the camera. Based on the volume of the echo I know that the camera can absolutely be louder than what it is currently limited to. Things I did note about the camera in its usage. The motion detection is great. Its sensitivity can be dialed in to suit your needs – I left it at medium since I don’t have a huge area to cover and I don’t want it to ping me with false motion alerts (branches moving, squirrels, etc.). The floodlight motion detection is also very nice – much better than my old floodlight. I had to dial down the sensitivity since it was triggering on cars driving on the other side of the street. If you have a very long driveway this might be a nice setting to bump up. When you view the camera at night you can set the floodlights to come on automatically otherwise it will show/record in nightvision mode. The field of view on the camera is decent at 130°, and it captures video at 1080p/30fps with HDR. These are pretty standard specs for a smart camera system, but nonetheless it works well. To start out the cam comes with 30 days free of Nest Aware. This provides you with smarter alerts, and 30 days of video clip history among other things. You can bump this up to the plus plan to get 24/7 video recording and history. I pay for a subscription already for my Arlo’s, which is a “by the device” subscription. For Nest Aware it’s the same total price whether you have 1 camera or 10. I plan to pick up the regular subscription once the trial period runs out. Once you subscribe to a paid plan Nest Aware is able to direct emergency services to you. So even if you are away you can contact emergency services through Nest Aware and it will contact the dispatchers that are closest to your home. Overall, I have been really pleased with the Nest Floodlight Camera. It served me well when I as across the country for work. It’s app notification and features are user friendly and informative. It’s function as a motion sensing floodlight is excellent. The camera provides a crisp picture and captures clear audio even in windy conditions. It also looks very nice installed, and it was easy to configure and setup. The Nest Aware subscription seems like a good deal as well. I only had a few issues with the cameras operations – low 2-way speaker volume playing through the camera, and the embedded video in the phone notification is way too short.

This was my first purchased google nest because im also hearing inpaired it let me see who is at my door and be able to tell them to go away lol also if i need some1 to dona wellness check on my son

Do not buy this camera. It whiteouts license plates. I called Google and they blamed my iPhone. I sent Google a picture from my phone and from their camera and they never responded to me. I am highly disappointed because I have had a Nest doorbell camera for a few years and it recored 24/7 with video and audio, which is great, but this floodlight camera only records when it is activated by motion then it shorty stops recording. I would have bought a Ring floodlight camera if that was what I was looking for. Plus the camera is only held on by a magnet and a small power cord. Whatever Google did was a 180 to how they started. I had high expectations and was highly disappointed. I am returning this camera this weekend. This is supposed to be a security camera, but it’s more a a camera made by a criminal defense attorney. I am very disappointed. Plus the Nest App does not work and you have to use Google home which is not very good. It is not very user friendly. Very disappointed. Go ahead and buy if you want something that redacts and whites out license plates. I took a picture from 10-15 feet away and pointed the camera directly on the license plate. I tested this with 4 different vehicles. This is Google setting to scramble the license plate. Attached is my truck so you can see what I am talking about. .

You don’t need to be an electrician to replace a currently installed floodlight with this one, as the instruction video and step by step instructions are easy to follow. It took less than an hour to remove the old floodlight, install the new one and set up the camera. The only issue I had was that I put in the wrong WiFi password the first time, told the app to remember it and it had no easy way to change it, just kept coming to the same error. Even after telling the app to forget all passwords. Once the camera is in the Google Home app, there are two icons, one for the floodlight control and one for the camera. The floodlight is super bright and truly does flood the area with light. With it being so bright it makes it so that night time recordings turn color instead of the typical black/white. You can control the brightness through the app if it is too bright for your setup. The light can be triggered by motion detected by the motion sensor or by actions set for the camera. For the camera, the default settings recognize people and you can view 3 hours of history online without a subscription. If this is your first Nest, you get 30 days of Nest Aware which adds 30 days of event history and a neat feature that can recognize faces that you assign through the app. It also adds a few other features which can go into detail if you look up their subscriptions. You can change the settings to recognize animals, vehicles, sounds or any motion which can get a little obnoxious with the event notifications. You can also easily talk through the camera with decent clarity, even at the height that most floodlights usually sit. If you have other Google and Nest devices throughout your home, you can easily use voice commands to control the light or view the camera. Overall, this is a nice setup for replacing your typical flood lights and adding more security. I do wish there was more time and features without a subscription. Plus, you can’t access the camera unless you have internet, even on the same local network. But, you can see previous history even if the camera is offline and your phone is online.

