Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) review

Our Verdict

The Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) adds a brilliant dual floodlight to the already-excellent Nest Cam (battery).

For

• Excellent video quality
• Costless tier is actually useful
• Thoughtful app feel
• On-device motion and facial recognition processing
• 5 GHz WiFi radio
• Bombardment backup
• Up to 3 hours on-device storage if Internet goes out

Confronting

• But compatible with Google Home
• No expanded local storage option
• Some on-device features subscription-locked

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) adds a brilliant dual floodlight to the already-excellent Nest Cam (battery).

Pros

• +

  Fantabulous video quality

• +

  Gratuitous tier is actually useful

• +

  Thoughtful app experience

• +

  On-device move and facial recognition processing

• +

  v GHz WiFi radio

• +

  Battery backup

• +

  Up to 3 hours on-device storage if Internet goes out

Cons

• -

  Only compatible with Google Domicile

• -

  No expanded local storage choice

• -

  Some on-device features subscription-locked

Nest Cam with Floodlight (Wired): Specs

Camera Size: 3.3 in X iii.three in
Floodlight Size: half-dozen.five in L x 12.4 in Due west x 3.66 in H
Resolution: 1080p/30 fps
Aspect ratio: 16:nine
Field of view: 130° diagonal
Sensor: 1/2.8 inch, 2 MP
Nighttime vision: Upwards to 20 ft, six 850 nm infrared LEDs
Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n (ii.four/v GHz)
Weather Resistance: IP54
Sound: Full-Duplex 2-way audio w/dissonance cancellation
Lighting: Two 4000K LED lights, 2400 lumens max, dimmable
Power: Wired w/battery fill-in (photographic camera merely) upwards to 7 months

Google has finally released some updates to its somewhat languishing Nest camera line, including the Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired), a wired have on the Nest Cam (bombardment), which we praised for its excellent video quality, improve-than-boilerplate free plan, and pleasant blueprint. Happily, all of these things apply to the Nest Cam with Floodlight, but with the added bonus of a prissy, vivid set of floodlights.

I came away from this Nest Cam with Floodlight review thoroughly impressed with Google's endeavour here. Not only is it ane of the best outdoor security cameras, only it sets a new standard for cameras in its toll range, and other camera makers now have their piece of work cutting out for them.

• All-time outdoor security cameras
• Best home security cameras

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: The Friendliest Camera

If the goal of smart domicile security cameras is to look imposing and, well, surveillance-y, and so the current ingather of Nest Cams are failing miserably—these are just about the most cheerful, friendly-looking cameras on the marketplace right now, with nary a harsh particular to exist constitute.

(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

The outer casing is a soft-to-the-touch matte white plastic, and only nigh everywhere the surface turns is handled with a curve, rather than a corner, giving the camera an almost organic appearance. The big dual floodlights are 2400-lumen, 4000K LEDs behind frosted glass for nice, even lighting that'south very bright without beingness harsh, and bathes a much larger expanse in clear lite than almost of the tiny LEDs on cameras similar the Arlo Pro 4 or the EufyCam 2C Pro.

(Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

The short stalks that connect them to the floodlight'due south body allow you lot to hinge the lights and point them all around, making for a far more versatile lighting situation than normally accompanies these smart home cameras. There is a large, 180-degree motion sensor on the bottom of the body.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The blunt end of the trunk has a concave divot in the middle where the Nest Cam attaches magnetically, and from the lesser of the barrel a small, white, magnetic accuse cable provides continuous power to the Nest Cam. The camera itself is literally the same camera we reviewed before—shaped like a large java mug without a handle, its front end has a matte black surroundings that holds the microphone and status LED, with the camera's 1/2.8-inch, 2-megapixel lens in the middle.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Installation

Installation will exist the well-nigh intimidating role for most people, but if you take an existing floodlight and take always changed out a low-cal switch or ability outlet, y'all'll be perfectly capable of installing this floodlight. Nigh of the tools needed are provided, but I used an boosted flathead screwdriver to remove the old screws on the previously-installed fixture.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

The Nest app gives a very easy-to-follow video for installing the camera, and the blueprint of the mounting bracket, every bit well equally the included S-hook for keeping the floodlight body aloft while I wired it upward, made this a very quick installation—in all, information technology took me perhaps 15 minutes of actual piece of work, and I'1000 typically irksome at these things.

