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Nest Cam IQ, Works with Alexa

3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 118 ratings

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This item is certified to work with Alexa
WORKS WITH ALEXA
Add voice control by combining with a screen Alexa device
  • This item
  • +
  • Required
  • =
  • “Alexa, show the front door camera.”

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Brand Nest
Model Name Nest Cam IQ Indoor Security Camera
Connectivity Technology Wireless
Special Feature Low Light
Connectivity Protocol Wi-Fi

About this item

  • Works with Alexa for voice control (Alexa device sold separately).
  • Person alerts: Smart enough to tell a person from a thing, then alert you.
  • Supersight: A 4K sensor, 12x digital zoom and High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging offer extra clear video that can automatically zoom in and track intruders
  • HD Talk and Listen: Lets you have a seamless conversation.
  • 24/7 live video: See a 130° view in 1080p HD, day or night.
  • 3-hour snapshot history: Review what happened in the Nest app, even if you missed an alert.
Note: Products with electrical plugs are designed for use in the US. Outlets and voltage differ internationally and this product may require an adapter or converter for use in your destination. Please check compatibility before purchasing.

From the manufacturer


Nest Aware

Add a boost of intelligence and cloud video recording with Nest Aware.

  • 24/7 continuous cloud video
  • Familiar face alerts*
  • Intelligent audio alerts

A best-in-class security camera with top-of-its-class brains.

Nest Cam IQ has a 4K sensor, HDR, 12x digital zoom and shows you incredibly crisp, clear 1080p HD video. With HD Talk and Listen you can have a clear and seamless conversation. And Nest Cam IQ is thoughtful about when and how it alerts you. It has advanced algorithms that can tell the difference between a person and a thing, alert you, and can automatically zoom in and track intruders in crystal clear video. With a Nest Aware subscription, Nest Cam IQ can even recognize familiar and unfamiliar faces*.

*Not available on Nest Cams used in Illinois.

  • 24/7 continuous live video streaming
  • Person, motion, and sound alerts
  • 3-hour snapshot history
  • Shareable live video streams
  • Can turn on automatically when you’re gone, and off when you come home

24/7 live streaming video, day and night.

We designed Nest Cam IQ to be plugged into power so you get a continuous 24/7 live stream in crisp 1080p HD video.

Person alerts on your phone.

Nest Cam IQ is smart enough to tell the difference between a person and a thing, then alert you. With a Nest Aware subscription, Nest Cam IQ can even detect familiar and unfamiliar faces*.

*Not available on Nest Cams used in Illinois.

Supersight gives you extra clear video.

Supersight’s 4K sensor, 12x digital zoom and HDR offer unparalleled video that can automatically zoom in and track intruders in crystal clear video.

Customer Reviews
24/7 live streaming
1080p HD video
3-hour snapshot history
Motion and sound alerts
Person alerts
Supersight: 4K sensor, HDR, close-up tracking view
HD Talk and Listen
Talk and Listen
Customer Reviews
24/7 continuous cloud video recording (up to 30 days)
Person alerts
Familiar face alerts*
Intelligent audio alerts
*Not available on Nest Cams used in Illinois.

What's in the Box

-Nest Cam IQ camera.

-Power cable.

-Power adapter.

-Quick Start Guide.

Connectivity Requirements

Working broadband internet connection with at least 2 Mbps upload speed (DSL may not qualify).

Compatible phone or tablet with the free Nest app and Bluetooth 4.0. Some phones, tablets, and networks do not support 1080p.

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Nest Cam IQ, Works with Alexa


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Product Description

Nest Cam IQ, Indoor Security Camera, With Incredibly Crisp, Clear 1080P HD Video & HD Talk & Listen, Advanced Algorithms That Can Identify When Someone's In Your Home, Alert Your Phone, & Automatically Track That Person As They Move Through The Room, While Still Showing You The Big Picture, Smart Enough To Tell A Person From A Thing, Then Alert You, A 4K Sensor, 12X Digital Zoom & High Dynamic Range Imaging Offer Extra Clear Video That Can Automatically Zoom In & Track Intruders, HD Talk & Listen, Lets You Have A Seamless Conversation, 24/7 Live Video, See A 130 Degree View In 1080P HD, Day Or Night, 3 Hour Snapshot History, Review What Happened In The Nest App, Even If You Missed An Alert, SIGNED RESELLER AGREEMENT IS REQUIRED TO ORDER.

