Pros:__________
- Weatherproof is right on point as it works flawlessly even after they have gone through numerous winter storms.
- The two-way audio communication quality is clear and loud from at least 15 feet away from the camera. (Decent speakers and the microphone are clear on the other side of the conversation).
- Motion and audio sensor detections are customizable (mainly the motion settings) as you can have the option to begin recording when one of these modes are triggered in a special zone.
- I live on a busy street and the motion detection is one of the best out there for people like me. The reason why is because not only you can customize the zones where you want the motion sensors to be on, but it will take in cars, weather, and a person’s distances into consideration before alerting you.
- False alerts are little to none as you can customize the alerts you want. Of course when squirrels come into play expect an email about them.
- Email alerts are exactly up to date when your camera detects something out of the ordinary. There is no time lag on email alerts, which I love about this camera.
- I can connect my tablet and iPhone on the app and view my cameras at the same time without waiting to log off one device (multiple share options).
- 1080p night vision, enough said as it’s smooth, clear, and detailed.
- The power cord that comes with it is pretty dam long as you can put this camera in a decent place without worrying of power cord distances.
- 130-degree view as, what I did, you can put one in the front and one in the back to give a giant viewing of your house surroundings.
- Wireless and Bluetooth connectivity is built-in and fast. Also, both provide low energy consumption.
- 24/7 live video, what else can you ask for.
- Nest Aware subscription is a must because you can view your stored recordings anywhere in the world without having to be at home.
- The subscription is also great to have because of its persona alert settings where it will notify you when someone is coming near the camera or is in the frame (you can customize the setting and notifications as well).
- Not that hard to install, relatively easy
- Mobile app and web portal are easy to walk through and are not complex to navigate to your live camera viewing or your past recordings.
- The speaker and microphone are built in front of the camera. Good design.
- Under the cloud plan, you can view any recording. When they mean 24/7 they mean 24/7 of recordings.
- The mobile alert option is my prefer option as it’ll pop right on my phone to let me know what’s going on.
- Have to leave your house in a hurry, the beauty of this camera is that it’ll recognize when you’re leaving and will turn on the begin recording (those who want to conserve power this will be a great option for you) but keep in mind you need to have the app for this to work.
- Can also set different times of the day or in the week to turn or off your cameras. I find this useful as I don’t really need to turn on my cameras if I’m staying at home all day.
- No delay in live streaming. Tested this out by logging onto my iPhone and watching my live view while facing the camera. No delay at all.
Cons and Oks:__________
- After the free subscription trial you lose a hell of a lot of great features in the pros list.
- Non-subscribers: you’re going to get access only snapshots that are triggered by sound and motion sensors. No more 24/7 recordings but instead you have a three-hour history of snapshots.
- You need a good internet connection as, depending on your provider and router, the image quality will decrease from 1080-720-360.
- Installing it outside will require you to buy an outdoor power box unless you’re creative on fixing this issue.
- Non-subscribers: no more custom motion and sound detection zones.
- The farther you install it away from your house the weaker the Wi-Fi connectivity you’re going to get with the camera.
- Make sure that you don’t have a light facing directly at the camera as I discovered that the sensors within the camera can mistake nighttime as daytime. The outcome will not enable its night vision.
- No memory card slot. If your power goes out or you don’t have enough cloud storage, you’re screwed.
- Non-subscribers: will lose “person alerts” as well as the option to share clips that you had stored in the past.
- It’s built in magnetic installation process makes it super easy to steal.
- Power cord doesn’t look pretty; I wish it had the option to function with batteries.
Bottom Line:__________
You’re facing a double edge sword. If you get this camera and will pay for the subscription you’re going to get one of the best cameras out on the market right now. 24/7 no lag security cameras are nowhere in this market and you can customize almost anything you want regarding what the camera alerts you with. But a majority of these great features are only available with a subscription and cloud storage.
If you get this camera and will not pay for the subscription you’re getting only half of what you paid for. A majority of the features will not be open to you as your camera will only produce snap pictures instead of 24/7 video recording. It’ll be a heavy blow as when you buy a camera this high in price you expect to experience what you paid for (I’m talking to you “Star Wars Battlefront”).
