Google Unveils Smaller, Wired Nest Doorbell With Improved Image Quality

Google today unveiled(Opens in a new window) a slim, second-gen wired Nest Doorbell.

The device, which is designed to be hardwired with your pre-existing doorbell wires, is 30% smaller than the battery-powered version of the video doorbell—”so it can easily fit within narrow door frames and tight spaces,” Google says. Connect it to an existing chime, or Nest speaker or display to get an alert when someone rings the doorbell.

Google is touting the camera improvements on its second-gen Nest Doorbell. “We’ve eliminated the distorted fish-eye effect you often see with smart cameras, while HDR helps capture details in areas with shadows or bright lights,” it says.

The doorbell will automatically record an hour’s worth of camera alerts to local memory, plus three hours of event video history for clips up to five minutes in length. Those who pay for a Nest Aware subscription(Opens in a new window), which starts at $6 per month, get 10 days of 24/7 continuous video history, and the camera will send an alert if it picks up on faces (familiar and unfamiliar). 

(Credit: Google)

That identification happens via built-in machine learning, which can “tell the difference between people, packages, pets and vehicles and keep an eye on specific areas of your front porch using Activity Zones,” which lets you draw a zone around a specific area in your camera’s view and be alerted if someone comes into frame.

The doorbell includes the “talk and listen” feature so you can speak to people who come to your door from afar, or respond with a pre-recorded message. 

With the “talk and listen” feature, you can also chat with visitors at the door from anywhere, or respond with pre-recorded messages. It also supports Household Routines, so you could tell it to turn on porch lights if someone rings the doorbell, for example.

Like other Nest devices, the doorbell is controlled via the Google Home app, but Google says people will “soon” be able to control their devices on the web, too. Google is also previewing(Opens in a new window) an updated Google Home app that will tap into its upcoming Matter smart home standard, which “will be available by default on billions of Android devices” later this year.

The Nest Doorbell (wired, 2nd gen) is on sale now in the US for $179.99(Opens in a new window) in four colors—Snow, Linen, Ash, and Ivy—and in Canada for $239.99 CAD in the Snow and Ash colors.