Security Cameras

Nest Cam Indoor Review (2024): vs Outdoor, Wireless, Mounting, Setup, And More

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The four color styles of the Nest Cam are sitting on a table.
The latest model of Google’s Nest Cam offers four camera colors to blend into the style of any home.

Want to keep tabs on a mischievous pet when you’re away? Or do you want to add muscle to your existing home or business security system? Maybe you’re just looking for a way to see when your teens walk through the door after school, so you know they got home safely.

Google’s Wi-Fi-enabled Nest Cam can do all that and more. It’s a popular choice among consumers installing Internet Protocol (IP) cameras in their homes. Let’s get into the nitty gritty with this plug-and-play security camera.

Google Nest Cam (Indoor, Wired) Review
google nest logo 250

Product Name: Nest Cam

Product Description: Google's indoor Nest Cam is a wired HD security camera offering motion detection, live viewing, and two-way audio.

Summary

Google put design at the forefront when designing the Nest Cam, offering a clean design with four color options to fit in with any home aesthetic. Setting up the Nest Cam is super quick, and the camera does a nice job. Features include object identification (people, animals, and cars), motion alerts, and three hours of free event video history. If you’re willing to pay extra for a subscription, you can get extra features like familiar faces and additional monitoring capabilities. Overall, the Nest Cam offers quality construction and a sleek design for this indoor security camera.

Overall
4.4
  • Technology
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Service
  • Overall Value

Pros

  • Simple installation
  • Attractive design
  • Video encryption for privacy protection
  • Live stream video to a computer, tablet, or smartphone
  • Two-way communication with built-in microphone and speaker
  • On/Off programming to coordinate with your schedule
  • 24/7 customer support via phone & email

Cons

  • Indoor use only
  • No local video storage
  • Must be plugged into a wall outlet
  • Video recording is an extra charge via subscription
  • Cameras are prone to overheating
  • Uses a significant amount of internet bandwidth
  • No professional monitoring

View On Amazon

Consumer Reviews

This is the aggregate score of reader reviews we’ve received. Have a good or bad experience with Google Nest? Feel free to leave your own review in the comments. Please note that only ratings with valid review content will be published and counted.

10 Key Features

  1. All glass lens records up to 1080p HD video
  2. 135-degree field of view, 6x zoom, and the ability to enhance features in the live video feed
  3. Up to 15 feet of illumination and infrared night vision
  4. 2-way talk with noise cancellation
  5. Includes three hours of event video history
  6. Compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa-enabled devices
  7. Intelligent alerts (familiar faces, smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, glass breaking) with a subscription plan
  8. Available in four color options: snow, fog, linen, and sand with a maple wood base
  9. Easily mounts to a wall using integrated wallplate two screws
  10. Not for outdoor use, but check out our review of the Nest Outdoor Camera

Nest Cam Setup

The Next Cam is super easy to install. You can place the camera on a flat surface or mount the camera to a wall—the screws and drywall anchors are included in the package. From there, it’s as easy as downloading the Google Home app, plugging the camera in, and following directions on the app for set up.

  1. Confirm your Google account and download the Google Home app (Apple Store, Google Play).
  2. Scan the QR code sticker found on the front cover of the camera to add to the Google Home app and set up your camera. Make sure to save the QR sticker in case you need it later.
  3. Plug in your camera wherever you want to use it. The camera will chime, and you will see a status light on the camera showing that it’s connected to power. The status light will turn blue when the camera is ready to set up.
  4. In the app, connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network and select the location where you set the camera up.
  5. Once you’ve set up your camera, you can also mount it. Just make sure to keep in range of your Wi-Fi. The base of the camera doubles as a wallplate for easy installation. Once mounted, adjust the camera angle for maximum viewing.

Pricing & Storage Options

The indoor Nest Cam has a one-year limited warranty. If you want storage options, you’ll need to buy one of two subscription plans: Nest Aware or Nest Aware Plus. Nest Aware offers event-based history, meaning it saves video clips of sound or motion events for up to 30 days. Nest Aware Plus gets you event video history plus 10 days of 24/7 video coverage with continuous video recording.

