It’s always nice to see two competitors collaborate to improve their mutual customer’s experience. That’s exactly what Nest and SkyBell have done. Today, we’ll discuss how and why to integrate Nest with SkyBell.
Some Background
Are these two companies really competitors? Kind of. SkyBell makes a few different video doorbells. Nest makes everything except a video doorbell. At least that was the case until they recently announced the Nest Hello Video Doorbell which is due to be released sometime in 2018. It’s unclear what capabilities they will have nor how much it will cost. Until then, integration of Nest with Skybell provides some unique and complimentary capabilities that increases the value of the technology investment in each company’s products.
SkyBell currently offers two models. The SkyBell HD and SkyBell Slim Design Trim Plus. The first is a round doorbell where the second is what’s seen in the photo that accompanies this article (it’s the one to the left). The integration will work with both models of SkyBell.
Capabilities
There are currently two very useful capabilities that make it worthwhile to integrate Nest with SkyBell.
The first integration involves the Nest Protect Smoke Alarm and a SkyBell. The integration will turn the doorbell LED red when the Nest Protect Smoke Alarm senses danger. So if there is a high carbon monoxide reading, your SkyBell will visually warn you. You will also be warned on your phone, but the added capability of the red warning light is useful in case you haevnt been looking at your phone. So if you have the two devices in your home, you might as well integrate them as this is a no cost additional capability of the two products.
The second Nest with SkyBell integration surprisingly integrates the two manufacturer’s cameras together. After linking them together, you can turn a Nest Cam on or off from the SkyBell app. Also, using the Nest geofencing feature, when a Nest Cam detects motion in away mode, it can activate recording on your SkyBell Video Doorbell. That works out especially well for those that may not have subscribed to the Nest Aware paid subscription service (versus the free cloud service from SkyBell).
How to Integrate Nest with SkyBell
This is one of the easier integrations we have seen. Very reminiscent of how IFTTT does it. Too often, the integration of hardware from two different companies is a sketchy effort put in by a third party and it’s unsupported by either hardware vendor. Not the case here. Clearly, the teams at SkyBell and Nest worked together on this integration.
You need to inform the SkyBell app of your Nest credentials. Go to My Account on your SkyBell app and select Connect to your Nest account. Now enter your Nest credentials – this is the same user and password used on your Nest app. For each SkyBell Video Doorbell you want to connect, go to device settings and enable your Nest devices. This will not effect your Nest connectivity in any way.
Once you have linked Nest with Skybell, you may then start to integrate Nest with SkyBell.