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Google Nest releases its new indoor Nest Cam and floodlight camera

Google Nest releases its new indoor Nest Cam and floodlight camera

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Google’s newest smart security cameras land on the Google Store today

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Google Nest’s first floodlight security camera is available to buy today.
Google Nest’s first floodlight security camera is available to buy today.
Image: Google Nest

Following its announcement of an all-new Nest Cam lineup this summer, Google has made the last of the four cameras it announced available in its Google Store: the Google Nest Cam wired ($99.99) and the Google Nest Cam with floodlight ($279.99). The cameras join the new Nest Cam battery, an indoor / outdoor camera, and the Nest Doorbell battery that went on sale in August. 

The Nest Cam wired is the budget camera in the lineup and is much smaller than the indoor / outdoor Nest Cam, which can be wired or work off its built-in battery. The indoor model dispenses with a built-in battery and isn’t weatherproofed, helping make it cheaper and smaller. It keeps the same 16:9 aspect ratio, with 1080p video at up to 30fps, plus it has a 135-degree field of view and 6x digital zoom.

One unique feature about the Nest Cam wired is that it comes in four colors — white, pink, beige, or green — a first in the smart home security camera space. There’s also a wooden base available for the pink (sorry, “sand”) version of the camera for a further aesthetic flourish and a price hike to $119.99. Interestingly, Google is keeping the original black indoor Nest Cam around for $129.99.

The Nest Cam wired comes in four color choices.
The Nest Cam wired comes in four color choices.
Image: Google Nest

The Nest Cam with floodlight is essentially the indoor / outdoor Nest Cam attached to a 2,400 lumen floodlight. It streams 1080p video with HDR, with a 1/2.8-inch, 2-megapixel sensor, 130-degree diagonal field of view, and a 6x digital zoom. It requires permanent power and has to be wired into your home’s wiring through a standard outdoor junction box. The floodlight is rated IP65 for weatherproofing and the camera itself is IP54. 

The key feature here is that the floodlight cam uses on-device intelligence to detect people, animals, and vehicles rather than just relying on a motion sensor, as most floodlight cams do. This should mean you’re not constantly illuminating the garden when tree branches blow in the wind.

The Nest Cam with floodlight is Google’s first hardware foray into any kind of smart lighting.
The Nest Cam with floodlight is Google’s first hardware foray into any kind of smart lighting.
Image: Google Nest

All the new Nest cameras use built-in intelligence and on-device processing, which means less reliance on the cloud — so no fees for animal, vehicle, and person detection. You can also create Activity Zones for free and get three hours of event-based video without a subscription.

Local storage on the cameras will record up to an hour of footage (about a week’s worth of events) if the power or internet go out. For more than three hours of video clips, or to enable 24/7 recording on the Nest Cam wired and Nest Cam with floodlight, you need to pay for a Nest Aware subscription, starting at $6 a month. This also enables Nest’s Familiar Faces feature that will tell you which person it’s seen as opposed to just that it’s seen a person. The Nest Cams use the Google Home app and do not work with the Nest app.

However, this isn’t the last we’ll see of new Nest Cams. Google recently announced that it’s planning to release a new Nest Cam Doorbell wired in 2022, presumably to replace the excellent but aging Nest Hello video doorbell.

Update 9:52AM ET, October 5th: Added details of the weatherproofing ratings for the Nest Cam with floodlight.