Overall I don’t like that I have to continue to pay more for a high price security camera in order to fully experience it. I also wish that it had a battery and memory card option where if the power goes out my cameras will still record. In other words, it doesn’t have a backup power saver. But I will say the subscription experience is indeed incredible to have as no stone will be left unturned. If you’re tight on money I recommend that you only buy a month pass of the subscription (I don’t know if they have a week pass) before your vacation, or be sure to pay yearly to experience it fully. Verdict: It’s a great camera set but depending on your income you may be facing a double edge sword.
Hopefully I was a help to you.
Love,
Honest Reviewer
UPDATE: 3/8/18
Nest has now introduced other pricing options for the Nest Aware recording service. The 5 day plan is $5 monthly for the first camera, and $3 for each additional camera. They also offer annual pricing. We switched to the 5 day, and feel it is a much better value.
We’ve had the cameras installed for a year and a half now, and they’re still going strong. Other than occasional blips of WiFi connectivity, we’re had no issues with the cameras at all. Recommend them to everyone. We’re also picking up the new Nest Hello doorbell camera.
UPDATE: 9/8/17
I figured I'd give a quick update now that I've had the cameras for about a year and they've been through summer and winter. I've been very pleased with the cameras - in fact, we added more and are now up to 5 of them installed on our property. The video quality has been exceptional - both day and night - even in below freezing and 100+ degree temperatures. We've had occasional situations where a camera has gone offline, but I attribute that to a flaky WiFi signal and not necessarily the camera.
Regarding the Nest video recording service, we pay the monthly fee for all of our cameras. The cameras are a key part of our home security, and I view the cost of recording as no different than paying for a security monitoring service. I guess it really depends on what you intend to use the cameras for, but for me it is worth it to be able to review past events and set up custom activity zones and notifications. I agree that it would be nice if Nest would offer additional options regarding length of storage (currently limited to 10-day or 30-day options). I seldom need to review anything other than same or prior day.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I'm a longtime user of Dropcam and Nest products having owned several indoor cameras, 2 different generations of thermostats, and smoke detectors. I've been waiting for years for Nest to announce an outdoor camera, and eagerly snapped up several of them when they were announced. I just got around to installing the first yesterday, above my front door.
The camera itself is very solid and seems durable for the outdoors. The attached cable is about 10 feet long and ends in a USB male connector which attaches to a female USB port on a second length of cord - amounting to 25 feet of cord total. The box also includes all the clips, wall anchors, screws you'll need for most installations.
In the simplest of installations, you'd mount your camera in the desired location and then run the cord to an outdoor power outlet, securing the cord along the way with the included clips. In other instances, a hole might be drilled through the exterior wall or into attic space (7/8" is required to pass the connector through) and the cord connected to a power source inside, thereby hiding most or all of it.
In my situation, our home was built with cat5e wiring to various exterior points specifically for connecting security cameras. I wanted to use this wiring so I was able to use a power over ethernet (POE) splitter and injector (bought on Amazon) to run power to the camera and then connected the splitter to the camera's power cable using a USB adapter. It worked flawlessly. Including a link to the adapter. WS-POE-USB-Kit for iPad or Tablet, Remote USB Charger Via PoE Ethernet Cable up To 328 Feet With 5 Volts 10 Watts and Female USB
My biggest gripe about my installation is the length of cable that I needed to conceal. Because the cable is permanently attached to the camera itself (which isn't inherently a bad thing, and probably has to do with waterproofing), installations like mine which don't require the cable to span a long distance to connect to power end up with a long mess of extra cord.
I ended up buying a weatherproof electrical box at the local home improvement store, mounting it near the camera, and tucking the cables inside (see picture). It looks clean, but it would have been nice to not have to take that extra step. I'll probably paint the box eventually to better match the brick color. For my other installs I plan to route the cable through attic space which will fully conceal it. It would be nice if Nest offered a shorter or alternative cord option, but I made it work.
