Google - Nest Cam IQ Outdoor Security Camera - White

This is an amazing security video camera. I originally purchased the Ring battery-operated camera for my front porch, but I live in the city and it constantly picked up folks walking their dogs or my neighbor’s on their front porch. Even though the Ring only calls for one battery, I purchased an additional one. I’m the period of one day, I had so many notifications that one battery had used 35%. I think the Ring would work better in a suburban or country setting. The main reason I purchased the Nest IQ was because, with a $6 a month subscription to Nest Aware, you set up “Activity Zones,” where you are only notify when a person is in them. The IQ also has the ability to distinguish be tween a dog barking, people talking, a human being, loud sounds, and other motions. It works in algorithms, and when someone approaches and steps on my porch - zooms in and follows them. Even though the camera perpetually tracks other things, I only get the notifications I want - a person on my my porch. It is expensive ($400 pretax), but I think every penny; especially for folks who live in high-traffic and pedestrian areas. It’s night vision is remarkable. The most-challenging aspect about installation is it has to be plugged in to an interior socket. So, in my case, I had to drill a hole through my exterior brick wall, cut a channel in one of my interior walls, drywall, mud, and paint. But again, I think it’s worth it. Finally, it took me a minute to understand how to operate it. The FAQs and instructions online were a bit confusing and not easy for to me understand on a pretty sophisticated product. However, when I contacted Nest support, they spoke to me over the phone and answered all my questions.

I have installed this new Nest IQ Camera side-by-side to my current Nest Outdoor cam to compare them for a few days. I wanted to upgrade for two reasons: 1 - Higher resolution (ability to zoom in on faces) 2 - Bright LED IQ ring to illuminate on detection to deter criminals Unfortunately, I was disappointed on both. #1 My old camera detected and marked a person walking the perimeter of my driveway. A motion light was activated which is a help to trigger the camera notification. The new IQ did not notice this person or mark it on the timeline. The older Nest Outdoor did. When I scanned to the same time stamp on the IQ cam video, I could see the person. What is odd is the person looked translucent, like a ghost, on the higher resolution IQ. It also did not mark the motion or the loud sound (but it is clearly audible) when he knocked over a can either, but the older Nest camera did indicate both on the time line. See pictures for a comparison. It is even more creepy on video. #2 Google has disabled the ability to control the lighted LED ring functionality for privacy concerns. Now the LED ring only illuminates in setup modes, not when detecting motion or by pulsing during voice activation. This is a feature the was removed via an update. Police say the best deterrent is for criminals to see the camera and know they are working/recording. If that is important to you, as it was for me, this makes the IQ pointless. At $600+ for two, the IQ cameras are going back. I'll buy two more of the Outdoor Nest Cameras at $300 instead to put in additional locations. It's a shame that Google pulled the light ring feature. It should obviously be a software setting that the user can enable and customize. I really wanted to love these cameras even at the very high price. NOTE: There are lots of other features and pro/con but they are well discussed and documented. These were the two reasons for my specific circumstance, so the IQ upgrade did not work out for me.

