security is becoming more and more
relevant these days both in terms of
online security as well as physical
security and it's good to see that new
technologies like high-resolution home
security cameras like the nest IQ are
more accessible than ever and the nest
IQ is the latest camera released by nest
and has some notable new features
compared to the previous nest cam and
nest cam outdoor but are these new
features enough to justify the current
price tag of three hundred dollars both
in terms of whether you're getting your
first security camera or upgrading a
current nest cam obviously that's
something you're gonna have to decide
for yourself but hopefully this video
will help first of all let's take a
quick look at the physical design of the
new nest cam IQ it's much bigger than
the regular nest cam with a form factor
pretty much the same as the more recent
outdoor nest cam except for the mounting
stand the IQ stand is not removable
though it does have a threaded mount on
the bottom for like a tripod and the
stand is adjustable on two axes so you
can tilt it up and down almost a full
180 degrees on the y axis and rotate it
on the z axis but you cannot tilt it
sideways on the x axis and this might
only be a problem if you're mounting it
on a wall because if you want to point
it at an area not directly in front of
it then the view of the camera will have
to be tilted so I'm not sure why they
didn't just make the stand removable so
you can use it on your own mount if you
want or they could have just included
the magnetic mount like they did on the
nest cam outdoor but besides that if
you're just using it like a typical use
case you're just putting it on a
bookshelf or something it's completely
fine but now let's talk about the most
important thing the image quality one of
the major selling points of the IQ is
that it hasn't upgraded 4k sensor for
more detailed video especially while
zooming as well as the ability to
distinguish between different human
faces for so called person alerts but
does the better sensor make a difference
well not really it turns out you see
even though the camera has a 4k sensor
it doesn't record 4k video
wait a minute you might
then what's the point exactly I assume
what's happening is the camera captures
the raw 4k video off the sensor and uses
that to process the facial recognition
feature but the 4k video never leaves
the camera its downsampled to 1080p just
like the other nest cams and is streamed
that way so yes because the video is
super sampled from 4k it's slightly
sharper which means you can zoom in a
little bit further but you're still just
zooming in on better 1080p video which
is extremely compressed anyway now yes I
think it is really dumb that they did
this but even if I don't agree I dunno
why they did this it's all about
bandwidth like I mentioned all the nest
cams stream the video in a highly
compressed format the regular nest at a
maximum quality has only bitrate of one
point two megabits per second and the IQ
has a slightly higher two megabits per
second even for 1080p resolution those
bit rates are extremely low if you
compare them to say a video your cord on
your phone but they have to be because
even at that low bit rate that's 300 to
400 gigabytes a month of bandwidth or
more and as I've said in other videos
resolution means nothing if it's not
backed up by a higher bitrate because
otherwise you're not getting any more
actual video data so for it to even make
sense to offer 4k video streaming they
probably have to quadruple the bitrate
meaning you'd be using up terabytes of
bandwidth a month potentially for
someone with a slow internet plan or a
data cap it's just not feasible to even
use it however I really wish they would
at least offer the option to stream at a
higher quality for those of us who can
handle it even if it did mean paying
more for the cloud storage so the
question becomes if the actual video
output isn't that much higher quality
then why did they bother making this
camera because really the only extra
ability at this point offer
is facial detection which if I'm correct
is not possible in older cameras because
they don't have the high-resolution raw
video to work with though I will say
that the face detection seems to
actually work okay it's at least able to
pick out faces but for a while it might
think that the same person is multiple
people if it sees you from different
angles and I think this future can
actually be useful for certain cases for
example if you have a multi person
household you don't need to get a
notification every time it sees a person
when you're not home because it's
probably just a family member but maybe
you don't want to disable notifications
altogether in case someone breaks in or
something with person alerts you could
just get a notification if it sees
someone it doesn't think it recognizes
whether it's someone breaking in or your
kids having friends over while you're at
work you'd probably want to know about
both so you can probably imagine a few
situations where having facial detection
is good where it's expected that trusted
people will be going through a monitor
area and you only care if it's someone
you don't know just be careful if your
TV is in the camera's view because every
time a person was on the screen when I
had it it thought that it was a new
person so you can just exclude that from
your zones I thought it was pretty funny
also the nest IQ has a feature called
super sight where if you're looking on
the phone it will zoom in on the part of
the video where it sees a face and track
it it's a nice idea but it still just
uses the same resolution video I wish
they would take advantage of that 4k
sensor and at least take still images at
full resolution that could be a
compromise that allows them to use low
bandwidth video but still capture high
resolution images when it might be
important two more things I need to go
over are the night vision quality and
the HDR video claim with the nighttime
video the IQ also uses infrared lights
on the front and it seems to be about
the same quality as the regular nest
both in terms of the brightness of the
leds and the video quality as for the
HDR I was expecting that to just be a BS
buzzword they were used
but IQ does actually seem to have a
significantly better dynamic range than
the regular nest and I think they're
using the term HDR very generously here
but I guess they just wanted to be able
to say that it's better than the regular
one you'll see here that in the same
scene there are very bright windows and
an open door leading into a dark bedroom
well the windows are still blown out on
the HQ you can actually see into the
dark room a bit including the outline of
some paintings on the wall whereas on
the regular nest cam it's completely
black besides the bed so also that the
HDR claim holds up alright so now that
we know all about the capabilities and
the nest cam IQ we can consider the
question is it worth it and that depends
on whether you already have regular nest
cam or not if you already have a nest
cam I definitely think it's not worth it
to upgrade you'd basically be paying
$300 just for the facial recognition
notifications because again the video
quality is almost the same
despite the improved sensor if you don't
have a nest cam already and you're
choosing between this and the regular
one I'd still be hesitant to suggest the
IQ on Amazon the current price of the
regular cam is 166 bucks nearly half the
price I just don't think the cameras
features can justify paying so much more
so my overall verdict is that the nest
IQ is really disappointing the 4k sensor
is wasted being used on highly
compressed low resolution video and the
facial recognition feature is only
marginally better than normal
notifications now if the price tag
doesn't bother you and you absolutely
must have an extra bit of video quality
no matter how small sure go with the IQ
but otherwise save yourself a bunch of
money and go with the regular nest cam
or even use the money you would have
spent on a second camera like the
outdoor cam which is the same price as
the regular cam so that's all I have to
say about the nest cam IQ you guys can
let me know what you think down the
comments if you agree disagree or if it
helped you make a decision I
to hear about it if you want to keep
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but anyway thanks for watching guys I'll
see you next time have a good one