  • 1-year limited warranty
  • Nest Aware: $6 per month or $60 annually (save $12)
  • Nest Aware Plus: $12 per month or $120 annually (save $24)
  • Compare plans
Nest AwareNest Aware Plus
Monthly/Annual Price$6/$60$12/$120
Event video historyGreen checkmark (30 days)Green checkmark (60 days)
24/7 video historyGreen checkmark (up to 10 days)
E911Green checkmarkGreen checkmark
Intelligent alertsGreen checkmarkGreen checkmark

Both plans have e911 and intelligent alerts. E911 will connect you to the 911 call center closest to your home, no matter where you’re located at the time of the call (normally, if you dial 911 from your cellphone, your call is routed to the 911 center closest to your phone’s location). Intelligent alerts give you the option to recognize familiar faces in your video. It also has a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, and glass break detection.

A large dog is sitting on a pet bed surrounded by potted plants in front of a sunny window.
Use the Nest Cam to monitor your fur baby while you’re away at work.

Consumer Feedback

We found a variety of positive and negative feedback. Reviews love the Nest camera as a way to monitor their pets while they’re away from home inexpensively. Users complained that the camera doesn’t work with Nest Hub—it uses the Google Home app—so they had to use two different apps.

Praise

There are a lot of choices in the market when you’re looking for a security home camera/indoor, and variations of it. I won’t get into the classifications, but just know there are 1080p, 2k, 4k, wired, wireless, indoors outdoors, weather, etc.

The nice thing about this product is it’s supported by google and well integrated into the ios/android app environment. Pop up the app, and click all cameras, and the neat little app nicely shows all your cameras. You can control things like night vision, off/on, sound, etc, but you won’t be able to move the camera/rotate the camera, just be aware.

Another thing to be aware of is the subscription vs non subscription for this and all the competitors, and what they bring to the table, I recommend do a little search on it before settling on the brand also.

Finally, the picture quality is great, I would give it a 8.5/10. The speed/update/responsiveness is industry standard, and it’s not great, but it’s not bad either. I wish all the cameras of all brands are more responsive, or pull data from the camera or the cloud faster, but in time hopefully that improves but not right now.

Overall, still a good price to performance ratio, highly recommend it.

medavid16, Best Buy 2/12/2023

Cameras were easy to install using google home. Replaced existing canary camera’s I was using. Clarity, range, and notifications are 100% better. Friendly face recognition is excellent.

DAVE, The Home Depot, 12/14/2022

Complaints

Does not connect to the nest hub app. Can only be used in the Google home app which has a subpar interface. Still haven’t figured out how to clip.

Matthew, Best Buy 1/22/2023

A big turn-off owning these cameras is the yearly cost to keep the recording footage. Simple to charge and remount. Notice I get a reminder after I been back home that my cameras caught me in my zones 30 minutes later. Still deciding whether to keep them or not. I’m trying to find a good, simple, and cost-effective camera system

Ken Gomez, Google Play 2/5/2023

How Does Nest Cam Indoor Compare?

View On Amazon

If you’re looking for an attractive pet/child cam, the Nest Cam is easy to use and offers great privacy features. Still, plenty of cheaper indoor security cameras on the market perform similarly. Find out how the Nest Cam compares against some of the best indoor security cameras.

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Tara Maurer

After graduating with a BA in Multimedia Journalism from Simpson College, Tara worked as the studio coordinator for an architecture firm, where she performed many of the tasks required of a small business owner: office management and human resources to marketing and design—all the while using web tools to help grow the business. Tara then used this experience to start her own business. She continues to work in social media marketing today. Since joining the We Rock Your Web team, Tara has covered topics ranging from email marketing to CDNs. She knows that small business owners today need to familiarize themselves with online tools—everything from logo creation and website design to payment processing and email marketing—and she’s passionate about helping them learn how to do just that.
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