What's in the box

  • security camera
  • Brands in this category on Amazon

    Customer reviews

    3.7 out of 5 stars
    3.7 out of 5
    118 global ratings

    Customers say

    Customers like the quality of the security camera, saying it's a high-quality product with cool features. However, some customers have reported issues with the performance and value of the camera. They say the features don't work properly, the camera is buggy, and the ongoing expense is quite expensive. Customers also have issues with facial recognition, and mounting. Opinions are mixed on image quality, ease of setup, and notifications.

    AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

    27 customers mention "Quality"21 positive6 negative

    Customers like the quality of the security camera. They say it's a perfectly decent product, the camera itself is high quality, and reliable. Customers also enjoy the high-quality video and integration with other Nest products. They mention that the design and quality are great and the features are smart and very promising.

    "...It never disconnects. It has an excellent wifi capability* It always works (you can't take this for granted after using D-Link cameras!)*..." Read more

    "...I had no issues with DDNS, no calls to Verizon to determine how to configure their router to get the video outside my house, no port mapping, etc...." Read more

    "Some of the features are smart and very promising (Familiar Faces plus motion tracking are ace), but this model removes a critical feature I loved..." Read more

    "...The Nest Cam IQ is significantly more secure than IP cameras (which use general-purpose webservers which are easily hackable), and much more..." Read more

    28 customers mention "Image quality"17 positive11 negative

    Customers are mixed about the image quality of the security camera. Some mention that the quality is amazing, with incredible resolution and clarity. However, others say that the image is blurry and the cams keep disconnecting from the network.

    "...The 4K sensor is incredibly sensitive: it can practically see in the dark...." Read more

    "...However, on iOS, Sightline is awful most of the time; on Android, it's practically useless...." Read more

    "...Minimal fish eye for 130 degrees of coverage - this hasn't been discussed much, but that the view is not fish-eyed and I can see 130 degrees of..." Read more

    "...there is a lot of goodness here over prior generations, such as better resolution, and zooming in on activity, this product at this time, fails to..." Read more

    14 customers mention "Ease of setup"9 positive5 negative

    Customers are mixed about the ease of setup. Some mention it's incredibly easy to set up and simple to use, while others say it'll need some work and the software behind it is really stupid. The interface of the app and web is not user friendly and difficult to view and save clips.

    "...The Nest app always works and is easy to use*..." Read more

    "...The software behind it is really stupid." Read more

    "...Simple to use and works so great - easy to find anything I want, and then create a clip. It's beauty in simplicity.-..." Read more

    "This camera is very easy to set up -- under 5 minutes with the Nest app...." Read more

    7 customers mention "Notifications"3 positive4 negative

    Customers are mixed about the notifications. Some mention that they are getting zero false alerts, while others say that they have many issues with the alerting. They say that the system is worse than their Ring doorbell and that it constantly false alert on pets going through the image.

    "...Whereas I was getting dozens of alerts per day, I'm now getting zero false alerts: the only time it tells me that it sees a person is when there is..." Read more

    "...at the recording on the nest site and realized that the camera doesn't even send a notice for every detected event...." Read more

    "...Notification features - outstanding that I can set them for each user...." Read more

    "...In short, it cannot. Constant false alerts for pets going through the image frame. Dog bark detection does not work...." Read more

    17 customers mention "Performance"0 positive17 negative

    Customers are dissatisfied with the performance of the security camera. They mention that the features don't work properly, it's useless, and has frustrating practical usability flaws. The performance is inconsistent and mostly horrible, and it'll become a basic dumb camera over time. Customers also say that the IQ did not perform as promised in the product descriptions.

    "...As noted by others, the camera has some bugs that Nest needs to fix. Those are outlined below. I'm holding steady at 4-stars for now...." Read more

    "...would have preferred keeping the IQ for the features, but they don't work properly, probably can be fixed by firmware upgrades...." Read more

    "...to tell me what's going on when we're not there, but it's not consistent enough to trust...." Read more

    "...wi-fi, and yet Sightline is extremely slow to load and sometimes doesn't even work without having the restart the app...." Read more

    12 customers mention "Value"0 positive12 negative

    Customers are dissatisfied with the value of the security camera. They mention that the ongoing expense is quite expensive, and the camera is useless without an expensive subscription.

    "...Server farms are everywhere, and are cheap -- price is excessive, would be nice if Nest introduces a 5 day cloud service at a reduced rate ...." Read more

    "...No items for wall or ceiling mounting like other nestcams. The camera was expensive, if I can not mount it without getting creative with extra cost..." Read more

    "Fantastic camera, but it's a bit expensive, and the software needs some work. My biggest complaint is that it reports my cats as people...." Read more

    "...Camera is expensive for what it is, but if you use this to capture family memories that would otherwise be missed, the extra clarity is well worth..." Read more

    11 customers mention "Mounting"3 positive8 negative

    Customers are dissatisfied with the mounting of the security camera. They mention that it has a small field of view, no mounting hardware, and no items for wall or ceiling mounting. They also say that there is no hole in the base to feed the cable through for mounting. Customers also mention that the product lacks information about wall mount.