Aside from the physical installation, Nest makes it simple to connect and configure the camera to your home wifi. Download the Nest app, select the option to add a new device, and scan the QR code on the camera. The only remaining step is to enter your wifi password, and everything connects automatically. Using the app you can view your camera's live feed, view past motion events (still images if you don't subscribe to the Nest Aware service to record your video), configure settings like night vision, sound, etc., as well as turn the camera off and on (if you ever need to).
Overall, I'm very happy with the camera. The image quality is great - full 1080p HD. I appreciate the option to receive motion and/or sound alerts, which I can customize with zones to minimize "false alarms" from passing cars, etc. There is also a built in speaker and microphone, so you can talk through the camera to "visitors" - invited or otherwise.
I've tried other camera options - ones with a DVR, Arlo (feared the batteries dying and hated the motion activated recording). Nest wins hands down!
I was in the market for an outdoor security camera and debated between the Nest Outdoor Camera and the Canary Flex. I decided to go with the Nest being that it had better and more reviews than the Canary. I received the camera on a Friday afternoon and installed it the following morning about 10:30am. Within 24 hours we captured video of a man searching our vehicles. The vehicles were locked and nothing valuable was in them. The suspect came Sunday morning at 5:45am. The Nest app sent me the notification stating that it detected activity, but I never heard my phone. When I woke up, I sent the video and a still shot of the suspect to my neighbor who happens to be captain of our local police department. It's now Wednesday and they already have him identified. I was kind of hesitant about spending $180 for a camera, but it has already paid for itself. Overall, this is a great product and I have already recommended it to many locals in our neighborhood. I'm already trying to decide where I want to install my next camera.
Updated: 01/29/18. My subscription was about to end and I was planning to cancel. But then I noticed that Nest updated the iPhone app from 5.15 to 5.17 within the last couple months. So I decided to give Nest another chance. I deleted the Nest app and reinstall the latest update (I decided to delete the app to make sure I have a clean install). I also reset/reconfigured my 4 cameras. And finally, I factory reset my Ubiquiti network equipment. It took my entire weekend to reconfigure everything. It was painful but I didn't want to dump my $1K investment without one last ditch to make it work.
AND.... it works.
I have been monitoring it for the last few weeks. Video buffering (blue ring of death) is much quicker (less than 5 seconds most of the time. Prior to the fix was 60+ seconds all the time). App responds quicker on wifi and LTE. The overall experience is much better (day to night comparison). I am not sure what fixed or resolved my issue with the Nest Cloud services. It could be the new updates from Nest or some bad original configs in the cameras or the network. It could be the fact that I reset/rebooted everything solved the problem too.
Anyway, I am glad that it has been working for the past few weeks. I have changed my rating to 4 stars since I am satisfied how the entire Nest system is working for me at this time.
Orginal review: 11/14/17 1 star - I bought 4 outdoor Nest cameras. I have 200Mb Up/Down internet. I have the Ubiquiti network gears and APs.
This review is after 9+ months of usage. These 1080p cameras are very good during the daytime and nighttime. The live feed and video recording are very clean and sharp. The speaker on the camera is louder than all other cameras I had in the past. The microphone is sensitive enough to pick up faint sound in the surrounding area. Setup was simple enough. If this review is all about the cameras ONLY, then I would give the rating of 4 stars (I hate the fat power cords, that I had to drill some big holes through my walls to get the UBS dongles through.) However, this review is about the cameras and the cloud services as a complete system/ecosystem.
