Google Nest Cam IQ smart outdoor home security camera review & sale

The Google Nest Cam IQ smart outdoor home security camera takes what’s great about the Indoor IQ and Nest Cam Outdoor and combines them to make one of the best outdoor security cameras out there today. This thing does everything. It’s weatherproof. It has high-end picture quality, combining 1080p HD resolution with a 4K image sensor and HDR. And it packs next-level features like Supersight and facial recognition into an all-new design. Get details in Nest Cam IQ outdoor review along with Nest Cam IQ outdoor installation process. What is the differences – Nest Cam IQ outdoor vs Nest Cam outdoor?

That being said, all these high-end, high-tech benefits come with a high price tag. And if you want the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor to perform at the highest level, you’ll have to fork over more money for a monthly subscription.

The Google Nest Cam IQ smart outdoor home security camera is a still good option. It’s truly one of the few that combines strong performance with an easy-to-use app and it has the added bonus of being supported by Google, which is a major smart home platform. Consider it if you want facial recognition, but stick with the $200 Nest Cam Outdoor if you don’t because the IQ Outdoor isn’t worth it for the 4K and Supersight features alone. Find details in Nest Cam IQ outdoor review.

Specifications – Google Nest Cam IQ smart outdoor home security camera

GENERAL

• Packaged Quantity : 1
• Compliant Standards : 128-bit SSL, AES-128, IP65, TLS
• Manufacturer : Nest

DIMENSIONS & WEIGHT

• Width : 3.7 in
• Depth : 5 in
• Height : 3.7 in
• Weight : 20.03 oz

POWER

• Rated Current: 1 A
• Low Voltage Power : DC 15 V

MISCELLANEOUS

• Color : white
• Color Category : white
• Included Accessories : wall mount kit

SURVEILLANCE CAMERA

• Infrared LEDs : Yes
• Indoor / Outdoor : outdoor
• Protection : weatherproof

VIDEO INPUT

• Day & Night Functionality : Yes
• Digital Zoom: 12 x
• Audio Support: Yes
• Max Digital Video Resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Video Modes : 1080p
• Features : High Dynamic Range (HDR), WEP, WPA, WPA2
• Camera Type : network surveillance camera

NETWORKING

• Network Interface : Bluetooth LE, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
• Wi-Fi : Yes

OPTICAL SENSOR

• Sensor Size : 1/2.5″
• Sensor Size (metric): 10.2 mm (1/2.5″)

POWER DEVICE

• Type : power adapter
• Form Factor: external
• Nominal Voltage : AC 120/230 V
• Frequency Required : 50/60 Hz

INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)

• Internet of Things (IoT) Compatible : Yes
• Platform : Nest
• Intelligent Assistant Compatible : Alexa, Google Assistant
• Voice Controlled: indirect

SERVICE & SUPPORT

• Type : 2 years warranty
• Type ” limited warranty
• Full Contract Period : 2 years

ENVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS

• Min Operating Temperature: -40 °F
• Max Operating Temperature : 113 °F

Key features – Google Nest Cam IQ smart outdoor home security camera

Supersight

A 4K sensor, 12x digital zoom and enhance, and High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging offer extra-clear video, even when zoomed in. Nest Cam IQ can even automatically zoom in and track intruders.

Person alerts

Smart enough to tell a person from a thing, then alert you.

HD Talk and Listen

So unwelcome visitors will hear you loud and clear.

24/7 live streaming

See a 130° view in 1080p HD, day or night.

3-hour snapshot history

Review what happened in the Nest app, even if you missed an alert.

Robust design

Weatherproof IP66 rating and tamper-resistant design.

Add a Nest Aware subscription

Starting at $6 a month for all your Nest cameras, speakers, and displays. Nest Aware gives you more video history and alerts that matter.

Nest Cam IQ outdoor review

Design

Large, heavy and clunky, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is even bigger than the Nest Cam Outdoor. The white, conical IQ Outdoor is about 5 inches long with a face that’s 3.6 inches in diameter and black, and it weighs 1.2 pounds. Four 850nm IR LEDs (for night vision) are arrayed evenly around the lens. The IQ has three microphones, two of which are on the face and one below it. The speaker is underneath the face, designed to reflect off the wall.

The camera’s angle can be easily adjusted. It rotates a full 360 degrees on its base and pivots up and down on the neck of the base about 75 degrees. In addition, the conical case of the camera rotates about 65 degrees.