    "...from many of the same flaws as other Nest cameras in terms of limited mounting options and limited ability to adjust to viewed area...." Read more

    "...The camera base has a tripod mount screw but if you want to attach it to a wall or hang it upside down, you're out of luck from Nest...." Read more

    "As others mentioned, this does not come with wall mount hardware previous designs have. I'm using:1/4" -20 x 1-1/2" Hanger Bolts..." Read more

    "Doesn't include a wall mount and no hole in the base to feed the cable through for wall mounting...." Read more

    9 customers mention "Facial recognition"0 positive9 negative

    Customers are dissatisfied with the facial recognition feature of the security camera. They mention that the detection is not great yet, the feature has very limited usability, and there's no way to limit it to Activity Zones. Some customers also say that the people recognition feature never misses a person but frequently flags movement as being a man.

    "...* The people recognition feature never misses a person but frequently flags movement as being a person even though it is just the wind blowing a..." Read more

    "...Some faces seem not to be picked up - I have have visitors and don't necessarily see them in the recognition interface, not sure why...." Read more

    "...and zooming in on activity, this product at this time, fails to recognize anyone -- believe this to be a software issue that, in time, will be..." Read more

    "...Nest picks up faces on my TV. I watched one movie with a slow pan of a large crowd during a speech, focusing on dozens of faces...." Read more