Love it been waiting for it to come out. My son has one and he loves. It also light is really bright. I have it at 40% and it’s still strong highly recommend it.

Excellent camera quality. I’m able to see a very wide range of my street. The lights are sensitive enough to come on with activity even across the street. I set it up to get a notification every time a vehicle pulls in my driveway. It catches my neighbor every time - as you can tell from the truck in my picture. It connected to my google home app very easily and I’ve had very easy access to view events. This device does not connect with the nest app.

The camera and floodlight work great! However, the 3 hour expiration on video footage means that I cannot see what happens while I’m sleeping without getting suckered into a $6 a month subscription. For this reason I’m considering returning the camera.

Great but the new models are not as good as the previous ones.

Crystal clear viewing and HD sound. These are the best cameras on the market. The motion sensor catches everything. And the Nest Aware identifies familiar faces. It also distinguishes between vehicles and animals. Great buy.

I've been eagerly awaiting this device since Google announced it! The main selling point for me was I could replace an existing floodlight, with a better LED light AND a camera without the need to run additional wires or figure out power for an individual camera. Installation was very easy and straight forward. Google includes all of the things you need and the app walks you through with video (if you need it). The mount on my house required me to use slightly longer bolts than what Google sent, but I am likely a rare case here. The rest of the hardware was super easy to install and the floodlight "twists" onto the mount very securely. The camera itself is magnetic allowing you to position the camera in any orientation and angle. The hold is very strong, so there is no change of wind or something knocking it off. It would be easy to steal if someone felt the desire to however. Once powered on I configured the app, which found the light via scanning a QR code. It walks through some basic setting and I opted to say "yes" to the person detection feature. Once in the app I adjusted my camera angle and browsed the other settings. It has everything you'd want in options and was easy to configure. You can toggle the light on or off from the Google home app, set "what turns on the light" (which is light sensing as well, so the light only turns on when it's dark enough) Motion, live viewing, and camera events are choices here. You can set the floodlight timer which is between 10 seconds and 5 minutes. This controls how long the lights stay on after an event. Manually turning on the light operates via these times to. Lastly the daylight sensor for how dark it should be before it turns on. This light requires constant power, so you do not operate this from a light switch, however you can, but turning off the switch turns off the camera as well. You just leave it on and control via the app. I found person detection to be highly accurate. It was able to detect all of the known people I setup and was 100% spot on all of the time. I found other detection as well, such as animal, motion, etc... to be extremely accurate as well. Picking up things in the dark was also 100% accurate. I found the LED lights to be excellent illumination, not too bright as some floodlights are, but bright enough to illuminate my yard. The tone/color of the light is a tad on the warm side and very pleasant if you happen to stare directly at it. I loved this unit so much, I've gone out and bought another for my basement door. I've also recommended it to at least 5 of my friends and all of them have either bought and installed or plan to. This is by far one of my favorite devices Google has made and I am very hopeful this stays in their product line of support for a very long time.

The build of the camera is great, no doubt. It is pretty solid. The set up was easy and intuitive. The live view is very responsive. However, after 3 months of usage, the camera doesn’t seem to work anymore. Whenever I click to view live or check my history, it says, “Reconnecting/Camera offline.” It is super annoying. Despite of having to reconnecting and even factory reset multiple times, the problem still insists. I thought the Google is a big company and its products are super reliable, but after this incident, this would be my last time using Google hardwares or any Nest products. Do I recommend it? Absolutely NO!