My issues are mostly with the cloud services. Nest aware is okay on most features. However, on a typical bright day with a slight breeze in my backyard, the sun casts shadows of moving trees branches. Nest would send me tons of alert notifications. I have turned off this notification out of annoyance. Video recording works very well but my BIGGEST complaint is about accessing the live feeds (technically, there is about a 1 - 2 second delay due to Internet latency) or the recorded videos. Most of the time, I get the blue rings (video buffering). I usually have to wait between 30 - 60 seconds. If I wait more than 60 seconds, I usually close out and restart the app. This issue has been happening on iPhone 6s, 7, or on my PCs. The problem happens when I am using home wifi, work wifi, or out around about on LTE. It happens all the time. My most frustrating times were during the events when I needed to check for the alerts right away, by the time I got to the live feed, 60 seconds already passed. Then I tried to access the recording, I waited for another 30 – 60 seconds. Imagine at 2 AM, you receive an alert in a zone that suppose to be cleared. You click on the Nest app on your phone and you see the blue ring for couple minutes. I can tell you though couple minutes seem like a very long time. :(
The subscriptions for 4 cameras are not cheap with Nest. I am okay with the cost but I want the services to work at least 99% of the time without the annoying blue circles. Without the Nest cloud services, these cameras are just paperweights.
I searched Nest website and forum for a solution. What recommended was to turn down the video quality. Are you kidding me? I bought $200 per camera and paid expensive subscription fees and I need to turn down the video quality to work better. FYI - my 200MB up/down Internet and $1K network are not the problems.
Unless Nest addresses their cloud performance issues, I am hoping to save some of you some money and time.
If you think I did something wrong, I would love to hear some recommendations, if I get better performance, I will be more than glad to change this review to positive.
Best wishes,
Mike
Feature Product
- Works with Alexa for voice control (Alexa device sold separately).
- 24/7 live video130º wide-angle view lets you look after your home in 1080p HD, day and night
- Alerts on your phoneGet an alert when Nest Cam detects activity. WeatherproofCamera, cable and adapter are all weatherproof
- IPCC-7210W HDPro - 4x Optical Zoom, HD 2.0 Mega Pixel, WIFI, Plug and Play, Outdoor Dome PTZ IP Camera, Nightvision, Audio, Blueiris Compatible
- Talk and listenSpeak up to get someone's attention, or tell the mailman to leave the package at the door. At 720p, each camera requires 200 to 500 Kbps of upload bandwidth while streaming video.At 1080p, each camera requires 450 to 1200 Kbps of upload bandwidth while streaming video.
- Night VisionWith 8 infrared LEDs, Night Vision evenly illuminates the scene. Power : AC adapter input: 100-240 Volt AC, 50/60Hz, 0.2A. AC adapter output: 5 Volt DC, 1.4A. Camera input: 5 Volt DC, 1.0A
- Monthly subscription required for access to full suite of features
Description
Meet Nest Cam Outdoor. It stands watch 24/7, rain or shine. Plugs into power so you never have to worry about dead batteries. And sends an alert to your phone when it detects activity. It even lets you talk back through the Nest app. This is what an outdoor security camera should be.
I decided it would be nice to have some security cameras so I first began with the Arlo system, which was initially very impressive, but became a battery eating monster with finicky WiFi manners.
So having poured $400 down the toilet, I was a bit gun shy about trying again with another system. I've had good luck with Nest in the past, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
I wouldn't call myself 'handy' but installation was a breeze. You just have to figure out how you are going to plug this guy in. This either means using an exterior plug or drilling a hole through your house to plug it in inside.
To make this REALLY annoying the cable is welded into the camera unit, and there is a non-removable plug on the end measuring 19mm. So this means you are likely going to have to use a pretty large drill bit to make a hole that you can thread this plug though. Why the heck they couldn't have used a mini USB or some other kind of connector is quite beyond me.
Other than this stupid design feature, other set up was a breeze, and I had the camera installed successfully pretty quickly.
Once installed, I've found the image quality very high, and the intelligence used by the system to be pretty spectacular. It reliably tells the difference between movement and an actual person, the software works well both on a computer (with extra functionality) and the app, which is shared with the app used for other Nest products.
If you want it to remember recent footage, you do have to subscribe, and that's going to cost you $100 a year, or $50 for additional cameras. Kind of annoying after investing $199 per camera. You'd think they'd offer 6 months or so free for new subscribers just to ease us in, rather than hitting us up for more money right after buying an already expensive product.
