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I 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 complete

by veidr 10y ago

I 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.

wepple 10y ago
curious to know why, I have one and really like it, but maybe I'm missing something?
- goldenkey 10y ago
  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 routine use cases.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > but it appears that the above commenter downvoted me for having a conflicting opinion I may be mistaken, but I don't think you can downvote replies to your comments.
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      Thanks, I didn't know that, I am mistaken then. I do wonder who downvoted me for providing objective information even if it is in support of a product from a company that has gone to shit internally. I agree that the CEO who recently got dumped was a real piece of work, and that the culture in the company became toxic. But Dropcam is still decent, can't really screw something up too badly that worked well to begin with. It's still something that I find worth it because its one less thing to worry about. I love my cats and it helps me watch them when I am on vacation or away.
  - wepple 10y ago
    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)
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      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..
- veidr 10y ago
  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...)
goldenkey 10y ago
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 UI, but it works fine so I don't think it's an issue. The only thing I've seen change, is that the old dropcam allowed sharing of cameras, via an invite list. Whereas now, with Nest, you have to either do fully public via a url, or totally private. Nest also enabled full 1080 whereas Dropcam had only 720 except when zooming in on a specific area, with "auto-enhance." (This made the camera only record a smaller FOV which sucked.) So they have made improvement, if only one. There is also Nest Aware which can let you enable alerts/emails that you get when activity/motion/sound happens when you are gone (it will use your phone or other devices to detect when you leave.) You can also disable the cameras when you are home, if you are one of those paranoid people. I am not paid or affiliated with Nest at all. I just have two cameras that I use mainly to watch my two cats. They have been great for my use. I have gigabit internet. I have not had any issues.
- lurkinggrue 10y ago
  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.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    I have no connectivity issues. Using a gigabit airport extreme. Is it possible your router is sub par?

by veidr 10y ago

wepple 10y ago

curious to know why, I have one and really like it, but maybe I'm missing something?

goldenkey 10y ago
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 routine use cases.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > but it appears that the above commenter downvoted me for having a conflicting opinion I may be mistaken, but I don't think you can downvote replies to your comments.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know that, I am mistaken then. I do wonder who downvoted me for providing objective information even if it is in support of a product from a company that has gone to shit internally. I agree that the CEO who recently got dumped was a real piece of work, and that the culture in the company became toxic. But Dropcam is still decent, can't really screw something up too badly that worked well to begin with. It's still something that I find worth it because its one less thing to worry about. I love my cats and it helps me watch them when I am on vacation or away.
- wepple 10y ago
  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)
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    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..
veidr 10y ago
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...)

goldenkey 10y ago

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 UI, but it works fine so I don't think it's an issue. The only thing I've seen change, is that the old dropcam allowed sharing of cameras, via an invite list. Whereas now, with Nest, you have to either do fully public via a url, or totally private. Nest also enabled full 1080 whereas Dropcam had only 720 except when zooming in on a specific area, with "auto-enhance." (This made the camera only record a smaller FOV which sucked.) So they have made improvement, if only one. There is also Nest Aware which can let you enable alerts/emails that you get when activity/motion/sound happens when you are gone (it will use your phone or other devices to detect when you leave.) You can also disable the cameras when you are home, if you are one of those paranoid people. I am not paid or affiliated with Nest at all. I just have two cameras that I use mainly to watch my two cats. They have been great for my use. I have gigabit internet. I have not had any issues.

lurkinggrue 10y ago
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.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  I have no connectivity issues. Using a gigabit airport extreme. Is it possible your router is sub par?