Bought 4 of these. 2 packs are cheaper, but expensive. Proprietary cord. I had to cut mine to make 2 of them longer. The cord has 3 conductors inside, positive, negative, and a tiny little yellow “signal” wire. My house was hard wired with RG 6 wire that had a Siamese 2 wire power conductor attached. For a run less than 75 feet, I was able to use the center conductor of the RG6 And soldered the signal wire at both ends of the splice, and used the Siamese power for positive and negative. Past 75 feet I think the signal wire had too large of capacitance and shut the camera down, or gave inconsistent results, but below about 75 feet it worked. What I don’t understand is why they would have a signal wire that must communicate with the power supply, so that means the cord that comes with this thing can’t be custom installed, and leaves the average joe a big chunk of extra wire to deal with, or a wire that’s too short? The wall wart is rather large, and if installed in a covered outside box takes up the entire outlet. Data hog, check with your internet provider to see how they will handle charges for data upload. I can’t quote the numbers, but the monthly data upload per camera is huge. That being said, I get 400 download, and 40 upload. I have a total of 4 cameras, and the doorbell, and a Speedtest reveals about a 5 Mbps hit on upload speeds only with all cameras at highest res, so that’s not really an issue for me. As for the nest as a system, not once has something happened at a camera or doorbell when the lag time actually allowed me to have a conversation with the system. For example, the ups or mail guy rings the button, by the time you get the notification that someone is there. They are long gone. The exception to this is that the google home screen I have sitting in the kitchen interfaces through my own Wi-Fi, and it is much faster without the system lag. But using a phone or iPad, there is too much lag. So I can only see things that already happened. The notifications give all sorts of false events, and the face/person identification only works at short range. I have a camera on my patio and another on my driveway that we’re giving me hundreds of notifications of “your camera sees a person” per day. Well yes, my wife was watering plants, or returning from the grocery store. I also get “your camera sees a face it doesn’t recognize” at 3am, which will freak you out when you live in the country, only to find out it was another spider building his web over the IR of the camera (they are constantly doing that). So, what is good? Wi-Fi range is outstanding, camera picture quality is great in good light, but becomes very laggy and lots of ghost pixels when there is motion in darkness. Additionally, that I don’t have to maintain and manage a DVR with the system, I find the monthly data fee for the cameras is reasonable. I subscribe to 5 days, figure by then anything that happens I will have had time to store to my camera roll. It’s also easy to send video clips to your device, so you can post stuff to the web easily (salesman lurking, weird car in cul de sac, etc). The microphones and speakers on the cameras are excellent. One of my cameras is mounted in a birdhouse up in a tree overlooking my cul de sac. You can have a casual conversation with someone in the street (my neighborhood is quiet) because both the speaker and mike are excellent. But with the leg reported earlier, you would have to be physically watching your device to se that person coming, otherwise they are already gone. I did yell at a guy that was letting his dog crap on my lawn, and it scared the crap out of him when my deep voice magically appeared 25 feet up in a tree. (Might add the Wi-Fi signal in that tree is traveling about 150 feet from my router inside my house made of concrete, so yes, that part of the camera is pretty impressive) I might suggest you would have better facial and motion performance if you don’t mount these too high, but at the same time I don’t want then down low where they can be accessed without a ladder. Hope this helps.

Easy to set up and I am very happy with this purchase. These cameras were a little bigger then others that I have seen but the quality will not disappoint. I am so happy with my Nest cameras and the quality as these cameras are no cheep but worth every penny. I was lucky to purchase them on sale at Best Buy. For me being able to plug them into a outlet (no battery) and letting me have 24 / 7 recording is just what I wanted. You will have to pay for storage / playback options as without them your options are very limited.

We now have three cams setup around our house and are so much more aware of what is going on around us I shudder to think what we have missed in the 10 years we've been in this house and didn't have any cameras. The quality is crisp, though you can choose to tone that down if necessary. We have had excellent experience with the people recognition. The biggest seller for this one was two weeks ago, we had wildfires in our area, the neighborhood was on level 2 evacuation. While we decided to wait it out there was a group of individuals going around and scoping out houses. Our cameras caught them before they were even able to get near a door or window. It looks like they saw the camera and decided to leave as they were gone before we even had a chance to make it downstairs. A few nights later they hit a neighborhood a few streets over and in that case actually made it into some of the houses. I will never live without security cameras at this point and these are perfect for what we need.

OMG. I did not believe it until I tested it. I have 3 acres and an entry gate where I wanted a camera. I bought the Nest IQ Outdoor thinking that if it did not have the WiFi range to connect, I'd return it. Well I mounted it on a tripod at my gate which is 300+ feet from my house and WiFi router to test. I am using a Linksys MR9000 with a Velop node plugged in to an outside outlet. Fantastic! Works fine at full resolution. No issues. Continuous streaming. Not just video clips. My only other alternative was cellular. I bought a nice 2x2 post from Home Depot and mounted the camera with a brown skin I purchased elsewhere. Looks professional. I could not be happier. I purchased 4 Nest IQ Outdoor and 2 indoor cameras.

Great videos and sound. I was able to capture what is called a Skyfish/Rod (s)..Watch these videos this has never been seen before. On YouTube: SkyFish Rod Flies Right Into My Outside Wall December 6 2020 at 543 PM https://youtu.be/qUmJp3T6nG8 SkyFish Rod Flying By Human Just Missed Him December 8 2020 at 611 PM https://youtu.be/4UKY9vSz_c8

While we love Nest products..these cameras have the clearest sharpest video...I wish we could of had options on cord length for them. I contacted Nest..nothing but 25ft cords...we have outside outlets in the eaves so there is no need to drill through the house and wire them inside. Hoping for a solve soon...