Speaking of hitting us up for money, there is some inexcusable nagware built into the app that constantly reminds us to subscribe and warns us of the perils of not subscribing. This happens both in the app, and even in the emails generated when movement is detected. This is annoying and unnecessary in and of itself, but is especially annoying that the same request is made over and over EVEN AFTER PAYING for a subscription!
You'd think Nest would have the decency to remove the stupid ads after I paid!
In addition to the image quality and intelligence of the alerting, there is also a live microphone and the ability to speak to an intruder.
Some people have commented that this would be 'easy' to defeat. I guess it would. Take a bat to it, spray paint the lens, or pull it off the magnetic mount and it would be done. And if the bad guy put some thought in, he could probably do this without being caught 'on tape.'
Then again, this is kind of true of any system really. Just ask Kim Kardashian, who can clearly afford a lot of security.
When it comes to security, I think that no system is perfect. But I got this more for just knowing what is going on at the house. Was a package delivered? Did I leave the garage door open? Did someone just come to the door? Is someone snooping around back? That kind of thing.
A well motivated criminal is going to scope out the house, disable this system and break in anyway.
But the real question is this. If you are just a regular person in a regular home, is a regular criminal really going to take that much time to try and defeat this system when your neighbor probably doesn't have any security at all?
Criminals are generally lazy and would rather take advantage of a situation, so in all likelihood, they will just target another property, rather than plot how to disable this system on your home.
For most basic security needs, and the convenience of being able to check on your home in real time, this is a great system with a lot of upside.
I'd like to see version 2.0 have a better connector so I don't have to put a 1" hole in my wall to thread the cable through. And I'd like the app to be updated to stop hassling me about subscribing, even after I have already subscribed. This is outrageous and annoying. But with those two reservations aside, I think this is a great product, and I have already ordered two more. Now we just have to see if it survives a brutal Minnesota winter!
I pre-ordered this as soon as I heard it was coming out. We have two Nest 2nd Gen Thermostats and three 1st Gen wired Nest Protects and I love them. I personally had a bad experience with the 1st Nest Cam, but really wanted to give this a 2nd chance.
I was hoping that the power cord would be connected through a micro USB port that I could switch out the cord for a Ring Stickup Cam solar panel that I have, but alas, no luck. This thing is really meant to be plugged in at all times. I'm guessing that is because of the constant recording which caused my first Nest Cam to feel so hot I was afraid it was malfunctioning. Hopefully we won't have this issue with the Outdoor Cam. Here are my thoughts so far. I'll update if anything interesting to share comes up.
The Good:
- The camera is rather large compared to the Nest Cam and seems watertight enough to not have issues being plugged up outside in an uncovered driveway.
- The night vision is really nice, and far superior to what I have with my Ring Stickup Cam. Like there isn't even a comparison.
- The notifications are almost instantaneous. Of course I'm at home with everything all on the same wi-fi, but still impressive.
- There are no delays in live streaming. This is especially impressive considering my Canary (which I love by the way) has a 10 second delay.
- Setup was incredibly easy. I scanned the QR code added the wi-fi and password and we were ready to go. It took less than 5 min to get going!
- My husband and I tested two-way audio and it works really well. The sound is clear at close range and if you shout you can hear it from the ground. Right now it's about 10 feet off of the ground.
- Also, the landscapers were here working outside today and set the motion sensors off but the trees swaying in the wind have not caused the sensors to activate.
The Not so Good:
- I'm still annoyed at the cost of the monthly/yearly subscription fees.
- I'm not electrician by any stretch of the imagination, so someone please let me know if I'm overthinking it, but the plug is not grounded and that bothers me for being outside.
The Other:
- The packaging is nice and standard Nest. I'm a sucker for good packaging.
- There is hardware included to mount this indoors or outdoors. It comes with 12 screws for some reason which is way more than you need to install.
I've included a bunch of pictures, but so far I'm really happy with the picture quality and performance. Time will tell though how things go!
