Advertisement

Nest's home monitoring camera is a sleeker Dropcam

In one of the worst kept secrets in recent history, Nest revealed its new Nest Cam wireless camera. It borrows heavily from Dropcam, a recent Nest acquisition, but has a thinner profile. The new camera shoots 1080p video, is slimmer than the Dropcam and has a new magnetic base with a tripod mount. It also sports better night vision with eight built-in infrared LEDs and improved algorithms. Like its predecessor, the Nest Cam and companion service includes live video streams to mobile devices and a CDR (Cloud video Recording) service that records up to 30 days of footage via Nest Aware. The camera is available for order today for $199. It will ship next week in the US, and in early July in the UK, where it'll be priced at £159. The Nest Aware subscription will cost $10 a month (or £8 in the UK) for the first camera and half that for each additional one for 10 days of video playback history. For 30 days of playback, it's $30 (£24) for the first camera and half that again for every extra lens.

Nest also introduced an updated app for iOS and Android. It has a new home screen that gives a quick overview of what's going on in your home from the company's three devices. If there's ever an issue, the green ring that surrounds the home icon changes to yellow then red when something is wrong. It also pairs Nest devices in a room. for example, if a Nest Protect sounds an alarm in a room that also houses a Nest Cam, a camera button is available in the Protect portion of the app to see what's going on. If there is a a Protect alarm, the app also records an emergency clip without a users needing a Nest Aware subscription.

The app also works with both the Dropcam and the new Nest Cam. It has quick buttons for listening and talk back, Enhance to zoom in on portions of a video, and access to the history recorded footage. users can also keep track of their Nest devices via a browser. The new Nest app is available today.