Google Nest Security Camera Outdoor - Night Vision, 1080p HD Video, 24/7 Live Video, Weatherproof CCTV Camera - Security Has Never Looked So Good

Product Information

It’s tough, too, rated at IP65. That means it’s completely dustproof and can withstand low-pressure water jets. That’s more than enough even for a heavy spring downpour.

We haven't seen any that run on the Matter platform yet, but that's surely going to happen at some point. As the Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) installs via the Google Home app it’s only compatible with the Google Assistant, and it doesn’t have IFTTT support. With a smart display, such as the Nest Hub (2nd generation), you can view the live feed. There’s no Alexa support, although the launch of Matter in the future may change that. Video quality Although the Nest Cam Outdoor can record at 1080p, it defaults to 720p. You can manually force the camera into 1080p mode, although you get a warning telling you that the camera may get warm and that it will use more bandwidth.

How Do Outdoor Security Cameras Work?

Google treats everything outside of a zone as the special Outside of zone area, which can have its own recording and notification rules. Most cameras treat everything outside of a zone as not important, so there’s a bit more flexibility here. Installation is now via the Google Home app, rather than the old Nest app. This is a clear sign that Google tends to remove the Nest app, as only older products, such as the still-available Nest Cam Outdoor, will use this.

Cameras that capture 4K (Ultra HD) or 2K video are also available, but you need a strong network connection to stream such high-res video without choppiness or lag, plus lots of room to store recordings; that last requirement may add significantly to the cost for cloud storage fees. Video footage is captured at a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The camera uses a 130-degree (diagonal) field of view, which is good enough for outside use: I could get most of my garden in with this; you can get cameras with wider fields of view if you want to capture more. At night when it gets dark, the camera switches to IR mode. It’s not fooled into switching modes by a torch being shone at it, either, so you know that the Nest Cam Outdoor will record reliably. I was impressed by the IR light, which clearly illuminated my 40ft garden, all the way to the shed at the bottom. Nest Aware also turns on Familiar face detection, or facial recognition to me and you. This lets the camera spot and recognise people that you know. You can create profiles for each person, so you can be told who the camera has spotted. This information is shared between all cameras, including the doorbell and is still a unique feature that the competition doesn’t have. If you prefer, you can use a tripod mount, using the screw thread underneath, or you can buy the optional stand for indoor use.There’s a charging cable in the box that magnetically attaches to the bottom of the camera to top up the battery. If you’d rather have the camera permanently powered, you can buy the optional weatherproof adaptor (5m or 10m lengths available).

Monitoring the outside of your house makes a lot of sense – especially if there’s been a spate of break-ins in your area. The difficulty is that outdoor cameras have traditionally been a bit of a pain to set up and configure. The Nest Cam Outdoor hopes to change that, thanks to painless installation, smart monitoring and a design that makes the camera actually look good when it’s installed. Design and Build Cleverly, if your Wi-Fi goes down or power is cut to your camera, the Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery) can record up to three hours of video on battery power, uploading the results when the connection is restored. That makes this camera more reliable than the cloud-only competition. However, you can use any magnetic mount: outside, I had the old Nest Cam Outdoor, so just repurposed that mount instead, although Google has said that the smaller mount here may not be able to take the weight, so use the provided one instead. Image quality is excellent. In daylight, the picture is sharp, and faces can clearly be seen. Some detail is blurred out in uniform areas, such as grass, but the important information is kept.For all installations, you get to use Nest’s excellent magnetic camera mount. This mount screws into a wall and, because it’s round, you don’t have to worry about getting it level. You then just tap the camera to the mount, and its magnet grabs hold. The magnet’s powerful enough to hold the camera in place, but still gives you some movement, so you can rotate and tilt the camera until you’re happy with the field of view.

Find the right Nest camera for your home. App Requires Google Home app Requires Google Home app Requires Google Home app Smart floodlight Weather-resistant Included alerts 1 Motion, people, vehicles, animals Motion, people, vehicles, animals Motion, people, vehicles, animals Three-hour event video history 1 Video clips Video clips Video clips 1080p HD video with HDR and Night Vision 24/7 live streaming Up to 60 days of event video history with Nest Aware 1,2 24/7 video history with Nest Aware Plus 1,2,3 When wired Power cable sold separately Talk and Listen Records during a Wi-Fi outage Up to one hour Up to one hour Up to one hour Power source Battery or wired Power cable sold separately Wired Wired Field of view What sets this camera apart is an iOS/Android app that’s several notches above the competition. That’s not so surprising, given that Google is behind its development. The app shows you a live feed from your cameras, and provided you take out a subscription, it allows you to customise your notifications by setting up to three active motion zones. These are areas within the camera’s view which can be drawn and designated as sensitive to movement. As with the Cam Indoor, the Outdoor version has a microphone and speaker so that you can speak to anyone outside. It could be handy for talking to couriers or for warning off a would-be thief. A great IFTTT channel lets you integrate the camera with other smart devices – turning on lights when the camera detects movement, for example. Performance and Nest Aware With cameras, such as the Arlo Pro 3, you can use geolocation and a schedule, and you can adjust mode using SmartThings or IFTTT. Both Ring and Arlo have more powerful control, which can be important. After all, nobody really wants to record lots of footage of themselves.

At night, the camera turns on its IR sensor. This has good range, lighting up my entire garden, although the resulting footage is a lot softer, removing some more detail from the image. I’d say that footage is on a par with that shot from Ring’s cameras, but Arlo’s 2K cameras (the Pro 3 and Pro 4) shoot better video and I’ve not seen a camera come close to that of the Arlo Ultra. Nest Aware can distinguish between people and other movements, giving different notifications. There’s no way to set the camera only to notify when it detects people, which you can do with the Netatmo Presence. You can manually turn the camera on and off using the Google Home app. If you want to automate it, then you need to enable the Home/Away routines in the app, which can use your phone (and those of other people in your household) to detect who’s at home to change mode automatically. Look for an outdoor Wi-Fi camera that can connect to either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio band to alleviate network congestion. If you have trouble getting a good signal outside, try boosting it with a wireless range extender. Google Nest Cam (Outdoor or Indoor, Battery) (Credit: Google) Finding footage in the Google Home app isn’t as easy as it was with the Nest app. With the Nest app, opening it up would show you a preview of the camera. Tap the preview and you’d get the live view and the timeline to scroll through, with filtering options to find events.