back to article Thermostat biz Nest warms to home security, touts cam with cloud storage subscription

Nest has launched its first new product in several years: an outdoor surveillance camera. The Nest Cam Outdoor is effectively a rebuild of its existing Nest Cam designed for the outside. We had an early peek at it and came away with the sense that the company once famed for reinventing the thermostat has found at least some of …

  1. Mark 85

    Cloud storage which raises dumb question...

    Can any of the video be downloaded or is it cloud accessible only? If it can't be downloaded than it's usefulness is limited as far as using the video if a crime is committed.

    Probably a dumb question, but given the way corporates are operating, I thought I'd ask.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cloud storage which raises dumb question...

      You can download clips, not all 10/30 days worth (at least not natively).

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Cloud storage which raises dumb question...

        Thanks for the answer.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Cloud storage which raises dumb question...

        "You can download clips, not all 10/30 days worth"

        That's an interesting take on how Nest treat the owners data. That makes them a company I will never do business with.

  2. Kevin Fairhurst

    Plugged in outside?

    All you need to do is cover your face while you unplug it, wait five minutes, and then rip it off the wall. And the owner pays a premium subscription for this shit?

    1. VinceH

      Re: Plugged in outside?

      Not only that - but it's held onto its base plate by a magnet, so the ripping it off the wall part is easier than other cameras.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Plugged in outside?

        "Not only that - but it's held onto its base plate by a magnet, so the ripping it off the wall part is easier than other cameras."

        If it's easily accessible to an opportunist crim, it's not been sited correctly.

        Having said that, I can't think of anywhere on my property I cold attach a mag mount camera without having to climb up a ladder and install a mounting plate first. I can do that for a standard mount too, so mag mount is a minor feature anyway unless you want to install multiple mounting plates and move the camera regularly.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing to see here, move along.. (gingerly)

    The whole cloud kerfuffle with Nest is nothing new; this is just a more robust outdoor version of the Dropcam which they took over a couple of years ago and has only ever been available on the cloud subscription model.

    I have a dozen of the indoor ones deployed at work; they're very good. Excellent zoom, voice feedback, customizable alert zones and times. Just very expensive to operate which is why I never bought any for my home.

  4. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    I get the same using a razzie for 1/3 of the price

    Razzie running motion + one of ELP camera modules does the same job. For about 50£ which nowdays is very close to 60$. Writing the python scripts to move pics off to the NAS in a reliable manner took about an hour (covering all possible faults and use cases).

    Paying 200 bucks for this and giving the images to Google to monetize? Bugger this with a chainsaw sidewize.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another Non Starter from the Headless Turkeys of home automation.

    My roommate has a Nest thermostat. While it is an example of clean industrial design, it's clear they are lacking any real vision for how their products actually operate. My room mates turned on a feature where the power company can dump the AC to reduce load on the grid during power alerts. I caught it turning ON the AC when it wasn't needed, and running up the electric bill when we weren't home.

    The IP camera market is ripe for invasion, and at first glance their hardware team has hit the basics pretty well. They throw it all away at the starting line by delivering a product that only suits THEIR needs, not the users. While the prospect of monthly user fees may be attractive to them and their bottom line, their implementation fails to meet the most trivial requirements of a video security system.

    As other posters have pointed out their offering lacks support for local storage, so if your internet connection is down, it fails. If the power goes down, it fails. If their cloud storage is unavailable, it fails.

    Adding a local storage hub would allow the system to provide weeks or months of footage from multiple cameras, without resorting to mickey mouse "record on motion" nonsense. As someone who has had to wrangle a few security DVRs, these schemes always leave the owner in a hole. The disjointed clips may indicate when someone showed up, but when the owner tries to figure out where they came from, or what they did, they find that it's not in the clip. You need to record everything the camera sees for at least a few days, and just use motion/face triggers as a time stamp to look at. And great, even if they are using Google's cloud powered video face recognition, what happens when one of your neighbors pets takes to "scent marking" your doorstep? Too bad, the cameras were looking for people and didn't save the footage.

    It's a shame, because with their existing app and infrastructure you could have a really clean system that automatically shut down your interior cameras when you get home, let you check on things from offsite, and archived your footage in case someone breaks in and steals the on site hardware. (Bonus points for a "find my Nest Cam" feature if someone re-activates a stolen camera.

