I’ve been interested in setting up some security cameras for my home. And I’ve been
testing the new Nest Cam IQ for a couple days now to see how well it works for my needs.
Full disclaimer the Nest Cam IQ was provided as a sample to me, and this video is also
sponsored by Nest. But from my testing so far of the Nest Cam IQ, video quality is pretty
good and works really well even at night, watching live feeds of all your cameras and
scrolling through past footage on the mobile app is super simple, and intelligent alert
notifications means I’m not getting false positives every time my drapes move or shadows
shift from the sun. But there are a couple things like internet bandwidth requirements,
camera mounting limitations and the subscription pricing that also need to be considered.
Hi I’m David and here is what you need to know about the new Nest Cam IQ.
First let quickly look at what you get inside the box. There’s the main unit. Quick manual
and warranty information And the power adapter and with the 10 foot USB C Cable.
Taking a closer look at the Nest Cam IQ, new highlight features include a 4K image sensor,
HDR, and 12x digital zoom and enhance. It also records a wide 130 degree field of view.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Nest Cam IQ will only encodes footage at a maximum
1080p HD resolution, not 4K. But having a 4K image sensor means it can process a sharper
1080p resolution video or you can zoom in, keep seeing the fine details, and then start
recording at the new enhanced zoom level. The Nest Cam IQ also enhances the video quality
with HDR so highlights and shadows are still clearly visible even in less than ideal lighting,
such as a room with a really bright window. Other hardware features on the Nest Cam IQ
include: A small green LED that stays solid if it is recording, and fades in and out if
someone is watching live. A ring light that indicates you’re broadcasting your voice
over the speaker that can be found on the back of the unit. It hard to see but it also
features two infrared LEDs (invisible to the naked eye) that illuminate at night so you
can continue to record even when it is pitch black at night. It has built in wireless support
for the latest wireless standards. And finally the stand on the Nest Cam IQ allows you to
adjust the tilt and pan of the camera but you can’t rotate it to make any level adjustments
or use it upside down without the image also recording upside down. That being said there’s
also no included Wall Mounting system but it does have a ¼-20 thread at the bottom
typically used on camera tripods if you want to use that. But I think for most people you’ll
just want to place it flat on a ledge somewhere in your home
To setup and use the Nest Cam IQ you’ll need use their app on an iOS or in my case
an Android phone. You can also use the Nest Cam IQ from the web app (some features only
work on web app) as well but I don’t find the experience as smooth as it is on the mobile
app counterpart. Also initial setup can only be done from the mobile app for the Nest Cam
IQ. Opening up the app on my Android phone I’m
presented with the home page where I can quickly see the live feed of all my cameras. Clicking
on one of the feeds I have a couple options now. I can quickly scroll up or down in the
timeline to review video recorded in the past. The motion and zone indicators on the left
and snapshots on the right make it really easy to locate important recordings. And from
here you can also quickly send small video clips to others, or talk into the phone to
broadcast your voice over the Nest Cam IQ speaker.
If you don’t want your cameras recording 24/7. There are 3 different ways to set it
up so the cameras only turn on when you’re away from home. You can do this manually from
the home screen switching between home or away mode, Or you can configure a time schedule
when it will automatically switch on or off for the different days of the week, or automatically
switch between home or away state based on the location of your phone.
Alert notification is another feature that works well with the Nest Cam IQ. You can configure
per camera how the notifications will be sent, if you only want it sent if no one’s home,
And what type of activity will invoke an alert. This could be when it detects a specific type
of sound, some motion, or even intelligently identify and alert if it sees a person instead
of a pet or shadow moving. There are also a couple other features that
the Nest Cam IQ includes such as recognizing familiar faces, automatic close-up tracking,
or creating activity zone to highlight or avoid area in the camera field of view. But
I’ll be honest I didn’t find a huge need for these features myself.
Also to get the most out of your Nest Cam IQ you’ll need the Nest Aware Subscription.
This is needed in order to view the recorded video history up to 10 or 30 days in the past,
in addition some other features previously mentioned like Activity Zones, getting Familiar
Face Alerts, or Creating Clips. Without the Nest Aware Subscription you’ll still get
alert notifications when the camera captures people, motion and sound but you’ll only
be able to view the live stream or picture snapshots of alerts in the past 3 hours.
Your internet connection is another required piece you’ll need to consider. All footage
that is recorded from the Nest Cam IQ needs to be uploaded to the servers on the cloud.
This means you’ll need an internet connection with at least a 2 Mbps upload speed, and it
can use around 200 GB of data per a month per camera but you can adjust the video quality
that will reduce or increase the bandwidth requirements accordingly.
So that’s a quick look at the new Nest Cam IQ and mobile app. A pretty solid piece of
hardware that produces good video quality, has a simple and easy to use mobile app, and
includes a variety of different ways to automate when your cameras will start recording, or
when alert notifications are sent. While the extra cost of the subscription service, internet
bandwidth requirements, and camera mounting limitations might turn some people off. Overall
it’s still as pretty solid solution for any who needs a little extra security at home.
But hope you guys enjoyed this one. You know what to do. And I’ll see you in the next
video.