    promising start, initial impressions
    5 Stars
    promising start, initial impressions
    UPDATE - 2 Months In------------------------------------Nest rolled out an update to improve the accuracy of people alerts. It works. Whereas I was getting dozens of alerts per day, I'm now getting zero false alerts: the only time it tells me that it sees a person is when there is actually a person. I'm very pleased with this improvement and am moving my rating up to 5-stars! Thanks for listening Nest!UPDATE - 1 Month In------------------------------------After 5 weeks of usage, I'm still holding steady with a 4-star rating for this camera. It doesn't work as well as it needs to but it works better than any other camera I've tried. And the areas where it is weakest are in areas that no other camera I've seen can even touch (identifying people, zooming in on motion, etc...)Things that have impressed me over the month:* It never disconnects. It has an excellent wifi capability* It always works (you can't take this for granted after using D-Link cameras!)* The Nest app always works and is easy to use* The online recording feature is extremely reliable: I can always go online and see what's been happeningThings that they still need to work on:* Despite the HDR capability being groundbreaking, the camera still underexposes faces of people walking to my front door, leaving them disguised.* The people recognition feature never misses a person but frequently flags movement as being a person even though it is just the wind blowing a tree limb, etc... This is so bad that I was forced to disable the motion activated notifications rather than being inundated with false notifications several dozen times per day.Despite the negatives, this is still better than 6-7 other camera systems I've tried (D-Link, TrendNet, TP-Link, Lorex, QSee). With the price having dropped from $300 to $225, I'm seriously considering buying a second one. Of course, that $50/year per extra camera makes me think twice about that! I'm hoping Nest rolls out major updates in the future so I can move this up to 5-stars.ORIGINAL------------------------------------This review encompasses my first impressions of the Nest Cam IQ. I bought this camera to look out a window by my front door so I can see when people come and go. This area was previously covered by a 720p D-Link IP camera (wired).As noted by others, the camera has some bugs that Nest needs to fix. Those are outlined below. I'm holding steady at 4-stars for now.First impressions:* You will NOT get the benefit of the 4K sensor if just watching video on your phone or computer. That's because the video stream being sent to your device is 1080p. Any zooming you might do on your phone is only able to zoom the 1080p video feed. It was a big disappointment for me but I think there's an opportunity here for the Nest folks to add a great feature that would allow your zoomed video to immediately show what the 4K sensor is capturing.* The HDR feature does a nice job. My camera is pointed at an area with shade but also some sky. The sky shows up blue and the shady areas are still light enough that you can see what's going on. I dare say that it provides an image that is almost as good as what I see with my bare eyes. It's still a bit dark for me in some cases: I'd rather over-expose the sky a bit if it meant I could get a better look at the face of the person walking up to my door. See the picture attached to my review: you can see the color of the leaves along with the bright blue sky. On a non-HDR camera, you'd see the leaves or the sky, but probably not both.* I found a concrete way to take advantage of the 4K sensor. From the nest.com website, you can go into the camera configuration and change the base zoom level. Effectively you can digitally zoom in to a level that you wish you could see clearly and then press a button that makes that particular zoom level the new default view seen by the camera. When you do this you receive a notification that the camera is about to "enhance" the video for this new view. Shortly thereafter the pixelation from the zoom goes away and you get a crisp new view centered on what you were zooming on. I was really impressed by this. You lose viewing angle but it gives you more flexibility to take advantage of the camera's sensor.* I turned off "motion" alerts and set the camera to only alert when it detects a person. Still, the camera sees "people" all the time. Dozens of times per day it will interrupt me to tell me that there is a person in front of my house. Of those times, maybe once or twice there will actually be people. A 70' pine tree in my neighbor's front yard seems to get identified as a person a lot.* When actual people do walk in front of my camera, it does zoom in like you see in the promotional video. It will track them as they walk from one side of my house to the other. It's pretty cool: like a ghost camera operator. This is also how I know that the camera thinks my neighbor's pine tree is a person: it keeps zooming in on the upper branches of said tree (dozens of times per day).* The 4K sensor is incredibly sensitive: it can practically see in the dark. I have night vision disabled because my camera is inside a window and the glass would reflect the IR LEDs, but even with no IR, a small porch light is sufficient to make my entire porch and most of my front yard visible. Even the night sky shows up as dark dark blue. It's impressive.* I'm surprised that Nest didn't bundle any way to mount this camera. The camera base has a tripod mount screw but if you want to attach it to a wall or hang it upside down, you're out of luck from Nest. This is a very strange omission if you ask me.* This camera supports 5G WIFI (IEEE 802.1ac). Because my camera is only about 25' from my wifi gateway, I went ahead and connected it via 5G to give it tons of bandwidth. I wouldn't have tried this if my gateway wasn't so close to my front door. So far it's working great over wifi.* The camera video is accessed through the Nest app on your phone or through your web browser on the nest.com website. Again, that feed is simply 1080p so in many ways, this camera will appear no better than the rest of the cameras on the market. The only way to benefit from the 4K sensor is when the Nest zoom automatically kicks in or when you reset the digital zoom base and let the camera "enhance" the video for that new setting.* The camera has no problem handling multiple simultaneous viewers. I had the nest.com website and was viewing the feed from my iPhone and suddenly my wife started telling me how great it looked on her phone: that was three simultaneous clients, very good!Other notes:* Nest gives you a free 1-month trial of their "Nest Aware" cloud service for uploading 10-day's worth of video to Nest's website. This essentially turns your camera into a full-blown security system.* The camera gets quite warm during operation. The ambient temperature 1" to the left of the camera is 77 degrees but the camera itself measures 120 degrees. I guess this is why Nest makes you click-through an agreement not to set your camera in the sun!* Nest is quite generous by providing a 10' power cord. My old D-Link also had a 10' power cord but newer D-Link cameras ship with ~6' cords.Bugs:* The camera itself has worked flawlessly at providing 1080p video, but the notification system is worse than my Ring doorbell.* A 70' pine tree across the street is frequently identified as a person (dozens of times per day).* Even though I turned off motion events, yesterday my camera reported 440 motion events.* Even though I had all notifications disabled for my wife's "family" account, she continued to receive dozens of emails from nest notifying on each of these motion events. I contacted Nest support and after 30 minutes online chatting, I was told "wait 24 hours for your change to take-effect". Sure enough, the next day, the e-mails stopped.I'll update the review as I have more time with the camera. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll do my best to help answer them.
    Thank you for your feedback
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    Top reviews from the United States

    Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2017
    UPDATE - 2 Months In
    ------------------------------------
    Nest rolled out an update to improve the accuracy of people alerts. It works. Whereas I was getting dozens of alerts per day, I'm now getting zero false alerts: the only time it tells me that it sees a person is when there is actually a person. I'm very pleased with this improvement and am moving my rating up to 5-stars! Thanks for listening Nest!

    UPDATE - 1 Month In
    ------------------------------------
    After 5 weeks of usage, I'm still holding steady with a 4-star rating for this camera. It doesn't work as well as it needs to but it works better than any other camera I've tried. And the areas where it is weakest are in areas that no other camera I've seen can even touch (identifying people, zooming in on motion, etc...)

