Google Nest Cam Indoor - 1st Generation - Wired Indoor Camera - Control with Your Phone and Get Mobile Alerts - Surveillance Camera with 24/7 Live Video and Night Vision

Awesome camera, good features, easy to use app, simple setup and makes home automation simple. I have wanted a camera for the home for a while but was on the fence for some time. I currently have the Nest Thermostat and a few Nest Protects in the home, which I have been really pleased with and when Nest came out with the camera it was a no brainer. I have to say I am very surprised by the negative reviews, which I don't understand. So these are my thoughts: Pros: Easy to setup, clear picture, awesome night vision, great app, easy to use app, love the notifications and full integration Cons: The unit gets a bit warm, an outdoor version would be nice If you are on the fence about getting a camera this is the chance you've been waiting for, or at least it has been for me. The price is what it is, at this time they are $200, but all things considered that is great I think. With it being new I think they can get away with charging $200 but $150 would be just right. Take a step back and realize what you are getting... a tiny camera, that hooks up to wi-fi, small foot print, gets awesome wide views and great picture... all while delivering it straight to your phone... that is phenomenal. Think about where this possibility was 10 years ago or even 15... the setup, hardware and it was terrible... now for a small cost you get a tiny footprint, small hardware, great video quality straight to your phone all while being able to set it up yourself in less than 30 seconds!!! What else do you want? Are there other products like this? Yes. Are they cheaper? Yes. But I would put my money on Nest and Google as a company to put some serious R&D and continue to add features to it and believe they will do a better job than any competitor out there. If they don't then they'll probably buy them out, LOL. Let me say this though about the complaints I have seen, specifically with connection issues. Before I set off on my home automation journey I realized I would have to have a killer wi-fi connection in order to pull this off, no taking short cuts on this at all. The wi-fi router in my opinion is the heart of the system you want to install. I went with what I thought was the best router out there at the time which was the Linksys WRT AC1900 dual band wi-fi router. http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Dual-Band-Wireless-Anywhere-WRT1900AC-FFP/dp/B00K91DB7Y It is not cheap but you don't want to go cheap in this category and if you even begin to think that your cable provided router is good, it is not. You have to realize whatever they provide you are light years behind the Linksys by far. When I had the Verizon provided junk router I kept having connection issues with my Nest Thermostat and the Nest protects. In the evening with the family on their devices we would have two iPads, two iPhones, computer and all the wireless systems (printers, Nest Protects, Thermostats, Camera, cloud drives) and always had issues because of the demand on the router. Now with dual bands, I setup automation on one and family devices on the other and the system is flawless. I can't stress to take your router in to consideration when you hear these complaints. If you want a good experience not only with this camera but whatever you do with home automation the router quality will have to be at the heart of the system, invest money there. As for folks who say they have 75/75 internet, lets be real... that is at best... after that the signal has to be put out thru your router and that is the weak point, you don't actually get the true power. I hope this review is helpful to some and answers your concerns posed by others. Thank you!

Overall this is a good camera and we are happy with our purchase. It was a simple set up, plug in, scan barcode on your phone to link the camera to your Nest account, and then connect to WiFi and it was up and working. They let you try Nest Aware for 30 days for free, after that is is $10/month for 10 days of footage or $30/month for 30 days of footage. With Nest Aware you get notifications on your phone is motion,sound, or a person is spotted, and obviously the footage for whatever you pay for. In my opinion you don’t need anything more than the $10 option, I see many complain about the price but if you’re going to compare it to other security systems and pricing it is a steal and well worth it. We have this Camera set up in our living room and it gets a good picture of our mud room that connects to the garage, kitchen, dining room, and living room. It can easily detect when someone is coming and going through the door to the garage(which is the furthest place from the camera). The sound is pretty good on this camera, however ours is next to our TV so you cannot hear background noises as well due to the TV being so close when on. But when it is off it works great. When watching your camera through the app it tends to freeze if you are looking at previous activity I’ve noticed, there is an option to click 15 seconds at a time and if you click that it tends to freeze up and takes a little while to get back, which is a tad annoying but not the worst thing. The app lets you turn the camera light on and off, there is a green light on the camera that lets you know if someone is watching, it goes dark to light, you also can click that feature off if you don’t want someone to know you’re looking. There is also a microphone on the app that lets you talk through the camera. This has come in handy before when I needed to get ahold of my husband who wasn’t answering his phone due to it being on silent! Night vision is so-so in my opinion, if you have any sort of light on it tends to mess with the clarity of the picture. And by light I mean a microwave light, light above/under the cabinets or above the kitchen sink. Overall I am very satisfied with this camera, and with Nest in general. We also have the thermostat, and I’m currently awaiting the doorbell to be released, it is nice to have everything on one app.

