Google Nest Doorbell (Wired) 2nd Generation

I love the look of this doorbell, unfortunately it has some downsides.
We switched from a Ring to this and aren’t super impressed. The quality is good, even for night vision. Our biggest complaint is the width/range of what is visible is significantly less than what we could see on the Ring. It also seems to run through battery life quickly & takes over 3 hours to charge. Other than that it’s easy to set up and use through the google home app.

Video de buena calidad compatible con todos los dispositivos Google y avisos en tiempo real así que un 10

I have had a Nest Hello doorbell for a few years, but recently it developed the symptom that my indoor electronic chime would only sound two notes, no matter what I set the duration to in the Nest app. The camera itself was working well, though the field of view didn’t extend as far down as I would like. I also noticed that the plastic on the faceplate was blistering, so I decided to replace it with the Gen 2 Wired.

The Gen 2 is a bit taller than the Hello (the battery version is even taller), which meant that the spacer I had 3D printed to bring it past the door molding needed to be redone. Luckily, the screw holes are the same distance apart. Installing was straightforward, and I used the included 20-degree wedge plus the printed spacer. Due to the way the Gen 2 mounts, I had to swap out the #10 long screws I had used for some thinner ones, as the screw heads blocked the camera from mounting properly. The Google Home app leads you through the install, but the URL shown for a web video leads to the old Nest Hello instructions!

The chime adapter, while it looks like that of the Hello, is different and connects in parallel to the chime wires rather than in series.

Once installed, I was delighted that the indoor chime worked properly again. I was also happy to see that the vertical field of view was considerably taller than that of the Hello, so that I could see almost all of my front steps without a wedge angling down. Image quality is better than the Hello, and at night the picture is still in color!

Another advantage I had not anticipated is that I get notifications of people at the door almost instantaneously, whereas with the Nest Hello it was typically 20-30 seconds later. I attribute this to the local processing of images, rather than sending them to the cloud for recognition.

Right now, my major gripe is that there is not a fully functional web interface, unlike the older camera. There is a beta interface, but it shows a live view only and tends to crash a lot. I hope this gets improved. The Google Home app isn’t bad, but I like to use a web browser on my PC. A minor gripe is that email notification is no longer available, just push notifications from the app.

I’m really impressed with this doorbell. It’s not flawless, but it does everything I need it to do very well. It was easy to install and setup. The picture and audio quality are excellent and I don’t need 4k quality for a doorbell. Person detection is great. I haven’t had any false alerts or missed detections. Video starts recording early, so nothing is missed. Package detection is good, but not perfect. You’ll get an alert once the package is removed, as well. I haven’t tried the pet or other motion alerts. Event alerting happens almost instantly. The only minus is the “cool down” between alerts is long and I’m not sure what the exact interval is, but it seems like it’s more than 5 minutes. Video events are only kept for three hours–it’s not three hours’ worth of recording. If a person is detected at 1 pm, the video is gone at 4:01 pm. If you want the video kept for longer, you’ll need a subscription, or you can just download the event you want to save. The three-hour limit hasn’t been an issue. The doorbell integrates well with smart switches, so now my porch light turns on automatically when a person is detected between dusk and dawn. Night vision is a little lacking without lights, but still good enough to identify someone. I think this is a great doorbell for the price with all the features you get.

Set it up properly and you will get a long battery life. We bought 1 to try and with some changes to settings, estimate 7-8 weeks of battery life before a charge. Probably charge at 6 weeks so we have full functionality. Quality is excellent, detects people with packages, unfamiliar faces if you subscribe to Nest aware. I turned off vehicle detection and lowered the sensitivity so it is not telling me every time someone walks down the road. Be mindful installing it near your outdoor lights as it may make night visibility had with glare. We will get another 1 or 2.

This unit was very simple to install. The instructions are pretty easy once you download the app. One key thing to keep in mind as you look at these wired devices is that you may need to upgrade your transformer. I needed to upgrade to a more powerful transformer. This is NOT difficult, but it does require buying a new transformer (you can find them on amazon for less than $20), finding the existing transformer and switching them out. Once I found my transformer (it was in my garage), it took about 5 minutes to switch out – follow the transformer instructions and turn off power to the doorbell!

The Nest itself took about 20 minutes to install. I replaced my existing front doorbell, placing the Nest in the exact spot, including the wedge to angle the device slightly to more easily see my entire patio. You will also need to install the “chime puck” (included). This is a small device that attaches to your bell/chime. Super easy to install, but you’ll need to find your chime in your house. That means you’ll probably need a ladder to get to it.

In all, I’m very pleased with this device.