DropCam Pro

Should You Subscribe to the Nest Aware Service?

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Nest Aware is the paid cloud service that is offered for use with any Nest Cam home security camera.  For those that have already purchased their camera, this is the question that you will need to answer after your free 30-day trial is over.  All purchasers of a new Nest Cam get a free trial.  So you are now asking the question of should I subscribe to the Nest Aware Cloud Service? We’re going to cover what you get with the Nest Aware service, the cost and evaluate the overall value as well as alternatives. With a few minor exceptions, Nest … Read more

Nest Cam Troubleshooting Guide

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After working with Nest Camera products for many years, we have run into a lot of issues and figured it would be worthwhile to document how we fixed it.  The process for fixing issues is the same for DropCam Pro and the original DropCam so if you have the predecessor to the Nest Cam, refer to this Nest Cam Troubleshooting tutorial. Nest Cam Offline This is likely the most common issue with a Nest Cam.  A message in the Nest app is the way you will know the camera is offline.  It means the app cannot communicate with the camera.  … Read more

Nest Cam Home Security Camera Review

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All hail the Nest Cam.  Made by Nest, this is an upgrade to the highly successful DropCam Pro.  Nest purchased DropCam for a whopping $555 million and this is the result of that marriage.  While I’m not sitting in the development room, it looks as though this camera shares a lot of similarity to the DropCam Pro which we reviewed here so I’m guessing this was already in the works when they were purchased. There are several nice improvements with this camera.  The 1080p full HD video is the most important part of the upgrade.  I like the direction they took with … Read more

The Best Place to Put a Nest Cam and How to Put it There

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In addition to all the hardware improvements that came with the Nest Cam, a new mount was introduced.  Proper use of the mount and positioning of the Nest Cam will make a significant difference in video quality and usefulness of the camera.  This article will show you how to select the best place to put a Nest Cam and how to put it there.  Although this article is written with Nest Cam in mind, the concepts presented can apply to many other cameras, especially the predecessor of Nest Cam which is called the DropCam Pro. Your Nest Cam came with a … Read more

How to Make a Bean Bag Stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro

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The title sounds a bit like an arts and crafts project, doesn’t it?  Well, today we’re going to make a bean bag stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro.  A photo of the completed bean bag stand for Nest Cam or DropCam Pro accompanies this article. With all of the alternative mounts available for a Nest Cam or DropCam Pro, why make a bean bag stand?  Good question.  This particular project came to be out of a unique monitoring requirement.  I needed to temporarily locate a camera  on a window ledge and give it some lift.  More lift than the stand included with … Read more

How to See Further and More Clearly on a Nest Cam or DropCam Pro

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A common challenge with any security camera is the ability to see as much as possible as clearly as you can.  On some cameras, the view is what it is.  Not so on a Nest Cam or DropCam Pro.  We’ll show how to see further on a Nest Cam or DropCam Pro and see it more clearly.  A few undocumented tips and tricks combined with our experience should help. Everything we discuss will work on a Nest Cam and DropCam Pro.  Both models share the same app and the few accessory recommendations work well with either camera. A Nest Cam … Read more

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