We bought 2 sets of these cameras to install inside our home. We recently had to hire a nanny for a few months to take care of our boys during the day,so we needed something to help us keep an eye on them. I've found that I use it for much more than that. For example, recording an impromptu dance party, finding out what made our blinds fall off the wall (gravity I guess), and for helping me check on the boys at night without getting out of bed. It also allows me to find my wife when she doesn't have her phone near her. I was once at the store ready to check out when I called her to make sure she didn't need anything. She didn't answer so I checked the Nests and saw her in the kitchen making something on the stove. I activated the voice through and told her to get her phone. I'm glad I did because she was making tacos and ran out of seasoning. Nest cam with the HUGE SAVE!! I love the ability to record for 30 days, but am not sure if I will keep that option for all 6 cameras. Since the Nest cameras only record when there is movement, I can quickly scroll back to see when someone got out of bed, got home, or did something specific in that sector. I also love how "secure" our home is now because I can set alerts for movement when I'm away. We also plan on bringing one or two when we travel so we can keep an eye on napping kids, the pool area, or whatever we need to keep an eye on. The website works best on Internet Explorer, but it can be glitchy. I leave it on at work sometimes so I can see what my boys are up to but sometimes it's very laggy. It's fairly easy to go back to specific events and record them. I upload them to Youtube and share them with friends and family. One of the best reasons to buy these for Amazon is their AMAZING customer service. One of my cameras was having malfunctions with the night vision. At night, you can clearly see the red glow of the IR lasers, but one camera would not work. I called customer service at 9:30 pm and by 9:45, the problem was (mostly) solved. They ended up sending me another 3 pack from which I simply took out one camera, and replaced it with the malfunctioning one. Then I packed it in a box, used the free return label they sent me and dropped it at the local mail store. Awesome job Amazon customer service! In the future, I plan to add to our cameras with at least 2 outdoor cameras. I am NOT saying these are a substitute for direct supervision, but I can't watch my son on the swing every second. I like knowing that I can run inside for a few minutes to check on dinner or grab something but still have an "eye" on him. We also get a lot of wildlife in our area so it will be cool to share those moments with my sons. In summary - FIVE STARS for Nest cameras. My only wish is that they could bring down the price of the Nest Aware program. 6 indoor and (in the future) 2 outdoor cameras would be a lot to keep up with on top of our other security system fees.