First impressions with the Nest Cam with Floodlight: * Flood light is good. My previous halogen dual-lamp floodlight threw light a bit farther and brighter but honestly, was a bit overpowering for the neighbors. This floodlight is just right for the area of my yard I want illuminated at light. * Motion sensor is not too sensitive and is customizable via the app. * Installation was super easy and didn't really require any instructions, HOWEVER, note that the box does not include instructions--you must watch a video online or walk through the install procedure via your mobile device and the Google Home app. I would have been done with the install in 10 minutes had the previous floodlight been properly installed. As it stands, I still finished the install/configuration in under 30 minutes. * Sturdy and heavy. The construction of the cam/floodlight seems VERY sturdy and the hardware provided for the install was of good quality. No stripping of screws on first turn. * Camera and light adjustment is a breeze. Because the camera is "magnetic mounted" it is very easy to pivot to the angle you want. You can watch the live video on your phone as you adjust the camera in live time. Google did a great job with the overall design of this product. * You can create a "zone" to help pinpoint when/what/where the video records and the device alerts you. Helpful if you are only worried about action in a specific area (i.e. monitoring a door, window or storage shed). That being said... * I am sad we only get 3 hours of free recording. If something happened overnight, chances are the event is gone from history by the time you wake up. * The viewing angle seems a bit tight, especially the vertical (top to bottom) angle. I have another security camera mounted in the backyard that catches a greater width and depth of view--probably equal to another 25' of depth and 50-75' of width. The video QUALITY is good enough, I just expected a greater field of view. Granted the placement of this floodlight/cam is a bit high and my goal is to keep an eye on action near our sunroom windows, I still see a wider view with my non-floodlight security cameras. (see attached photo) * Night vision is adequate. Nothing spectacular...but gets the job done. Obviously lighting up the floodlight to see what is going on helps the video. * Intelligence: I have a Google Video Doorbell that is way more sensitive to motion and activity than the floodlight camera even though I have things set at the same level of sensitivity. I find that odd, however, I actually think the floodlight activity settings are more properly tuned than my doorbell. Notifications are nearly instantaneous on the home network and quick enough when away from home. Facial/person recognition is very cool. Given I wanted a motion sensor floodlight first, and the camera feature second, I find the Google Nest Cam with Floodlight to be a well constructed product with useful features and easy setup. While the pros outweigh the cons, if your priority is the CAMERA feature and you have a large area you want to view (or you want to record more video/history for free), you may want to shop around while keeping this device near the top of your list.

THE BREAKDOWN: I just upgraded my back deck outdoor light to the Google Nest Floodlight camera. You definitely do not have to be an electrician to install this camera. There is a really nice video step-by-step instruction that is really easy to follow. I would say it took me around 30 minutes to take the old one down and put this one up. One thing to note is that if you currently have Nest products you cannot use this with the Nest app you have to use the Google home app. The app is very customizable. In the app you have two icons, one for the camera and one for the floodlights. The flood lights are super bright which I find awesome, and you can control the brightness through the app. You can also control how the lights come on either by motion or actions set with the camera. The camera video quality is good, not 4K but it is good. You can also record up to the 3 hours of data without a subscription. There is a free 30-day trial of Nest Aware which allows for 30 days of viewing/storing data and face recognition. The 2-way talk works very well probably the best of all the cameras I currently own. PRO’s: -Quick access through Google Home app - Lights are very bright and customizable - You can create custom zones - 2-Way talk works amazing CON’s: -You need a Nest Aware subscription to unlock all the feature of this camera -No 4K video SUMMARY: Overall, this product worked as intended, and I would recommend this to a friend if they are in the market for device like this that is portable and gets the job done.