    Things that have impressed me over the month:
    * It never disconnects. It has an excellent wifi capability
    * It always works (you can't take this for granted after using D-Link cameras!)
    * The Nest app always works and is easy to use
    * The online recording feature is extremely reliable: I can always go online and see what's been happening

    Things that they still need to work on:
    * Despite the HDR capability being groundbreaking, the camera still underexposes faces of people walking to my front door, leaving them disguised.
    * The people recognition feature never misses a person but frequently flags movement as being a person even though it is just the wind blowing a tree limb, etc... This is so bad that I was forced to disable the motion activated notifications rather than being inundated with false notifications several dozen times per day.

    Despite the negatives, this is still better than 6-7 other camera systems I've tried (D-Link, TrendNet, TP-Link, Lorex, QSee). With the price having dropped from $300 to $225, I'm seriously considering buying a second one. Of course, that $50/year per extra camera makes me think twice about that! I'm hoping Nest rolls out major updates in the future so I can move this up to 5-stars.

    ORIGINAL
    ------------------------------------
    This review encompasses my first impressions of the Nest Cam IQ. I bought this camera to look out a window by my front door so I can see when people come and go. This area was previously covered by a 720p D-Link IP camera (wired).

    As noted by others, the camera has some bugs that Nest needs to fix. Those are outlined below. I'm holding steady at 4-stars for now.

    First impressions:
    * You will NOT get the benefit of the 4K sensor if just watching video on your phone or computer. That's because the video stream being sent to your device is 1080p. Any zooming you might do on your phone is only able to zoom the 1080p video feed. It was a big disappointment for me but I think there's an opportunity here for the Nest folks to add a great feature that would allow your zoomed video to immediately show what the 4K sensor is capturing.

    * The HDR feature does a nice job. My camera is pointed at an area with shade but also some sky. The sky shows up blue and the shady areas are still light enough that you can see what's going on. I dare say that it provides an image that is almost as good as what I see with my bare eyes. It's still a bit dark for me in some cases: I'd rather over-expose the sky a bit if it meant I could get a better look at the face of the person walking up to my door. See the picture attached to my review: you can see the color of the leaves along with the bright blue sky. On a non-HDR camera, you'd see the leaves or the sky, but probably not both.

    * I found a concrete way to take advantage of the 4K sensor. From the nest.com website, you can go into the camera configuration and change the base zoom level. Effectively you can digitally zoom in to a level that you wish you could see clearly and then press a button that makes that particular zoom level the new default view seen by the camera. When you do this you receive a notification that the camera is about to "enhance" the video for this new view. Shortly thereafter the pixelation from the zoom goes away and you get a crisp new view centered on what you were zooming on. I was really impressed by this. You lose viewing angle but it gives you more flexibility to take advantage of the camera's sensor.

    * I turned off "motion" alerts and set the camera to only alert when it detects a person. Still, the camera sees "people" all the time. Dozens of times per day it will interrupt me to tell me that there is a person in front of my house. Of those times, maybe once or twice there will actually be people. A 70' pine tree in my neighbor's front yard seems to get identified as a person a lot.

    * When actual people do walk in front of my camera, it does zoom in like you see in the promotional video. It will track them as they walk from one side of my house to the other. It's pretty cool: like a ghost camera operator. This is also how I know that the camera thinks my neighbor's pine tree is a person: it keeps zooming in on the upper branches of said tree (dozens of times per day).

    * The 4K sensor is incredibly sensitive: it can practically see in the dark. I have night vision disabled because my camera is inside a window and the glass would reflect the IR LEDs, but even with no IR, a small porch light is sufficient to make my entire porch and most of my front yard visible. Even the night sky shows up as dark dark blue. It's impressive.

    * I'm surprised that Nest didn't bundle any way to mount this camera. The camera base has a tripod mount screw but if you want to attach it to a wall or hang it upside down, you're out of luck from Nest. This is a very strange omission if you ask me.

    * This camera supports 5G WIFI (IEEE 802.1ac). Because my camera is only about 25' from my wifi gateway, I went ahead and connected it via 5G to give it tons of bandwidth. I wouldn't have tried this if my gateway wasn't so close to my front door. So far it's working great over wifi.

    * The camera video is accessed through the Nest app on your phone or through your web browser on the nest.com website. Again, that feed is simply 1080p so in many ways, this camera will appear no better than the rest of the cameras on the market. The only way to benefit from the 4K sensor is when the Nest zoom automatically kicks in or when you reset the digital zoom base and let the camera "enhance" the video for that new setting.

    * The camera has no problem handling multiple simultaneous viewers. I had the nest.com website and was viewing the feed from my iPhone and suddenly my wife started telling me how great it looked on her phone: that was three simultaneous clients, very good!

