The Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is a well-constructed, tamper-resistant, intelligent camera that’s part of the Nest Home security ecosystem. However, it’s expensive, and most of its great feature set is available only to paying subscribers to the cloud storage plan.
Nest has justifiably gained a reputation for making good-quality smart home devices. The Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is a worthy addition to the product line. It’s nicely designed; offers generally acceptable to excellent video quality; and provides a wide range of security options, including one of the best tamper-resistant designs we’ve seen. But it isn’t competitively priced or packaged. In fact, unless you pay monthly for the Nest Aware cloud-storage plan, you can’t even view your video history. Despite its price, it’s still one of the best home security cameras you can find. It’s one of the best Google Home compatible devices out there, too.
Editor’s note (Aug. 2021): Nest has discontinued the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor. In its place is the Nest Cam (battery), which has a 1080p camera and includes for free three hours of rolling video storage as well as person, animal, and vehicle detection. For more details, please check out our Nest Cam (battery) review.