Good but not great is the way I would sum up my Nest Cam Outdoor experience thus far. Installation can be simple if you don't mind an ugly cable going into an outlet. If you want a clean look, like my wife does, then you will need to get creative. Basically for me the best path was to drill through the exterior wall and then fish down the interior wall to an outlet. I had to drill a larger hole than I would like to as the USB connector is permanently affixed to the cable and you either have to fish the whole camera through or the large 3/4" USB end. This large end also makes fishing down the wall tricky. I saw a video on YouTube where someone cut the cable and then reconnected the wiring with electrical twist nuts. I didn't feel comfortable doing that. It would have been great if the cable had a disconnection to where you could fit it through small cable sized openings, however the waterproofing might be jeopardized then, IDK.....Overall the software is what makes the NEST, if your going to invest in a "security camera" then it needs to be reliable and easy to find something that it recorded, otherwise you have nothing. Due to Nest's expensive cloud recording services, I originally went with a Lorex NVR system, but after 9 months of having it drop cameras randomly and software that is confusing and not user friendly. I returned the system and decided the Nest monthly fees would be the cost of admission if I wanted reliability, simplicity, and usability. I'm not sure how many cameras I will be able to afford with the monthly fees, I really wish they would make it significantly less the more cameras you have.
UPDATE- added a second outdoor nestcam to my front door, I decided to go for cutting the wire and drilling a smaller hole and then splicing the wire back together. The end result was good and I would do it that way in the future. Also it appears that each nestcam is taking about .5 MBS of bandwidth from my internet connection.
We're very happy with this so far (it's been a week). I can't find the link where I read about this, so I will state that I found it very easy to cut the cable coming from the camera and the resplice it together. This allowed me to drill a small hole in the top of our vinyly window casing and pass the cable through it to inside the house. Then I could just pass the cable through, rather than drilling the 7/8" hole required to pass the big connector on the end of the camera cable where it attaches to the usb power converter. I used three wire nuts to reattach the three wires to each other, but those are hidden behind our window shades, so no big deal. I found zero loss of power, video or audio quality after doing this, and now I just have two small holes in our window frames, rather than having to drill the big 7/8" holes through the side of the house. I don't mind the monthly subscription for recording - it costs a company money to host and maintain all the severs to record and store that video. If you want a system that allows you to record to your own computer or an SD card, then look for another option.
I do wish Nest included a connector on the camera cable so you could just disconnect it when routing the cable, rather than having to cut and splice the cable yourself, but oh well. In the end these do exactly what we need and the app and interfaces just work. Well worth it for us.
Mixed results. As others have said the hardware, packaging, and features are top notch and very well designed and manufactured. It is almost worthless without the Nest Aware subscription however which is $100 for ten days of recording history or $300 for thirty days of recording history.
Without the subscription you will only get three hours of still picture "Snapshots", images of noticed activity by the camera, and even then you will never be able to view these "Snapshots" from their webpage or account, you can only view them through the App on your phone or tablet, when it is in a vertical orientation.
I had an hour long conversation with two support representatives today with Nest, both of which provided me with links that had lovely information carefully displayed, and both of them could not answer basic questions and ran me around in circles fixating on small aspects of my conversation that I understood, but they did not. In the end I complained that there should be more than these two costly subscription packages, like a 5-Day option or 1-Day, that could be much more affordable than the two they currently have. They insisted that they had more than two options as I could also pay monthly at $10 a month for the ten day recordings, or $30 a month for the thirty day. I had to point out that their way was more expensive than their already pricey solution, and I would not be interested. They assured me they would share my feedback with their engineering team, which seems like a waste. I asked them to speak to management and sales instead.
tl;dr Nest Aware needs cheaper options with less days of available recordings, once it does, this review will be five stars and I will return to showing off my Nest camera and recorded clips with everyone I know.
Edit: Nest just quietly added a 5-Day option for $50 a year for one camera. I'm very happy to hear this, unfortunately for me it was after I was charged for the 10-day plan last month. But overall I think this is great and I will be contacting them to move my camera to the 5-day plan. My original review was two starts. With this new plan I've updated my review to be five starts.
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