Nest Hello review

Our Verdict

The Nest Howdy has a lot of great features, including facial recognition and excellent video quality.

For

Dandy video quality
Google Assistant integration
Flexible scheduling
Facial recognition

Against

Uses a lot of bandwidth to upload video
Requires hardwired connectedness

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Nest Hello has a lot of keen features, including facial recognition and fantabulous video quality.

Pros

+
Slap-up video quality
+
Google Assistant integration
+
Flexible scheduling
+
Facial recognition

Cons

-
Uses a lot of bandwidth to upload video
-
Requires hardwired connection

With video doorbells, video and audio quality matter, but the real fob is getting the notifications just right. That style, you're not bombarded past alerts, but y'all don't miss anything important, either.

The Nest Hello ($199) succeeds by continuously recording video, and then you never have the frustrating experience of firing upwards the app just to run into video of someone walking away. Facial recognition lets you know who's at the door past proper name, and it tin also distinguish between people and cars, as well as packages. What'south more than, you lot tin can dissever the field of vision into multiple zones, which helps you customize the notifications.

Nosotros also named it the top doorbell in the Tom'south Guide Awards 2021 for Smart Dwelling. Read the rest of our Nest Hi review to see why nosotros liked it so much.

Editor's note (Aug. 2021): Nest has a newer video doorbell, which is larger only can run on bombardment ability, has a more than vertical field of view, and offers for complimentary three hours of rolling video storage every bit well as package, person, and animal detection. It'due south our new top pick amidst the all-time video doorbells. Read our full Nest Doorbell (bombardment) review for more details.

The Nest Hello has also been renamed the Nest Doorbell (wired).

Nest How-do-you-do: Toll and availability

Nest Hello specs

Size: 4.6 x 1.seven x 1 inch
Video resolution: 1600 x 1200
Field of view: 160 degrees (diag)
Wireless: 802.11a/b/chiliad/n/air-conditioning (2.4GHz/5GHz)
Weather resistance: IPX4
Operating temperature: 5 to 104 degrees F
Ability requirements: 16V Air conditioning–24V Air conditioning, 10VA transformer

The Nest How-do-you-do was launched in mid-2018, and currently costs $229 on Google's online store; you can occasionally observe information technology on sale at other retailers.

Nest Hello review: Pattern and installation

The Nest Hullo video doorbell is sleek and slim, at 4.vi x 1.vii x ane inches, and has rounded corners. On its confront is a round doorbell button lit by a bluish band, with the camera above it.

(Image credit: Nest)

Its small size leaves no room for onboard power, which means the Nest Hello requires a wired connection with xvi to 24 volts of power. That power requirement can be an effect for older houses — I previously had to go the transformer on my 1946-congenital bungalow upgraded to get a Band Pro doorbell with the aforementioned power requirements to work.

By comparison, many of Band'due south video doorbells — such as the Ring Video Doorbell and Band Video Doorbell 3 — can be either wired or run on battery power alone, which makes them easier to install on doors where in that location was not previously a doorbell.

In add-on, Nest requires y'all to install a small module called the "chinkle connector" inside your doorbell'southward chime box, located within the home. Installation isn't difficult, merely information technology is some other footstep.

Nest includes everything you need to attach the doorbell to your business firm, even a huge drill bit in instance y'all take to drill into stucco siding. If you don't want to endeavour the installation yourself, the company tin connect you with a Nest Pro. Merely if your existing doorbell's power supply is up to snuff, the procedure isn't terribly complicated.

Nest Hello review: Facial recognition

Dissimilar most video doorbells, the Nest Hullo has facial-recognition technology. Once you teach information technology the names of frequent visitors, the companion app (available for both Android and iOS) will start to proper noun them in the push notifications. The Nest Hello gets large points for including a snapshot from the camera with each notification, and then you can get a glimpse of what'southward happening without having to open the app.

The snapshots are extra handy when facial recognition is wrong — which didn't happen often, to be fair. First, the app asked me to identify my family and close friends multiple times from photos the Hello took. (Y'all can do this for anyone who comes to your door.) I tagged my married man 4 times, for instance, and my son six times. In the Nest app's Familiar Faces gallery, you tin can tap Select, cull all the instances of the same person, and tap Merge to combine them. After that, it worked pretty smoothly, but it did misidentify my hubby one night as my son's best friend, a 6-year-onetime African-American boy who wears glasses. (My hubby is much taller, a lot older and Caucasian, and does not habiliment spectacles.)

I also wish the Nest Hello used facial recognition a piffling better. At that place'south no manner to exclude sure individuals from triggering a notification when they're recognized, for case, and I don't need the app to tell me that it'southward me who only arrived habitation.

Also, to employ Familiar Faces, you have to subscribe to Nest Aware, which starts at $5 per month. That subscription enables additional features, which nosotros'll go into later.

Nest Hello review: Additional features

The Nest Hullo can as well discover people, movement and sound. You can't adjust the sensitivity of the sound detection; it'south either on or off. I got notifications of birds chirping outset thing in the morning time, when the neighborhood was otherwise quite quiet, but I didn't get notifications throughout the mean solar day nigh every car that went by.

For motility, the camera can record a prune of all the movement information technology sees, simply the app lets you choose to be notified but of people. This is a great characteristic — I certainly don't want a push notification every time a car goes by — and it worked very well. I never got a notification of a person that wasn't actually a person. Then, you tin can only open the app to encounter a timeline of all motion events, not but people.

Some other handy characteristic is pre-recorded responses. If you can't fifty-fifty exist bothered to speak to the person at the door, y'all can tap the Responses button that appears in the Nest app and choose one of three recordings that will play out of the doorbell'southward speaker. Tap "Can't come to the door," for case, and the speaker volition cheerfully chirp, "Hi there! We tin can't come up to the door correct now, but we'll be notified you stopped past." The other two responses inquire the person to leave whatever they have at the door or to await a minute for you to answer.

