Google Nest 2nd Generation Video Monitor Review

Google Indoor Nest

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The Google Nest Indoor 2nd Generation Camera is a decent security camera monitor with a few things we didn’t love.

Google Nest Products

Google offers dozens of products and is a trusted household name brand. Among their camera products are battery cameras, such as the Google Nest Outdoor or Indoory, Battery.

They also offer cameras with floodlights, like the Google Nest Outdoor Floodlight Camera

The Google Nest Camera 2nd Generation falls under Google’s wired category of cameras.

There are several other Google Nest products as well, such as the Google Nest Doorbell, the Google Nest x Yale Lock, and the Google Nest Protect Smoke Alarm. This is similar to eufy products, which also offer doorbell, lock, and security camera options.

How it Compares:

Testing and Research

The Google Nest Camera 2nd Generation is one of sixteen highly ranked travel-friendly baby monitors we purchased to test and compare. We tested each of them on their battery quality, features, audio and video, usability, and range to see which was the best product overall.

Much like the Owlet Cam Video Monitor and the Wyze Cam v3, the Google Nest Cam is has some disadvantages when testing. Since it does not come with its own parent unit, but rather connects directly to an app on your smartphone, we could not perform some of our standard tests. This is the main reason behind lower scores in the battery and range categories.

Common Complaints

While testing our baby monitors, we read the critical reviews for all of the products to compare them to our experience in testing. Some things we agreed with, while others we did not.

Customer Complaint	Our Experience
Night Vision Won’t Turn Off	We did have a little trouble switching from night vision back to day
Night Vision Poor	We felt that the night vision quality was good
Bad Resolution	We thought the resolution was very good
Subscription Required	A free subscription is required, but paid subscriptions are optional
Top Heavy	The camera is pretty heavy and could tip over easily

Related Reading: Owlet Cam Review

Features

In order to access all of the Google Nest Camera 2nd Generation features, you will need a paid Nest Aware Subscription. There are two tiers to the Nest Aware subscription: the Nest Aware and the Nest Aware Plus. The subscriptions can be applied to multiple devices, such as The Google Nest Doorbell, cameras, speakers, and displays. We did not pay for a subscription and found we had all that we needed for our testing process, but you will want to explore the benefits of the Nest Aware and Nest Aware Plus subscriptions to see if one is better for your needs.

However, there are some features included in the free version of the Nest Aware Subscription. The camera does offer a two-way conversation option, which we like. You can also add your personal routines to the app, which helps customize your devices to perform certain ways at certain times.

The monitor does require WiFi, and while we prefer monitors that are WiFi-free, there is a nice features for the camera if your internet does happen to go down. The monitor can record up to an hour in its local memory if the internet crashes, giving you some peace of mind if using the camera for security, or if your baby is with a sitter and you want to be able to see how long they sleep.

The Nest Cam does have built in intelligence which can differentiate between people, vehicles, and animals, and can send those alerts directly to your Google Home device.

With no paid subscription, you can check your video history three hours back. With the Nest Aware subscription, you can access 30 days of video history and with Nest Aware Plus, 60 days of video history. The extended video history may not be necessary if you are only using the camera as a baby monitor, unless you plan on using it to track sleep data.

The Google Nest Camera did have one of the lowest EMF emissions of all the monitors that we tested:

Though we don’t know of any specific guidelines related to EMF emissions, there has been some research done on the topic.

Usability

The Google Nest 2nd Generation had a decent usability score. The first time we tried to set it up, there was a site outage that we didn’t discover until later, so we spent nearly an hour fighting with the app to try to get things set up. However, once the outage was over, the setup process only took about five minutes. This particular camera is for indoor use only.

Something a little confusing about this camera is that it can only link to the Google Home App – it will not connect to the Nest App, despite being a Google Nest Camera. This was a frequent complaint we noted in the critical reviews.

The Google Home App itself is pretty easy to navigate, though we did feel that the Owlet Cam and the Wyze Cam v3 apps were a little easier to use.

You can customize your notifications, from account notifications to your camera notifications, to even WiFi notifications.

