The best thing about Nest’s new video doorbell — it’s not the camera

The best thing about Nest's new video doorbell — it's not the camera

(Paradigm credit: Google)

Later this month, Nest will showtime selling 3 new habitation security cameras and 1 new video doorbell in a complete revamp of its entire lineup. Only while the devices themselves await great — the designs are cleaner and they have more features than earlier, including battery backup and local storage — what excited me nearly about Nest'southward announcement was the alter to the company's video-storage and subscription plans.

Anyone who buys the new cameras or doorbell will at present get three costless hours of issue recording, people, creature, vehicle and package detection, and custom activity zones.

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Previously, if you wanted to save any video from your Nest doorbell or security camera, yous'd have to subscribe to a Nest Aware plan, which starts at $6/month. Likewise, if yous wanted extra features such every bit person or package detection, that would also toll you extra.

This kind of arrangement is not unheard of; Arlo, Blink, and Ring, some of the other industry leaders, besides crave you to subscribe to a monthly plan if y'all want to relieve video. Exceptions include Canary and Wyze, which offer limited cloud storage for free. Some of Eufy's cameras and video doorbells accept local storage, but to relieve anything to the deject, you'll need to spend at least $ii.99/calendar month for a subscription.

Granted, three hours of cloud storage ain't much, but it's better than what came earlier. And with person and package detection also beingness offered for free, this makes the new Nest doorbell an even more compelling purchase.

I get it: Subscription services let companies make money across the point of buy and serve equally a recurring acquirement stream. But betwixt the all-time streaming services and cloud storage for your photos, we're being subscribed to death. So while it's non a lot, it is nice to go something back.

Nest says that ane of the reasons it was able to expand gratuitous features is because in that location'south now local storage built into its cameras — enough for three hours, anyway — and the chips in the cameras now handle the processing for identifying people, vehicles, and packages. If you don't take to spend your own cloud resources, then you're non actually losing any coin.

Now that Nest is making these features free for its users — and shaking upwards the best cloud storage plans for security cameras — I'k curious to see if Arlo and Ring will follow suit. Once upon a time, Arlo offered gratis 7-day video storage, but that ended with the Arlo Pro 2 camera. You lot can still find it on the Arlo Baby monitor, though.

I don't wait companies to of a sudden brand everything gratuitous, just it is overnice to see that consumers are getting at least something back.

Michael A. Prospero is the deputy editor at Tom's Guide overseeing the home, smart home, drones, and fitness/wearables categories, equally well as all buying guides and other evergreen content. When he's not testing out the latest running watch, skiing or grooming for a marathon, he'southward probably using the latest sous vide automobile or some other cooking gadget.