For almost a year, the camera worked for us without fail. We started using this in lieu of a baby monitor after many fails with the Motorola MBP36S Remote Wireless Video Baby Monitor . We love being able to check in via our phones and on the web while at work, on-the-go and during dates. We signed up for the Nest Aware subscription service as well and we can watch video playback whenever we want and we can even make clips to show relatives our now toddler son's funny antics. As we previously wrote, we use an Apple iPod touch 16GB Blue (6th Generation) for an iPod but we kept having playback issues. It turned out that all the issues were having with that AND the Nest Cam were due to wifi dead zones in our home. We recently upgraded our router to the Google Wifi system (set of 3) - Router replacement for whole home coverage and our wifi is now at lightning speed above 100 mps. I do not get this camera unless you have very good, stable wifi. When we were just about to hit the year mark when we started to have problems with the camera going offline by itself without reason. When we tried to reset it, we'd get error C102 repeatedly which isn't mentioned on their website. It's incredibly frustrating as we depend on this camera and we paid a great deal for it (more than its now listed price). We called customer service and they were incredibly helpful. As it turns out, we needed a replacement wall power adapter and they sent a replacement out quickly. We haven't had any problems with the Nest Cam since even when our son pushed it off the corner of his crib where we used to keep it before he learned to stand up. We now keep the Nest Cam across the room with an eye on his crib and we've set up zone alerts to tell us when there's movement in the crib specifically. We also get alerts in the Nest app and to our emails when it sees "someone" in the room outside of the zone we created around the crib or when someone is heard in the room. The Nest app has improved since we first got this camera two years ago. When you log in now to the Nest app, you the video right away and you can press on it for sound and close-ups. Even though the Nest Cam doesn't pan or tilt like many baby monitors, it has captures a view of the entire room (see attached photos). The picture quality in daylight is incredible. It feels like I'm in the room with my son. As for the night vision, I think it's pretty good. The picture is clearer when I sign onto the web for night vision than on my iPhone. I've recently started using the microphone more now that my son is getting closer to age two. If he wakes up during the night and thinks it's morning, I gently tell him to go back to sleep because it's night time and he will turn right over and do that. I don't like that you can't hear what you're saying as you talk into the microphone. You hold down the microphone on the app to speak and you're heard on the other end. I know I've been heard because I instantly get an alert that someone was heard in the room. If I could afford it, I would put cameras up in all the rooms. And not for security. The Nest Cam has captured incredibly gorgeously rendered moments in my son's life. From the time we discovered he could (gulp) climb onto his dresser, to the time he learned to climb up onto his changing table and the play dates with his friend where they sit on the adult and toddler sized recliners in his room to read. This wasn't offered when I first bought mine but it's very handy if you're looking to have more cameras at a discounted price: Nest Cam Indoor Security Camera 3 Pack . I have been so impressed with this product that I have since purchased a Nest Cam Outdoor Security Camera because we had such a great time using the regular indoor Nest Cam as a security camera when we were away from home. The microphone sensitivity can be adjusted and we put it on high while we were on vacation and placed it in our dining room by the window. It let us know when it heard and/or saw both the mailman and handyman and we were able to communicate to the latter that we weren't home. We also plan to invest in the Nest Learning Thermostat, 3rd Generation, Works with Amazon Alexa .

Edit to add: There is a new "outdoor" model being released in September. If you are like me and are planning to use some of these outside it may be worth waiting for the new model. To use this model outside you will have to put it in a weatherproof enclosure which may reduce night vision or sound quality. These things are delightfully simple to setup, and offer a good option for home monitoring to those of us who don't want to configure a router or run cables all over a house. There are trade offs to this simple solution however...a lot of them. First, if you have more than one or two, expect that video quality may intermittently degrade due to wifi/internet bandwidth issues. We use these in two homes, one home uses one and the other uses seven. The home with one is much more reliable and more often has good clear video. The home with seven has frequent episodes where video will pixelate and is prone to have cameras off line. Another trade off is that these things are expensive relative to standard home security type cameras. While I am really grateful that these cameras allow us to easily monitor a house 3000 miles away, it can also be an exercise in frustration. The software often hangs (you will get very used to swing a blue circle spinning in your screen) and requires a desktop computer and a paid subscription to use all features. Speaking of which, if you want to record any video wou will have to pay a subscription for each camera (discounted rates for each camera on the same plan after the first). Overall the cameras do work well, there is a 2-3 second lag but the quality is good. Audio works but two way conversation is clunky due to the lag. For me, this is an amazing product because it functions well enough and was easy enough that I could install 7 cameras in a day and a half (we installed many in outdoor/difficult to reach areas using weather proof enclosures which work great but added difficulty to the setup). Remember these are not totally wireless, you still need to provide power.