(Epitome credit: Tom'southward Guide)

The kit comes with 1 size of seafoam green wire nuts, which are practiced enough to fit the fourteen-judge Romex that's typical of nearly homes' basic wiring, just you may need to supply your own nuts for the larger 10-or-12-approximate that you might notice on circuits shared with large appliances. And of class, the fact that the camera is wired is going to severely limit placement options; in my case, I would beloved to place this camera somewhere else than the side of my garage, but doing so would require cutting a hole in the garage's wall, too as slicing upwardly conduit to install a new junction box, which would make installation obviously far more than involved, time-intensive, and costly, peculiarly if you don't already have the extra wiring, junction box, and tools just lying around for the project. If yous're looking for a security photographic camera and floodlight that doesn't require this wiring, check out our Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight review.

(Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

Installation on the software side was characteristically piece of cake, with the camera walking yous through all of the steps, and addressing almost of the key configurations during the process. Everything is washed within the Google Home app, and this role of the setup procedure just takes about 5 minutes.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Nest Aware

Google's subscription plan is called Nest Aware, and right now, the Nest Cam with Floodlight comes with a 30 day free trial of the Nest Aware basic program, which is $6/month or $threescore/year. That program comes with 30 days of event-based video history, on-device facial recognition, Smoke/CO/glass breakage alarms, and e911, which allows y'all to call 911 via any compatible Google Assistant-based speaker or display. For $12/month or $120/year, the Nest Enlightened Plus doubles effect-based video history to 60 days and throws in continuous, 24/7 recording that'due south accessible for 10 days.

(Prototype credit: Google)

The facial recognition characteristic, equally I said, is all on-device, which is a great feature for privacy and it means that notifications of familiar faces show up almost immediately, but information technology does mean that yous will need to teach it all the faces you want information technology to recognize. Apple does a like thing for HomeKit Secure Video, except where Google depends on you to build the library of faces, Apple uses information from your iCloud photo library, which is obviously more convenient, only perhaps has privacy implications that might give some pause.

In all, it's not exactly the virtually thrilling list of features (except perhaps the continuous recording bit for $12/month), and I'm not a fan of the fact that the and so-called "intelligent alerts" features—facial recognition and the fume/CO/drinking glass breakage alarms—are all tucked backside a subscription, given that they're on-device features. That's similar buying a car and not being immune to use the stereo system without paying a monthly fee, and it's a trend I would beloved to see the finish of. But Google is not the worst offender when it comes to that (Arlo's cameras keep action zones and person sensing/parcel detection locked in their Arlo Secure plans, for instance).

Google besides isn't offering any sort of professional monitoring plan at the moment. On the plus side, both of the Nest Aware plans utilise to all the Nest cameras you ain, so it only takes having two cameras to make it competitive versus other photographic camera makers' offerings.

I'll also give Google credit for their free tier which, cameras with local storage aside, may be the best around. Where most free tiers for smart home security cameras amount to footling more than basic motion sensors with a livestream video attached, Google at least gives you 3 hours of recording history, and then you're not missing events you're notified of. Y'all also get person, animate being, and vehicle recognition, though there is no package detection to be found here or on a paid programme, which is odd, since Google's Nest Doorbell has had the feature since 2022. This makes the current lineup of Nest Cams legitimately useful, even without a subscription, which is markedly refreshing. To encounter how Google compares with Arlo, Ring, and others, check out our guide to the best security photographic camera storage plans.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Video Quality

I can't stress this enough: the Nest Cam with floodlight has excellent video quality for a security camera, and it does and so with a very small-scale, 2-megapixel lens capturing 1080p video at 30 frames/2d. This shouldn't necessarily surprise, because how well Google does with software processing on their phones' cameras, really, and it makes this one of the best-looking smart domicile cameras today from a video quality perspective. I practise wish it had a wider field of view—the Arlo Pro iv, for example, boasts a 160-degree field of view—the 130-degree FOV here means a lower mountain is going to leave more out of frame; although, as I'll encompass shortly, you should mount this camera pretty high up, anyway.

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(Paradigm credit: Tom'due south Guide)

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(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

On detail, the Nest Cam with Floodlight is very sharp for a security camera, beating out most cameras I've used — I was able to get similar results with the 1080p Band Stick Upwards Cam (bombardment), but only when it was indoors with a stronger bespeak; otherwise, compression artifacts were a lot more obvious, leading to a muddier, less-detailed image. Additionally, the Nest Cam with Floodlight showcases a rich HDR epitome with rich, warm color, equally opposed to the sort of washed-out color smart home security cameras tend to have.

(Paradigm credit: Tom'south Guide)

Night footage with just the IR LEDs on is expectedly less detailed, but remains best-in-class, with very fiddling trailing and good detail even when the subject is in motion.

(Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

With no lighting, IR or floodlight, the camera at least however had good color, and made use of enough ambient calorie-free to make the raised print on my hat visible enough in the sample video, but I wouldn't rely on it whatsoever more than I would on any other camera.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

In the sample provided, what's visible is a piffling more than you tin can see with the naked eye, but that'southward in a backyard that's fairly well lit thanks to a neighboring apartment building's alpine exterior lighting. Because of the brightness of the spotlights, I would hang this camera at least 10 anxiety upwardly, equally anything too close to the camera will exist overexposed, making text illegible or faces unrecognizable.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

That said, the quality of videos recorded with the spotlight on approach daylight quality, with text on vesture articulate and legible — a key necessity in the outcome of actual trespassing or interruption-ins.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Sound

Another area where the Nest Cam with Floodlight impresses is sound. Like whatsoever skillful smart home security camera, the Nest supports 2-style audio, and so the owner of the camera can hold a conversation with someone on the other end using their smartphone. And it's full-duplex, too, and so all y'all need do is tap the microphone button on the alive view, and y'all'll be able to talk with the person until yous're washed, with no need to hold down the button while you speak. The sound coming from the camera is clear and loud, allowing me to hear my partner talking through it quite a means away, merely what really surprised me was how good the microphone is on the camera. While testing, you could actually empathise what I was saying while whispering at fifteen feet out. Advice was near-existent-time, making property a conversation as natural equally, well, property a conversation through a security camera can be.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Features

The Nest Cam with Floodlight isn't the most fully featured, simply those information technology has are the right ones. As said before, without a subscription, you lot notwithstanding get people, animate being, and vehicle detection, with sound detection added if you lot accept Nest Aware. Yous'll too go recording zones—up to 4 per camera—and each one has eight points of joint, so you won't but be drawing rectangles.

(Image credit: Google)

Where Google once more impressed me was the amount of granularity involved in recording zones; yous tin really set preferences for the kind of motion y'all'd like to tape and/or be notified near per zone. That is, you lot could have i role of the video recording animals, one role recording people, one recording vehicles, one doing all 3 or some combination of them, and and then you can set those same preferences for the area exterior of the zones, making that area a sort of fifth activeness zone. I haven't personally seen this level of control for activity zones on any other camera, and it was a feature I didn't realize I wanted until I had it.

(Prototype credit: Google)

The Nest Cam as well offers geofencing, but it'southward an easy feature to miss, as Google never refers to information technology as such. Role of their and then-chosen presence sensing feature, it uses your phone's location to determine whether you're home, allowing you to automate turning the cameras on or off, while it also uses Nest Thermostats, Protects, Detects, and Guards to discover the presence of a person in your dwelling house, even if the camera doesn't see them. If you should choose not to activate this characteristic, you lot volition find information technology not under the camera's settings, simply nether the Google Habitation app settings.

(Image credit: Google)

By default, the camera also comes with a timeline feature, although I found this to be too ho-hum-loading, versus the recorded events list you tin can rapidly tap on at the bottom right of the abode screen. From that listing, y'all can tap "Go to history" to meet all logged events and filter by device and type of issue—another first-class characteristic I would love to see implemented on other systems. The manner Google handles this entire office of the feel shows a slap-up deal of consideration that puts to shame other manufacturers' efforts.

(Image credit: Google)

Because the camera module itself has the same 6 Ah, iii.65V lithium-ion battery as is used in the Nest Outdoor Cam, the Nest Cam with Floodlight has a congenital-in battery backup. In the event of a power outage, while yous'll lose the floodlight office of the camera, the battery will continue powering the photographic camera, with its six high-powered IR cameras. Google says the battery can last up to 7 months in depression-traffic areas, or one.5 months in high-traffic areas, and so if for some reason yous ever lost power to the floodlight trunk longer-term, you wouldn't necessarily accept to replace the camera entirely. The Nest cam can even store a limited corporeality of footage on-device, so you can keep recording for up to three hours, or until power is restored—whichever comes first.

Amidst the missing features I would like to come across included are blacked-out privacy areas similar those found on Ring, Arlo, and Eufy's cameras, so you lot tin make certain your photographic camera is only recording your belongings, so y'all're not inadvertently invading neighbors' privacy. I'd too really similar to come across local storage, and since this is a wired camera, the addition of 24/vii recording to NAS would be a very welcome inclusion, though I'chiliad not holding my breath for those terminal 2.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: App

Management of Google's Nest Cams is handled in the Google Home app, every bit I mentioned higher up, and it's a fairly intuitive feel. Y'all can access the camera and its footage three different ways: past tapping through the device categories at the top of the abode screen, by scrolling to a specific photographic camera and tapping, or by borer the events tab at the bottom right, which shows a list of all events. The first selection was my preferred fashion to manage individual cameras, as I didn't demand to scroll down to notice the camera; tapping the "Cameras" push gives y'all a screen with large tiles for each photographic camera, and each tile has a button for turning off the camera, if you need to practise that, or yous can tap the camera to become to its page.