    Other notes:
    * Nest gives you a free 1-month trial of their "Nest Aware" cloud service for uploading 10-day's worth of video to Nest's website. This essentially turns your camera into a full-blown security system.

    * The camera gets quite warm during operation. The ambient temperature 1" to the left of the camera is 77 degrees but the camera itself measures 120 degrees. I guess this is why Nest makes you click-through an agreement not to set your camera in the sun!

    * Nest is quite generous by providing a 10' power cord. My old D-Link also had a 10' power cord but newer D-Link cameras ship with ~6' cords.

    Bugs:
    * The camera itself has worked flawlessly at providing 1080p video, but the notification system is worse than my Ring doorbell.

    * A 70' pine tree across the street is frequently identified as a person (dozens of times per day).

    * Even though I turned off motion events, yesterday my camera reported 440 motion events.

    * Even though I had all notifications disabled for my wife's "family" account, she continued to receive dozens of emails from nest notifying on each of these motion events. I contacted Nest support and after 30 minutes online chatting, I was told "wait 24 hours for your change to take-effect". Sure enough, the next day, the e-mails stopped.

    I'll update the review as I have more time with the camera. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll do my best to help answer them.
    Customer image
    5.0 out of 5 stars promising start, initial impressions
    Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2017
    UPDATE - 2 Months In
    ------------------------------------
    Nest rolled out an update to improve the accuracy of people alerts. It works. Whereas I was getting dozens of alerts per day, I'm now getting zero false alerts: the only time it tells me that it sees a person is when there is actually a person. I'm very pleased with this improvement and am moving my rating up to 5-stars! Thanks for listening Nest!

    UPDATE - 1 Month In
    ------------------------------------
    After 5 weeks of usage, I'm still holding steady with a 4-star rating for this camera. It doesn't work as well as it needs to but it works better than any other camera I've tried. And the areas where it is weakest are in areas that no other camera I've seen can even touch (identifying people, zooming in on motion, etc...)

    Things that have impressed me over the month:
    * It never disconnects. It has an excellent wifi capability
    * It always works (you can't take this for granted after using D-Link cameras!)
    * The Nest app always works and is easy to use
    * The online recording feature is extremely reliable: I can always go online and see what's been happening

    Things that they still need to work on:
    * Despite the HDR capability being groundbreaking, the camera still underexposes faces of people walking to my front door, leaving them disguised.
    * The people recognition feature never misses a person but frequently flags movement as being a person even though it is just the wind blowing a tree limb, etc... This is so bad that I was forced to disable the motion activated notifications rather than being inundated with false notifications several dozen times per day.

    Despite the negatives, this is still better than 6-7 other camera systems I've tried (D-Link, TrendNet, TP-Link, Lorex, QSee). With the price having dropped from $300 to $225, I'm seriously considering buying a second one. Of course, that $50/year per extra camera makes me think twice about that! I'm hoping Nest rolls out major updates in the future so I can move this up to 5-stars.

    ORIGINAL
    ------------------------------------
    This review encompasses my first impressions of the Nest Cam IQ. I bought this camera to look out a window by my front door so I can see when people come and go. This area was previously covered by a 720p D-Link IP camera (wired).

    As noted by others, the camera has some bugs that Nest needs to fix. Those are outlined below. I'm holding steady at 4-stars for now.

    First impressions:
    * You will NOT get the benefit of the 4K sensor if just watching video on your phone or computer. That's because the video stream being sent to your device is 1080p. Any zooming you might do on your phone is only able to zoom the 1080p video feed. It was a big disappointment for me but I think there's an opportunity here for the Nest folks to add a great feature that would allow your zoomed video to immediately show what the 4K sensor is capturing.

    * The HDR feature does a nice job. My camera is pointed at an area with shade but also some sky. The sky shows up blue and the shady areas are still light enough that you can see what's going on. I dare say that it provides an image that is almost as good as what I see with my bare eyes. It's still a bit dark for me in some cases: I'd rather over-expose the sky a bit if it meant I could get a better look at the face of the person walking up to my door. See the picture attached to my review: you can see the color of the leaves along with the bright blue sky. On a non-HDR camera, you'd see the leaves or the sky, but probably not both.

    * I found a concrete way to take advantage of the 4K sensor. From the nest.com website, you can go into the camera configuration and change the base zoom level. Effectively you can digitally zoom in to a level that you wish you could see clearly and then press a button that makes that particular zoom level the new default view seen by the camera. When you do this you receive a notification that the camera is about to "enhance" the video for this new view. Shortly thereafter the pixelation from the zoom goes away and you get a crisp new view centered on what you were zooming on. I was really impressed by this. You lose viewing angle but it gives you more flexibility to take advantage of the camera's sensor.