    Nest built it's reputation on building not just a connected home, but one that was integrated, intelligent, and sleek. It's proven itself to be a one hit wonder. Their management has been running around like a headless turkey doing a bad impression of M.S. from the Office.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Another Non Starter from the Headless Turkeys of home automation.

      > Nest built it's reputation

      Don't forget, it's no longer Nest, who did indeed have a vision and a roadmap. This is now Google, who just doesn't seem to give a damn any more.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Another Non Starter from the Headless Turkeys of home automation.

        ""This is now Google, who just doesn't seem to give a damn any more.""

        Oh, but they do! They'll now have excellent reconnoissance on the activity at your home. If you have a Nest Thermostat, they can monitor the heat load and make estimates about the number of people at home and their schedules. The more poorly secured IoT you put in your house, the better it is for Big Data to add to your file. I think what you meant to say was they don't seem to give a damn about you.

        Their original slogan was "Do no evil" but, they've since go to the black and started cackling. It's time to smash through their gingerbread house and shove them in the oven.

  6. Graham Cobb Silver badge

    Does it register with the Information Commissioner’s Office?

    Two questions:

    1) Is it secure or can hackers watch it like with most internet-connected cameras?

    2) Does it come with automatic registration with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a CCTV operator? And does Nest handle Subject Access Requests to allow people to see the CCTV images you record of them?

    1. Swarthy

      Re: Does it register with the Information Commissioner’s Office?

      Third question:

      Does it become a useless lump when Google/Nest get bored and turn off the servers?

  7. Bob Rocket

    Nest :- neither fish nor fowl

    No commercial service grade devices for managed security cameras (which is what the monthly fee should be for ).

    Product range too limited in scope and functionality for the premium domestic market (no burglar alarm, garage door opener or generally handy stuff that is easy and seamless to use ?)

    Too expensive for the hobby community to get involved who are doing way more advanced stuff with Pi's/Arduinos etc.

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No visor? Birdshit and rain just trickle down over the lens?

    Let alone the inanity of the magnet fixture - how many sites have a flat ferrous chunk in just the right place? Not yours, so you'll be bolting the optional steel bracket to your wall rather than bolting the camera instead (which would have at least slowed down the chav who steals it later the same week)

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: No visor? Birdshit and rain just trickle down over the lens?

      You forgot glare from the sun or streetlights at night.

      Bare lens in a rounded housing without a visor in an outdoor camera. Yeah, right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No visor? Birdshit and rain just trickle down over the lens?

        Right you are - the more you look, the worse it looks. It's almost as if Nest are becoming the litmus paper for bad notions.

  10. Timo

    Can't tell if the subscription is good or bad for vendor motivation

    At some point a subscription for Nest seems like it could be a powerful carrot - if they stop the service then they're also going to give up that revenue stream. If they sell product with "lifetime service" then they're on the hook to provide the service but with not much future revenue from that initial sale (cue the upgrade offers, etc.)

    On the other hand, this "XaaS" model will be very closely watched by the beancounters and by the top manglement as they probably made some commitment that this is where their growth is going to come from. If the number of subscriptions don't ramp up fast enough to cover the costs then there is going to be a lot of pressure to make adjustments - raise prices, reduce service/capacity, or drop it completely.

    But then again, Google makes loads of money and this is really just a side project. They could get bored and bin the whole thing on a whim. That seems like the real risk here.

  11. Christian Berger

    So it's a twofold business model

    Sell the data off to the best bidder _AND_ ransom some money from the people buying it so it'll keep working. Smart idea!

    I know this is primarily marketed to dumb people, but this affects us all. Those cameras will be installed in public places and their data will be stored on servers belonging to companies who are good at extracting information from data like this. So in the end, we'll end up with a dataset containing the movements of many people, even the ones who don't carry around a mobile phone with them.

  12. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Yawn

    At those costs, might as well spend nearly $800 on an Axis standalone network camera. Same features but uses a microSD card and/or NAS rather than a Google subscription.

  13. David Pollard

    Face recognition?

    Does it do face recognition and does Google have access to the police picture galleries?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Face recognition?

      ...and is their access read-only or full control?

    2. Graham Marsden
      Big Brother

      Re: Face recognition?

      Why would Google need access to the Police's mugshots when it's got billions of images with links to people's profiles and location data already stored?

  14. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    And BTW what's the power system? Wireless alarm systems are notorious for eating them

    Sorry didn't read the whole article.

    Google subscription required --> f**k right off in my book.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like