Designed for deterrence and tamper-resistance, the IQ Outdoor’s large size and the pulsating neon-blue light ring around the lens bezel are quite conspicuous, so that strangers should realize at a glance that the property is protected. (You can turn off the light ring.) Unauthorized removal of the camera is more difficult than with most cameras, because the IQ is secured to the round, silver mounting plate not magnetically (as the Outdoor was) but locked in, requiring the supplied hex key to remove it.

The 25-foot flat power cable plugs in to a USB port in the base; the locked mounting plate fits snugly over the port. Unfortunately, the large 2.5-inch round x 1-inch thick power-adapter block isn’t weatherproof. The cable is meant to be threaded through a hole in the wall and plugged into an inside outlet. That means cutting a small hole in your wall (ideally where the IQ Outdoor’s mounting plate will cover it), then threading your cord through that hole and plugging the camera into an indoor outlet. This counters a key vulnerability of outdoor cameras — the IQ’s hidden cord can’t be cut — but involves a bit more work.

Like the previous Outdoor model, the IQ is IP66-rated for weather resistance, but the IQ has a wider operating temperature range: minus 40 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit versus minus 4 to 104 F.

All Nest cameras use 2,048-bit RSA private keys, AES 128-bit encryption and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to connect to the cloud service. Customers can implement an optional two-factor authentication.

Google Nest Cam IQ outdoor performance review

In Nest Cam IQ outdoor review, we focus on criteria that cameras meet industry standards for video, night vision, audio, storage, smart platform integration, artificial intelligence, convenience, and overall value. Let’s take a closer look.

Video

The Nest Cam IQ Outdoor more than impresses when it comes to video. Like I said, it has HDR, which improves the quality of light in the video. Of course, it has the industry standard of 1080p HD, plus the ability to zoom in twelve times! This will be great for details, especially if you have an intrusion. Finally, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor has a wide 130-degree field of view diagonally.

Night Vision

No security camera is complete without night vision. Now, I prefer infrared night vision over night vision from a bright white light, although the latter will be in color. Although I want everyone to know that I have outdoor security cameras in place, I don’t want it to be so obvious that I’m filming them at night. Some things are best kept private, am I right?

Fortunately, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor has infrared night vision through 850 nm LEDs.

Audio Quality

Of course, I want to be able to talk to whoever I’m recording through the Nest app, so I’m happy that the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor comes with two-way audio.

Storage

Now, storage is not Nest’s strong suit, so it’s no surprise to me that there’s no local storage and only three free hours of cloud storage. That’s pretty minimal, especially because I’ve seen cameras with both local and cloud storage, free for up to two weeks! But, every rose has its thorn, I suppose. To get more cloud storage, you’ll have to sign up for Nest Aware. Thankfully, Nest recently reduced its cloud storage prices significantly, as you can see in the chart above.

Now, Nest Aware isn’t all cloud storage, but I’ll go more into detail in a bit.

Nest Cam IQ Outdoor: Scheduling

Scheduling when the camera will turn on or off is intuitive, though it requires too many taps and clicks. You can have several different on/off periods per day, and you can use check marks to set each period to recur on several days. In addition, Home/Away Assist uses geofencing to turn the camera on or off, based on when you (and your phone) leave home.

Nest Cam IQ Outdoor: Mobile apps & web portal

The Nest software is clean and easy to navigate; the handful of icons are mostly self-explanatory. The Android and iOS mobile apps are nearly identical. The web portal and mobile apps have important differences, with some features available in only one or the other.  

The online Help is one of the best we’ve seen for security camera software, with clear explanations as well as easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions.

Nest Cam IQ Outdoor: Sharing 

Nest has several sharing options: Family Accounts, password-protected live view sharing and public video streaming.

Up to five friends or family members can have a Family Account on your camera. They will have access to the livestream and notification alerts, and if you’re a Nest Aware subscriber, they can also view your video history. Additionally, it gives them the same control over your camera as you have, including the ability to change settings and share with others.

You can share a link to your camera’s video (password-protected or publicly) on your computer through the web portal. Family Accounts may be set up in either the web portal or the mobile app.