The camera can be set on a flat surface or mounted with included mounting gear. The camera itself does feel a little top heavy, and the cord is pretty long, so you’ll want to make sure it is out of reach of baby so they don’t pull it down on themselves.

Here’s how the Google Nest Cam scored among other monitors in ease of navigation:

The Google Nest Cam does not offer a pan/tilt/zoom feature. There are zoom capabilities within the Google Home App, but all tilt adjustments must be made by hand on the camera.

Here’s how the Google Nest scored in the usability category:

Range

As with the Wyze Cam v3 and the Owlet Cam, range testing wasn’t feasible for the Google Nest Cam since it uses WiFi. As long as your WiFi stays connected to the camera, you should be able to access the live feed from your smart device anytime, anywhere.

We generally prefer a standard style, non-WiFi baby monitor that includes a separate parent unit. However, we do like the flexibility that this type of camera can provide. These styles of monitor are nice if you have an older child that doesn’t need as close monitoring or you want to check in on your little one via your smart device while they’re with a babysitter or relative.

Video

The Google Nest Cam has 1080P resolution, and overall we were pleased with the clarity of the image. We didn’t notice much color distortion at all.

The night vision quality was also great, very clear and easy to see a lot of detail without an awkward white balance. The only thing we didn’t love about the night vision was that it was a little tough to get it to switch back to day mode. We had to turn on extra lights just to get it to switch back.

Here’s how the Nest Cam’s night vision scored among other monitors:

The screen size is dependent on the device you are connected to on the app.

We didn’t notice any glitching in the app, and there really wasn’t much of a delay in the audio and video. This was nice, especially compared to the Owlet Cam Video Monitor, had, which had a fairly significant delay.

Here is how the Google Nest Cam ranked overall in our video testing:

Sound

The sound quality of the Google Nest 2nd Generation was pretty decent. It had a good decibel range between its highest and lowest volumes.

Here are the max decibels the Nest Cam hit in our high volume static sound testing:

And here are the max decibels the Nest Cam hit in our low volume static sound testing:

When we played music near the monitor, we could still hear baby noise at varying levels very clearly. There is a little bit of static background noise that you can hear over the monitor, but nothing terrible.

The camera does include noise cancellation to help filter out unwanted background noise.

The two-way audio feature is pretty clear, with just a little bit of fuzziness. It does make a chiming noise when you push the button to talk, which can be handy for an alert on a security camera, but is a little annoying when you use it for a monitor.

Battery Life

Battery life was another category that we really couldn’t measure when testing the Nest Cam due to the parent unit being your personal smart device.

However, in order to maximize your device’s battery life while using the camera, you may want to keep apps that you aren’t actively using closed and avoid using your device unless it is necessary.

Baby Monitor Security

One reason that we prefer non-WiFi monitors is for security. Generally speaking, it can be harder to hack a baby monitor that is not connected to the internet. However, Google does have extra features added to their WiFi cameras to prevent hacking.

For the Google Nest 2nd Generation, they require a two-step verification to access the camera, and include video encryption to protect important data and make hacking much more difficult.

Should You Purchase the Google Nest 2nd Generation Cam?

The Google Nest 2nd Generation Cam is a pretty good camera, but it has some quirks.

The camera itself is pretty expensive, and for being an indoor-only camera, we wish a few things were different. We wish that it was wireless or at least came with cable guards, like the Owlet Cam does. We also would like for the camera to be a little lighter, as it’s pretty top heavy and can easily tip over.

The app itself is alright and can accommodate multiple devices, even beyond cameras. We would like it if the app was a little more user-friendly.

If you are looking for a basic baby monitor just to keep an eye on baby while they sleep, there are more basic and straightforward models of baby monitor on the market.

Google is a household name brand, which we do like. With Google comes a certain standard of quality that we have all come to expect, and we do think that the Google Nest 2nd Generation Cam does hold to this standard overall. It is not a perfect piece of equipment, and we think you could find something a little more baby friendly if you are using it for a monitor, but overall, we do feel that it is a good piece of gear.