I installed this camera in my backyard. The installation went well using the instructions that accompanied the camera. The one step I would add is to unpack the camera, look for the QR code on the lens of the camera, scan the QR code and then start. The QR code leads to the instructions for installation which can be found online as well with a thorough search. I would recommend having some caulk on hand to seal the based as it may not fit flush onto your existing mount, as was my situation. Connectivity was pretty quick. The Google Home app has some good features and some weaknesses with regard to this floodlight camera. I like that it has separate icons for the light and the camera so they can be operated independently. With the light portion, you can turn it off and on and dim it. With the camera icon, you can check the recording history and see a live view, and turn the camera on of off. The flaws in the camera have mainly to do with the algorithms. Also, the perspective of the Field of View is very important to effective motion detection and the location where the junction box is located is not the best for discriminating between trees and other movement. The camera is very sensitive to bugs and records when they get close to the lens. It also records when the wind blows the branches of my large pecan tree which is in the Field of View. I have far too many "false alarms" in the histogram. I know it is possible to eliminate these false alarms as I have used cameras which have the more expensive, professional algorithms that allow you to eliminate false alarms due to trees blowing or bugs flying in front of the lens. Although this camera is not cheap, they have not included these professional algorithms. As long as you do not pay for the storage, I guess it does not hurt having to scroll through the false alarms to find the actual movement. Just be aware when you tie alarms to the movement that you have to test the sensitivity setting to make sure you are not getting too many false alarms and still capturing what you need. I am glad to have this motion-activated camera over nothing at all and it is certainly better than other models I have tried, but it is still short of what I would desire.

The new Google Nest Cam with floodlight was designed to easily replace your pre-existing porch light or wired by an electrician in a new location. Being that I’m not an electrician, but have done small electrical upgrades and fixes in the past, I decided to replace one of our exterior porch lights on the side of our house to a flood light for night use and have the added option for video recording and notifications. We also just added a pool in our backyard and thought it would be a good idea to add more safety features with the person detection notification for our small children. The smooth matte white (snow color) camera and floodlight are modern looking and something I would expect from Google after owning and using their products for years. There is not much to the packaging which is good for consumers who may be intimidated or skeptical about the install. Besides the lights and camera, also included in the package are the mounting plates, screws, ground wire, three wire connectors and instructions. I don’t want to go too much into details regarding the installation since it’s easily explained not only in the paper instructions but also during initializing the camera in the Google Home smart phone app which is required for activation and installation. The app explains the install process step by step making it easy to follow; I didn’t realize this until after the floodlight and camera were already installed and powered on. The entire install process took less than 30 minutes; basically three wires to connect, a few screws to mount and secure the Nest Cam and setting it up via the app. It probably would have taken less time for an experienced electrician or DIYer with some experience. The live and recorded images displayed in the app are very clear and the floodlight really lights up an area. Night vision on the camera works great and once the floodlights are activated by the built-in motion sensor the image changes to color. You can zoom in/out of live or paused video within the app. You can move the camera easily due to the magnetic connection to the floodlight and the lights are just as easy to swing different directions. One of the great things about this set up is if you lose wifi or power the camera will continue to record video using on board memory and will upload to the Google cloud once it gets a wifi connection again. However, without power the lights won’t work. There are many options and features you can tinker with via the app such as setting activity zones, adjusting floodlight triggers, setting routines, etc. Syncing this camera to your Google account can also allow the optional Nest Aware subscription for Familiar Face detection, 60 days of event video history and 10 days of 24/7 continuous video history if you are looking for those features. If you don’t opt for the subscription, you can still view live video and 3-hour event history in the Google Home app. Overall this is a great security camera and floodlight at this price point, was very easy and fast to install and would recommend it to anyone in this market, especially for those who may already have Google Nest products in their home or office.

I bought a Nest floodlight because I already owned Nest doorbells and I wanted to stay within the Google ecosystem. While the price is higher than for other similar products, the craftsmanship of the product is evident. The lights are plenty bright at their default setting and the image quality is crisp during daylight hours, and when the lights are on. The night vision image is also excellent. I had no pre-existing electrical junction box, so my installation took a while longer than it normally would have taken, but I would recommend this product to a neighbor. I did have an issue with the mounting plate, which needs to face outwards with the gear facing out. This was not well covered in the instructions and it was only after I couldn't snap the unit on that I realized my mistake. Another issue I have is with the length of the wires, I wish they were an inch or two longer. Anyone who needs a shorter wire can just cut it to their desired length, but longer wires would be nicer.