(Image credit: Google)

Once in a given camera'southward page, you're presented with a microphone push button with three tabs beneath it, labeled History, Live, and More, with an options gear icon at the top right. There's as well a three dots menu to bring you to the events history screen (which is labeled "total history"), which I call up should be its ain tab at the bottom, rather than being 2 taps deep. The History tab shows you a video in the centre, with a timeline underneath that you tin scrub to get to specific times and between events. In this view, for whatever reason, events have a tendency to load slowly, so I generally avoided looking at videos using this method.

(Image credit: Google)

The options screen for each camera lets you toggle video history for a given device, set motion sensitivity and outcome recording length (30 seconds is the default simply you can become upwards to 3 minutes per event), and adjust settings for video quality (Max or High), night vision, and, surprisingly, status light effulgence. Hither you will also be able to rotate the video 180°, in the upshot that you lot are unable to hang the camera upright. It'southward also where you lot'll set your Activity zones, toggle and manage facial recognition, choose the sort of events you'd like to announced in video history, set the camera's speaker volume and toggle the microphone, adjust floodlight behavior, and more.

Camera apps tin can be confusing, but I feel like Google has made an easy app experience that most people will be able to grasp. It's not necessarily filled with a ton of bells and whistles, but it'south easy to navigate and configure, and that counts for a lot.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Smart Domicile Compatibility

Unfortunately, the Nest Cam is only compatible with Google's platform, for the time being, making this possibly the biggest drawback of the organization. While I retrieve information technology would be a pipe dream to hope for HomeKit Secure Video, it doesn't seem similar adding IFTTT or even Amazon support should be out of the realm of possibility, and would broaden its entreatment to anyone who uses those platforms primarily.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) review: Contest

The Nest Cam with Floodlight enters a market with two major competitors: The Ring Floodlight Cam ($249)  and the Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight ($180), both of which are less expensive.

Each of the three offers a very vivid floodlight, with Google's existence the brightest at 2400 lumens and the Arlo and Band cameras at 2000 lumens (although if y'all choose to go along the Arlo plugged in, information technology tin put out 3000 lumens). For those who like a warmer tone, the Ring Floodlight's 3000K LEDs may be preferable. Too, whereas both Google and Ring accept dual, independently adjustable lights, the Arlo features a unmarried, wide LED that gives it a bacteria, more unique appearance.

The Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight offers the easiest and most versatile installation, every bit its battery-powered, all-in-i blueprint means all you need to do is adhere the camera to a wall or ceiling of your option. It adds the inconvenience of having to recharge the camera periodically, which may not be ideal in some climates, but many people will prefer not to fuss with their dwelling's wiring, or may non be able to easily wire a photographic camera in their preferred location.

The Nest Cam with Floodlight as well has the narrowest field of view of the three, simply offering a 130-caste diagonal FOV, versus 160 degrees for Arlo and roughly the same for Ring. The Arlo's higher resolution of 2K also enables a unique feature: digital pan and zoom, which helps give you a better view of subjects.

If you only demand one photographic camera, both Ring and Arlo offer $3/month plans that roughly equal Google's lowest-priced selection. Ring'south offering fifty-fifty covers sixty days of video history versus Arlo and Google's thirty days on the lowest tier. However, when you add ii or more cameras, the balance tips toward Google, as their plan has no photographic camera limit, where the other 2 volition demand to pay more per camera or switch to the $x/month options.

Arlo offers the most compatibility of the three as well, as it supports, to varying degrees, Google Assistant, Alexa, HomeKit, SmartThings, and IFTTT. By comparison, the Band Floodlight lacks compatibility with Google Banana and HomeKit, and Nest compatibility is limited to Google Banana.

Nest Cam with Floodlight (wired) Review: Verdict

The Nest Cam with Floodlight has the best video quality I've seen on a smart home photographic camera, and its costless tier, while lacking local storage, is not the hobbled experience so many other smart home cameras end up being if y'all're not willing to pay up. In addition, it'due south a very dainty-looking camera, with great sound, a fantastic microphone, and an intuitive app experience, with lots of lilliputian details that make information technology pleasant to utilize. The floodlights themselves offer pleasant lighting over a broad swath of area, and I like how like shooting fish in a barrel they are to point them where I want them to bandage light.

Subscribers may exist disappointed they aren't getting more than for their coin, though Nest Aware is bolstered a little by facial recognition — and Google should only take a page from Apple's book and add together storage for those who subscribe to Google Ane.

Still, for the price, the Nest Cam with Floodlight offers the best outdoor security camera experience in its course. It has excellent video quality, built-in battery backup, local storage, and an intuitive app. It too offers features for free that with other security cameras require a subscription, which definitely counts for something.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/nest-cam-with-floodlight

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