Google is updating its Nest range with three new products and a refresh for the wired Nest Cam for indoor use. Newcomers include the first battery-powered Nest Cam and Google’s doorbell, according to a recent leak. You can install them practically anywhere in your home and plug them into a wired power source when needed.
Battery life depends on how many recorded events the devices recognize and factors such as temperature and settings. According to Google, the doorbell battery will last up to six months on a single charge, while the Nest Cam can run for up to seven months before you have to juicing it. You can charge the doorbell via USB-C and the camera with an included USB-A adapter.
The doorbell records videos with a resolution of 989 x 1280 pixels at up to 30 frames per second. It has a 6x digital zoom, a diagonal field of view of 145 degrees and, thanks to its night vision functions, can see up to 3 meters in the dark. It also has a 3: 4 field of view so you can have a head-to-toe look at anyone who shows up at your door.
The Nest Cam can record video in 1080p at up to 30 fps. The device has a diagonal field of view of 130 degrees, a 6x digital zoom and night vision that can see objects at a distance of up to 6 meters. It also has an IP54 rating for weather resistance. Not only can you mount the camera outdoors, you can also set it up indoors.
Both products, made from recycled materials, offer up to three hours of event video history. You can increase that with a Nest Aware subscription. Like some other Nest cameras, the battery-powered Nest Cam provides 24/7 video recording with a Nest Aware Plus subscription, but you must plug it into a continuous power source.
The company is also offering a Nest Cam with integrated floodlights for the first time. What all four devices have in common is that they only draw your attention to important events. They all have machine learning capabilities on the device to recognize and alert people, animals and vehicles. The doorbell can detect and recognize packages that are up to 8 inches from your door. According to Google, you don’t need a subscription to use these features and have trained the machine learning model on 40 million images to accommodate a wide variety of environments and lighting conditions.
The devices also offer a known face recognition feature for Nest Aware subscribers. You can decide who to recognize.
The processing capabilities on the device allow the doorbell and cameras to store up to an hour of video events locally if the power or WiFi goes down. These are roughly the events of a week, depending on the activity in your home. When everything is up and running again, these events will be uploaded to the cloud.
As you’d expect, the cameras and doorbell work with the Google Home app and other Google products like Nest displays. Google also says the Nest camera data is encrypted.
The battery-powered Nest Cam and doorbell (which cost $ 180 each) are available for pre-order today in 18 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. They will be available in these countries on August 24th, two days later in Japan, and later this year in Mexico. The Floodlit Nest Cam ($ 280) and the second generation wired Nest Cam ($ 100) will be available soon.
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