Nest Howdy: Nest app and web interface

Nest's spider web app deserves serious props. When you sign in to your account at home.nest.com, y'all tin can view the livestream or old clips, click a microphone button to engage the two-manner audio and adjust the photographic camera'south settings. You can also export clips to your computer from here, and even create a time lapse of multiple clips. Once you lot have a clip you like, you tin share it to Facebook, Twitter, NextDoor or YouTube; download information technology; or merely share a link to view it on your Nest account.

You can export video clips from the Nest app for iOS and Android past selecting one in the timeline and borer the New Clip button, which uploads the clip to your Nest account online and optionally saves it to your device'due south camera roll.

Nest Hello: Subscription costs

A Nest Aware subscription is technically optional, and you get a 30-day trial. But if you cull not to subscribe, yous lose the facial-recognition feature, continuous recording and video history, close-ups, customizable activity zones, and the ability to upload clips and create time lapses online. Y'all'll still exist able to run into the live view and talk over the 2-way speaker, get motion and people alerts (just without familiar faces being named), meet snapshots of events from the past 3 hours and be notified when someone rings the bell.

Nest's cloud storage plans for its video doorbell and dwelling security cameras outset at for $6 per month (or $60 annually) for 30 days of event history from an unlimited number of cameras at one location; if yous upgrade to Nest Aware Plus ($12/month, $120 annually), y'all get sixty days of rolling cloud storage, plus 10 days of 24/vii video history. Here'southward how Nest's cloud-storage plans compare to Ring, Arlo, Amazon, and Canary.

Nest Howdy: Video and audio performance

The Nest Hello's photographic camera has a resolution of 1600 ten 1200, and covers 160 degrees of view. It uses a 4:three aspect ratio, for a squarer moving picture equally opposed to some cameras' 16:9 wide-screen view. The idea is that you lot'll exist able to come across packages on the basis in front of your door; but my whole chump was out of view, and so packages left there normally were, besides.

I found the flick clear and abrupt — meliorate than that of the Ring cameras. The night vision, which engages automatically, as well beats the Band'south. Nest Howdy uses HDR, which helps lighten shadowy areas while not blowing out bright areas. Sometimes the video looks a little bogus as a result, but the signal is that you get a good look at everything in the frame, which is just what you'd want from a doorbell photographic camera.

When you're looking at the live view on your smartphone or tablet, you lot can pan and zoom using your fingers right on the paradigm. The lens is fixed, and so information technology's just digital panning and up to 8x of digital zoom. This is prissy to have just in instance y'all need it, but the default wide view was detailed plenty for me.

Two-way sound lets you lot talk to someone at the doorway with about a second of lag. I got to politely dismiss a door-to-door salesperson from the comfort of my bed — every smart home possessor's dream. The speaker on the doorbell itself is loud and clear. The app also lets you disable the photographic camera's microphone (which turns off audio streaming and recording) while all the same streaming and recording video. Or, y'all can just disable sound recording, which still lets you hear audio over the livestream. This could be handy if you live on a very loud street and your videos are a noise.

Speaking of options, if you subscribe to Nest Aware, you might want to conform the video resolution downward a little. Nest Aware streams continuous video to Nest's servers, and at the top resolution of 1600 x 1200, you lot could be facing 150GB to 600GB of uploads per calendar month. Nest is up forepart near this, and suggests reducing the video quality to medium (1152 x 864) or low (512 x 384), or using the schedule feature to turn the camera on and off so that it's not uploading continuously.

Google updated the Nest Hello so that users will no longer be able to turn off the doorbell's status light; while y'all will exist able to dim the light, it volition always glow dark-green while the camera is on.

Nest Hello: Smart home integration

Because Nest is a division of Google, Nest Hello integrates with the Google Banana, simply it also works with Amazon's Alexa phonation assistant, also. So, if you have an Echo Show or another Alexa-enabled brandish such as a Fire TV, you can have it show a feed from your Nest Howdy — helpful if someone rings the doorbell and you can't reply it.

Products with Google Banana (like the Google Home, Google Abode Mini and the Nest Cam IQ with Google Assistant) can permit you know when someone'southward at the door. You tin also ask Google Assistant to cast the doorbell'southward live video stream to a Chromecast-equipped Boob tube. This even worked with my first-generation Chromecast, although it took some buffering (as all video tends to do on a starting time-gen Chromecast).

If yous've subscribed to Nest Aware, you can fifty-fifty accept your compatible smart speaker announce people by name, assuming they're recognized by the Nest app. I'grand a reluctant smart-speaker user, so I found this weird at kickoff. But it'southward also the closest my business firm has come to the McFly house in Dorsum to the Futurity Part 2, welcoming home every family unit member by proper name.

The Nest Hullo also works with the Nest X Yale smart lock, so that you tin can lock and unlock your door using your smartphone and assign codes to guests. However, y'all can't use your voice to command it with Alexa or another vox assistant as you tin can with August's and Schlage'southward smart locks.

However, if yous've migrated your Nest account to a Google account, you will no longer be able to utilize many of the clever smart home integrations for which Nest was so pop.

Nest Hello review: Verdict

The facial-recognition feature in the Nest Hullo gives this video doorbell a more personal experience than the competition. In addition, its quality HDR video, potent speaker and microphone, and well-made and ofttimes updated Nest app were tops amidst the other video doorbells we've tested. While you demand a Nest Enlightened subscription (and its recurring toll) to get the nearly out of it, the Nest Hello is the best video doorbell yet.

Credit: Tom'south Guide