Just bought this on Amazon right before going on a Cruise and wanted to be able to keep track of the house and the dog while we were away. It worked great! Set-up was very easy. In less than 5 minutes I had it out of the box, plugged in and linked to our nest account (we already have had two Nest thermostats for several years), and was able to monitor the cam on my laptop, iPhone and iPad with no trouble. You get a free 30-day cloud storage account so I was able to scan back through time at motion triggered events. Both the web interface and the iPhone interface through the app allow you to do this. Simply by clicking the skip back button on the interface, I was able to scan through events, or look at a list of them and pick from there. I like having access to the camera through the same app that we always use to run the Nest thermostats. While on vacation we were able to check on activity in the house and hear what is going on, both live or recorded. The camera worked flawlessly with no problems. The only slight issue I had was through the web interface in safari when I tried to activate the microphone. A flash player pop-up window tries to allow you to grant access to the website to control your computers microphone, but I could not click on the pop-up box to change the settings. This was easily fixed though by accessing the Flash Player Control panel in system preferences and granting access to the home.nest.com website there. I also think think the microphone activation screen in the iPhone app could be better designed as it covers up a significant portion of the screen when activated, but this is minor and does not affect how well it works. Overall I am very happy with my purchase. UPDATE: After 3 weeks with the Nest Cam I'm liking it more and more. I felt compelled to comment after seeing all these negative reviews. The cam continues to work flawlessly and I have had no issues at all. I moved it to our front door and have since purchased a 2nd cam. Another feature I love is the ability to set up multiple motion zones through the interface. I noticed it was detecting motion after every car past by in the field of vision which includes the street in front of our house. I set up a motion zone so it would only flag motion near the front door. When you go back to the interface and scroll back through time, it puts dots on the progress bar and they are color code to match the zone that was triggered. So I can actually skip through each event triggered by a car passing by, or the different colored events triggered by someone coming to the front door. I can also add more trigger zones which are then represented in the progress/history playback bar by their own unique color. I have had no issues with bandwidth. I do have relatively fast internet service (30Mb down and 2Mb Up) so maybe that's why I have had no bandwidth issues while others have. I've been running at 720p. I set it to 1080p for awhile and yes, the picture quality was terrific, but even at 720p it's pretty darn good. Maybe I'm lucky, but the device has been great for me and I remain happy.

Delivered as ordered

I just got mine from Bestbuy today and I ordered the second one from Amazon. If you read this review until the end, you will know why I get it from Amazon... WHAT I LIKE The design: Impressive build quality and design. The design sleek and minimal compare to its predecessor. Looking at it's appearance, and it's weight, you can tell it built with quality material. It doesn't gives you the plastic feel and a typical 'IP Cam' look and it can easily blend in to your home environment. You don't want to place an ugly IP Cam in front of your baby's cradle or your modern living room. The easiness to setup: This is one of the simplest and easiest setup I have ever gone through. You only need to download app, and key in you network pass code. Right after that, you will be able to access the video feed. There are a lot of similar product out there which require you to change the port forwarding on the router but hey, as a normal home user we don't really care how the technical setup, we just need something that easy to maintain. Nest Cam is the 'Apple product' in IP Cam world. The video quality: The video quality is great with the options to go from 720 to 1080 resolution within get the app. We used to treat IP Cam a tool for surveillance and security purpose but with the 1080 resolution makes you feel you are really presence in that location. Technology no longer serve the basic needs but it's connecting you with your loves one too. (You can even talk and listen - hear the baby or tell your dog to get off the couch!) WHAT I DISLIKE The price tag: It will be really beneficial if Nest willing to lower down the price. I would really willing to purchase a couple more unit for different purpose but the price tag stopping me for doing that. For it to be of any use you need to pay the subscription, and it is a per camera subscription, which can get expensive fast. Come on Nest, is this the best you can offer us? The mobile apps: The mobile app has limited functionality when it comes to history or alerts. So far I have not received any alerts and I think it takes time for the Nest cloud computing algorithm to analyze. Ps. Side notes I do read a reviewer here stating that he got a display unit and it was paired. I am lucky to get a complete new unit from Bestbuy therefore I decide to get my second unit from Amazon although the shipping takes longer. I just want to avoid the problem he is facing. I will constantly update this review as I still need more time to explore and test on it. Thanks.