Nest Cam IQ Outdoor: Smart home integration

Nest’s thermostats, alarm systems, smoke detectors and cameras (including the IQ Outdoor)  communicate with each other in a security ecosystem that’s called the Nest Home. What’s more, hundreds of third-party smart home products work with Nest products (including the IQ Outdoor) through the Nest API. In addition, Nest cameras support Google Home, Alexa and IFTTT.

However, if you migrate from a Nest account to a Google Assistant account (which you must do in order to take advantage of the Nest Aware pricing), you will lose most, if not all of the smart home interactions with third-party products that were available with your Nest account.

How to do Nest Cam IQ outdoor installation?

In terms of setup and Nest Cam IQ outdoor installation, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor was mostly simple. As with other Nest products, you download the Nest app and create an account, or sign in with your existing one, and follow the detailed step-by-step tutorial. Be sure to test the quality of your Wi-Fi network wherever you plan to install your camera, because you don’t want to drill holes in your wall only to realize that you need to invest in a Wi-Fi extender. 

You also need to think about how you want to install your camera. You can’t set the IQ Outdoor on a picnic table on your back deck railing and call it a day — it doesn’t have a typical camera base. Instead, it comes with mounting brackets designed to let you attach it to a ceiling or a wall. Nest’s instructions suggest that you drill a hole through a wall so that you can feed the power adapter from an interior outlet. Its installation guide specifically says, “Nest Cam IQ Outdoor has a 25 foot (7.5 m) outdoor-rated power cable that is designed to be easily routed through or along a wall to an indoor power outlet.” This is how you can do Nest Cam IQ outdoor installation.

How much does Nest Cam IQ Outdoor cost?

Plan on paying more than the $399 sticker price if you want the full Nest experience.

At $399 MSRP, the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is relatively affordable when you consider just how powerful it actually is. The downside is that if you want to take advantage of all of the high-end features, like Supersight and Familiar Face Alerts, you’ll need to pay for a Nest Aware subscription.Nest Cam IQ Outdoor vs. Nest Cam Outdoor

^{Data effective 11/21/2019. Offers subject to change.}

Nest Aware subscription

In a very general sense, Nest Aware unlocks advanced features for your Nest Cam. This is the case for any Nest Cam, but it’s especially true for the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor because the advanced features are the whole reason to buy this camera in the first place. (We’re looking at you, Supersight.)

Here’s a breakdown of what Nest Aware gives you, specific to the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor.

Without Nest Aware ($0/mo.)

• Live video
• Motion/sound notifications
• Two-way audio
• Night vision
• 3-hour cloud storage

With Nest Aware ($5/mo., $10/mo., or $30/mo.)

• Live video
• 24/7 continuous recording
• Motion/sound notifications
• Two-way audio
• Night vision
• Activity Zones
• Alert summaries
• Clips and timelapses
• Supersight
• Familiar face alerts

You can get a little bit of a discount on Nest Aware if you’re willing to pay for a full year up front. Check it out.

Compare Nest Cam IQ Outdoor vs Nest Cam Outdoor

Before buying your smart home security camera, you might be interested on differences – Nest Cam IQ Outdoor vs Nest Cam Outdoor. Which one is best suited for you?

I haven’t tested any other wall-mounted Wi-Fi outdoor cameras that cost as much as the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor, which makes direct comparisons somewhat difficult. The Netgear Arlo Go and the Netatmo Presence come the closest both in terms of pricing and features. 

The Arlo Go by Netgear is an outdoor LTE camera. So instead of connecting over Wi-Fi, this one relies on a subscription to a cellular service. The Arlo Go is also battery-powered, so like Netgear’s other indoor/outdoor Arlo cameras the Go doesn’t have to be tethered to a power adapter. That certainly sets it apart from the IQ Outdoor, but they share the same third-party integrations with Alexa and Google Assistant, as well as cloud subscription services. The Netatmo Presence camera replaces an existing wired outdoor light fixture. It does connect over Wi-Fi and offer person alerts, but it works with Apple’s smart home platform, HomeKit, rather than Alexa or Google Assistant. 

Editor’s recommendations

• Does Reolink PTZ PoE security camera 5MP work with Google Nest?
• Can ANNKE 1080p outdoor security camera system compress video?
• YESKAMO wireless CCTV reviews – should you buy it?
• Reolink Argus 2 vs Blink XT2 – do they have free subscription?
• How to delete EZVIZ video history – tips and usage?