Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Google is gearing up to announce a range of new Nest Cams for your home, featuring 2K HDR video and Gemini integration. However, if history is any indication, I think you should look elsewhere. Security cameras are a dime a dozen these days, and many of them are so cheap that it’s ludicrous to consider something as expensive as a $100-200 Nest Cam. Better yet, many of these other cameras offer more controls, greater privacy, and more options than Google will ever provide, so why choose Nest?
This was my dilemma about a year ago when I bought my new home. I really wanted to go in with Google — I already had the company’s Nest speakers and hubs, and I used the Google Home app to control the rest of my smart home, so it made sense to get cameras that worked well with all of this. But after careful consideration, I couldn’t justify paying this much on a Nest Cam and committing to a monthly subscription. I looked into Nest Cam alternatives and landed on the TP-Link Tapo C225 ($38.99 at Amazon) instead. I couldn’t be happier with my choice. Here’s why.
Nest Cams are overpriced and underpowered
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
I’ve always lived in apartments and residential communities, rather than individual houses, so I haven’t had the opportunity to install outdoor security cameras. My security setup must be indoors, and if I’m installing a camera in my home, I need it to be as private and customizable as possible.
This is where the current — and rumored future — crop of Nest Cams fail. They don’t have physical privacy shutters, so aside from trusting the tiny LED light, there’s no way for me to know whether the camera is recording or not. I don’t like this inside my own home. I want to be able to physically shut the lens. Nest also relies on the cloud for everything. Continuous recordings are uploaded to Google’s servers in the cloud, which doesn’t sit well with me for something as personal as my in-home cameras. (Maybe there’s a bit of irony in me trusting my personal privacy with Google Photos, Gmail, and other Google services, but drawing a line at Nest Cams, but it’s where my own boundary is at now.)
It doesn’t help that every useful Nest Cam feature is locked behind a paywall. Access to continuous recordings? Paid. Extracting video clips from recordings? Paid. Something as basic as event recordings? Also paid, if you want anything older than three measly hours. That limitation is bonkers. It ensures that no Nest Cam is ever helpful without the subscription, because if you dare sleep, travel, or go offline for longer than three hours, you can’t check any event detected by your Nest Cam. Your house could be robbed, and if you don’t have a paid Nest Aware subscription, you wouldn’t have a video of what happened.
My house could be robbed while I'm sleeping or traveling, and if I don't have a paid Nest Aware sub, I wouldn't have a video of what happened.
It’s essentially a case of over-engineering for the sake of it. Google’s reliance on the cloud to analyze videos with AI artificially hamstrings any Nest Cam then requires a paid subscription to unlock it. Personally, I didn’t want to be tied to Google’s current plan and future changes and whims.
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