    * I turned off "motion" alerts and set the camera to only alert when it detects a person. Still, the camera sees "people" all the time. Dozens of times per day it will interrupt me to tell me that there is a person in front of my house. Of those times, maybe once or twice there will actually be people. A 70' pine tree in my neighbor's front yard seems to get identified as a person a lot.

    * When actual people do walk in front of my camera, it does zoom in like you see in the promotional video. It will track them as they walk from one side of my house to the other. It's pretty cool: like a ghost camera operator. This is also how I know that the camera thinks my neighbor's pine tree is a person: it keeps zooming in on the upper branches of said tree (dozens of times per day).

    * The 4K sensor is incredibly sensitive: it can practically see in the dark. I have night vision disabled because my camera is inside a window and the glass would reflect the IR LEDs, but even with no IR, a small porch light is sufficient to make my entire porch and most of my front yard visible. Even the night sky shows up as dark dark blue. It's impressive.

    * I'm surprised that Nest didn't bundle any way to mount this camera. The camera base has a tripod mount screw but if you want to attach it to a wall or hang it upside down, you're out of luck from Nest. This is a very strange omission if you ask me.

    * This camera supports 5G WIFI (IEEE 802.1ac). Because my camera is only about 25' from my wifi gateway, I went ahead and connected it via 5G to give it tons of bandwidth. I wouldn't have tried this if my gateway wasn't so close to my front door. So far it's working great over wifi.

    * The camera video is accessed through the Nest app on your phone or through your web browser on the nest.com website. Again, that feed is simply 1080p so in many ways, this camera will appear no better than the rest of the cameras on the market. The only way to benefit from the 4K sensor is when the Nest zoom automatically kicks in or when you reset the digital zoom base and let the camera "enhance" the video for that new setting.

    * The camera has no problem handling multiple simultaneous viewers. I had the nest.com website and was viewing the feed from my iPhone and suddenly my wife started telling me how great it looked on her phone: that was three simultaneous clients, very good!

    Other notes:
    * Nest gives you a free 1-month trial of their "Nest Aware" cloud service for uploading 10-day's worth of video to Nest's website. This essentially turns your camera into a full-blown security system.

    * The camera gets quite warm during operation. The ambient temperature 1" to the left of the camera is 77 degrees but the camera itself measures 120 degrees. I guess this is why Nest makes you click-through an agreement not to set your camera in the sun!

    * Nest is quite generous by providing a 10' power cord. My old D-Link also had a 10' power cord but newer D-Link cameras ship with ~6' cords.

    Bugs:
    * The camera itself has worked flawlessly at providing 1080p video, but the notification system is worse than my Ring doorbell.

    * A 70' pine tree across the street is frequently identified as a person (dozens of times per day).

    * Even though I turned off motion events, yesterday my camera reported 440 motion events.

    * Even though I had all notifications disabled for my wife's "family" account, she continued to receive dozens of emails from nest notifying on each of these motion events. I contacted Nest support and after 30 minutes online chatting, I was told "wait 24 hours for your change to take-effect". Sure enough, the next day, the e-mails stopped.

    I'll update the review as I have more time with the camera. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll do my best to help answer them.
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    Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2017
    I just want to put my own review and some of the others as well into context as this is an excellent product already, which, yes, I am sure will continue to be improved over time with software updates. I have installed and used analog and other IP security cameras previously however have not sampled all of the current offerings on the market. I have 3 of the Nest Cam IQ's installed in my house and 4 of the Nest Outdoor cams installed outside at this point for about a month (these comments address only the Nest Cam IQs). I also did install 4 Nest Protects.

