The Cam IQ logs any new faces it spots in the Nest app. That’s in part due to its white polycarbonate body and the hinge, which lets the camera rotate for a 130-degree view of the room. The camera is capable of telling the difference between a human and an object.
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Yes, we know you can recognise people, but for a smart camera, this is a big deal. At launch, audio features will still follow a walkie-talkie approach, where you push a button each time you want to talk, but a software update this sumer will bring full duplex audio, meaning you’ll just have to press a button once to talk, as you would in a Google Hangout. Three microphones promise enhanced noice/echo suppression and audio recognition, while a more powerful speaker (a seven-fold upgrade, apparently) makes remotely shouting at your kids to stop messing up the living room that bit easier. An LED notification ring now encircles the camera’s eye, glowing green when anyone is viewing the live stream and flashing blue if the watcher begins talking through it.
The base is heavy and wide, which should help the camera remain nice and steady even when you’re rotating it through it’s broad range of motion (180-degrees horizontally and 160 vertically). You can also order two for the reduced price of $498. This camera has a 4K sensor and more machine learning smarts than past devices. The camera also provides alerts to users on faces or detection of persons in the house.
You’ll be able to see what’s going on in your house remotely through the app.
However, having a 4K sensor is not as pointless as it sounds. For starters, the additional detail will improve the quality of 1080p feeds. The device is powered by a hexa-core Qualcomm processor, but image resolution is downscaled from 4K and instead output at 1080p resolution using pan-and-zoom techniques. It will not try to recognize anyone who an owner has not tagged.
Unfortunately this is about as clever as it gets.
You just need to add names to the faces it shows you. That’ll be added to Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor users with paying for Nest Aware too; like them, subscribers with Nest Cam IQ will also get 10- or 30-day video history, clip and timelapse creation, and the ability to set activity zones in the frame.
The Nest Cam IQ, which costs US$299, shoots higher-resolution 4K video that allows users to more deeply zoom into footage without losing as much clarity as the current version.
The way that the Nest – or Netatmo, a rival that released a similar camera in 2016 – uses technology within its cameras doesn’t raise serious privacy concerns. You can’t record anything locally-recording on the Nest Cam IQ requires a monthly subscription to Nest Aware.
Nest Cam IQ will be available for pre-order in UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Republic of Ireland at nest.com for €349 European Union, £299 GBP.
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The camera is Wi-Fi-only-there’s no Ethernet.
