I've been enjoying my Homeboy for quite some time. Why would I go with a wired version? I have to recharge my Homeboy about once every two months. https://www.homeboy.com/
* No Wires.
The Nest Cam Outdoor is a $199 camera with an easy-to-install magnetic base
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Re: The Nest Cam Outdoor is a $199 camera with an easy-to-install magnetic base
#72I have the $200 old regular indoor Nest camera. It's so horrible, in more ways than I would have imagined that a camera could possibly suck, that it's completely redefined my understanding of awful. It's caused me to rethink many other purchases way outside of the category, from blenders to TVs to cars. Absolutely don't ever buy a Nest product, unless your aim is to do experimental anitmaterialism therapy.
curious to know why, I have one and really like it, but maybe I'm missing something?
I bought the camera thinking (wrongly) that image quality was 90% of what I cared about. It does have a good image, wide field of view, and reasonable night-vision mode. But:
• Fundamentally idiotic design - can't save video except to ridiculously overpriced Nest cloud service.
• Browser UI requires Adobe Flash.
• Camera software (on both iOS and in browser) eventually will stall, showing what seems to be a live image but is actually a still image from when it crashed hours ago.
• Other times, camera view will gradually drift behind, so that what you see is actually several minutes behind real-time.
• You can set time zone, but only for regions (not many) that Nest marketing has approved, so when you take the camera on travels, its several hours off. E.g. I took it to Japan but the closest time zone I could set it to was Saudi Arabia. (WTF is wrong with these people? How is it possible to decide on that outcome when you have written a software UI to set the fucking time zone?)
• Camera hardware unit crashes every once in a while and becomes unresponsive until power yanked / rebooted.
• Completely unintelligent about returning to a previous location -- you have to do the weird bluetooth-and-QR-code dance every single time you bring the camera back home.
• If you don't sign up for the stupid $300/year cloud service, then you get ads for it in the UI.
• Die Nest, die die die die die. (Yes, I root for them to go out of business, even though that would mean that my stupid cloud-dependent camera would cease working entirely...)
Re: The Nest Cam Outdoor is a $199 camera with an easy-to-install magnetic base
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I gave my experience and even provided screenshots but it appears that the above commenter downvoted me for having a conflicting opinion. Downvotes are supposed to be used for offtopic or malignant comments. I hope we can get a reply so I can see the shortcomings of dropcams -- because so far they've worked very well for me, but little do I know, maybe there are some real big issues that are just not in my regular ro…
I don't have permissions to downvote at all, I think you need a certain karma for that? I genuinely did ask because I wanted to know. Even though my experience has been great, if there are say security problems I wasn't aware of or really poor customer service, I'd be keen to hear! (I'm considering buying more and would very much rather not if it's not that great, I'm a very new customer)
Thanks for the info. I agree, I would like to hear the problems as as well. Seeing the good side of things is rarely beneficial for long..
Re: The Nest Cam Outdoor is a $199 camera with an easy-to-install magnetic base
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what most security companies do if they are any good. A battery backup with cell connection. Can easily replicate it yourself using a mobile hotspot on an old phone. Along with some usb battery packs. Pretty cheap and easy to make a solution. (Under $50)
The premise is that having this on the cloud is supposed to make it easier and not require this complex setups. For instance, not needing a recording station in the house that can be stolen or a Telco chipset with an alternative power source. If you do this on the cloud, you can call from a cloud provider and record outside the house. Nest could easily call you from Twilio after 1 minute of being disconnected and it…
Dropcam isnt a security cam. Its for checking on cats or kids. If you need security UPS then you can rig up a battery pack and a backup mobile hotspot with an old phone. I dont see how Nest could reproduce this anyways without adding a simcard and gsm to their cams.
Re: The Nest Cam Outdoor is a $199 camera with an easy-to-install magnetic base
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
To give a counter perspective: I have two of the old dropcams before Nest took over and released the Nestcam. The old dropcams are basically the same as the new nestcams except they lack the improved IR. They work flawlessly with Nest's new mobile apps (I have iPad and Samsung Galaxy Note 5.) Also the new web app works great as well. The web app is designed to scale on any screen, and looks a bit like it uses mobile…
My only issue is wishing I could just run a cable to it and get it to be more stable. You know you have a problem when you have to put a wifi access point next to the camera to get it to stay online.
I have no connectivity issues. Using a gigabit airport extreme. Is it possible your router is sub par?