    Pro's:
    - Installs and configures INCREDIBLY EASILY. I can't understate this as you won't have to fool with network protocols, complicated configurations, etc. INCLUDING that I am running Google Wifi behind my Verizon FIOS router, so all my IPs are local to the google wifi. I had no issues with DDNS, no calls to Verizon to determine how to configure their router to get the video outside my house, no port mapping, etc. Just scan the QRC, add the camera to your account, and you are up and running.
    - Very high quality video day and night. Very impressive, including that bright lights do not kill the picture. The 950nm lights for night are invisible to the human eye, so no red glow around the camera at night to either call it out or to make it look ugly. The 4k sensor that can permanently zoom on an area and still deliver 1080p is an excellent feature. (the sensor also enables the person tracking at high quality while continuing to record a 1080p stream of the full camera shot)
    - Minimal fish eye for 130 degrees of coverage - this hasn't been discussed much, but that the view is not fish-eyed and I can see 130 degrees of coverage is amazing to me. Video is barely distorted over the full field of view - impressive
    - Very good audio coverage - I've found the audio recording to be crisp and clear, and love that sensitivity is adjustable.
    - Full video is recorded, and is immediately stored off-site, and recording plan are based on # of days, not gigs required to store. There's no DVR that can be damaged on-site with recording lost due to fire, theft, etc - if it happened, I have it recorded up until the second the camera was unplugged, damaged, etc. And, I don't have to worry about replacing failed hard drives, checking for parity errors, etc - that becomes Google's problem (especially if you were running a DVR locally without RAID and had a hard drive failure). Having the full recording (e.g. not just for movement) is outstanding, and I don't have to figure out how much storage I want to pay for .. I can set the bandwidth based on technical limitations and not have to constantly calculate my storage / cost. And if I set it to high, it does not cost me more.
    - Timeline scrubbing and clip creation in the app .. this is outstanding and I haven't seen it executed that well elsewhere. Simple to use and works so great - easy to find anything I want, and then create a clip. It's beauty in simplicity.
    - Home screen view in the app - shows all cameras at once - is a control room in my pocket (esp. including Protect). I don't have to be home on a PC, don't have to log in to a web page, etc .. it's there whenever I want it in my pocket.
    - Notification features - outstanding that I can set them for each user.
    - Feature control - love that I can turn the tally light on / off, set timing of camera on / off, that home / away can be detected based on our phone locations, turn audio on / off, chime on / off, etc.
    - Protect integration - I love that the protects will turn on the cameras if off and create clips in the event of an incident.
    - day / night modes - I love that it doesn't flip back and forth at dusk / dawn.
    - Nest aware trial extends when you add another camera - not a decision-making point, but when you add cameras during your trial period, the whole trial for all cameras seems to extend to the latest date of your newest camera. Nice touch and indicative of the thought going in to this product & service.
    - Design & quality - I think the HW design team did a really nice job making this device look as good as it does, and the quality appears to be excellent, including that the shape of the USB power cord fits perfectly into the base without any gaps.

    Considerations:
    - Price - these aren't cheap to buy or run. I happen to get outstanding value out of them so for me is highly worth it and the quality of the HW and service are excellent. But, if you want to assembly a DIY solution, you could for less. One thing I would like to see is a volume discount when the # of cameras gets to be a certain level, however that is included past the first camera (half for account setup / maint. and the other half for storage on the first camera, then only storage on the others) and theoretically, you are still using storage with each incremental camera. however some incentive at a certain point would sure be nice.
    - Needs a zone where facial recognition should not happen - on my TV, so that I don't have to tell Nest that I don't know all of those faces I see on TV. I suppose if I turn off facial recognition on the TV, my loss if someone I do want to recognize walks in front of the TV.
    - Some faces seem not to be picked up - I have have visitors and don't necessarily see them in the recognition interface, not sure why. not a huge problem in my case.
    - Needs a way to turn on person alerts when I am sleeping. Nest has home / away, but not awake / asleep, and I don't want to have to set a schedule for sleeping in the app. My samsung knows when I sleep b/c I'm not using the phone in the same way.
    - Horizontal surface mounting. This has gotten a bit of discussion and doesn't bother me. The cam wants to sit on a table or shelf, and not mount on a wall or ceiling. Not sure if there are any software considerations here (e.g. that the camera doesn't have enough CPU to flip the image upside down and recognize faces, etc). From a 'design aesthetic' I am ok with this - e.g. promoting the camera as an acceptable device in the home, like a TV, not an institutional spying device in the corner of a room. It would actually look ok on a wall or a ceiling (kind of like a light might). Given that the power to the camera passes through the base, the base cannot be removed, so using an extension to mount it on the wall would look really goofy. Someone clever should make a 3D printed round disc sleeve that can screw to the wall and then the base would slide in.
    - Network bandwidth - you are sending a lot of video out of our home (for many cameras). For now, no incremental network charges and my wifi can handle everything easily, but you do need to be aware of this need.

    Overall I think these are fantastic ..
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    Manuel NR
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente camara
    Reviewed in Mexico on September 18, 2017
    Buen producto, requiere una conexión a internet estable y buena velocidad si requieres las imagenes en alta definición, en la detección de rostros aun por mejorar ya que repite en algunos casos los mismos, si funciona en mexico pese a no haberse presentado oficialmente el modelo aun.
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