Nest Doorbell Review 2023

Google Nest Doorbell: First Impressions

I always get excited when I’m reviewing Nest products. I recently reviewed the battery-powered Google Nest Cam and like most Google products, I found the design to be thoughtful. Not only that, but Google Nest almost always comes out with well-working products, so I know I’m not getting into a headache-inducing bout with a piece of unresponsive, uncooperative equipment. The Nest Doorbell was no exception to that.

Everything from the Nest Doorbell box

Everything is packaged in a way that makes sense, and even if you’ve never worked with a video doorbell before, you can probably guess how the installation process is going to go just from what’s included in the box. More on that in a minute.

I really appreciated the design of the unit itself. It’s sleek and rounded and, in my honest opinion, a lot nicer looking than some of the boxier options that we saw in our review of Ring’s Video Doorbell. I also really appreciated that it comes in a variety of colors, including:

• Snow
• Ash
• Linin
• Ivy

I went with Ash since I thought it would match my trim the best, but all of the available colors are matte-finish plastic with minimal branding. Excellent job there, Google.

I also really appreciated that each of these units is constructed using 43 percent recycled materials. E-waste is a huge problem, and it’s nice to see a company that’s trying to take some responsibility in that regard.1

Let me step down off my soapbox to get this Nest Doorbell installed and running.

Nest Doorbell: Installation

First things first, you’re going to need to plug the unit into the wall or into a computer or tablet since Google doesn’t provide you with an adapter. Since the version of the Nest Doorbell I tested was battery-operated, it needed to charge for about five hours to reach capacity, but I always recommend letting your battery-powered security equipment charge overnight just to be sure.

Once it was all charged up, it was time to set things up through the app. I’ve tested plenty of Google products before, so I already had Google Home on my phone. If you don’t, it’s simple enough to download. Just make sure you have a Google account before you start down this road.

The Nest Doorbell is easy to set up in the Google Home app.

After that, I scanned the QR code on the back of the device, clicked a few “I agrees,” and before I knew it, the firmware was downloading and the camera was initializing. Really, it couldn’t be easier to set up Google products. It’s almost refreshing.

After maybe five minutes or so, everything was ready to go. The app let me watch a video that described how to install the doorbell and how to best optimize the camera’s positioning. It’s designed to work best about four feet off the ground and includes a 20-degree wedge you can use to make sure its camera is pointing in the right direction. That and the mounting bracket are easy enough to install. Just use the brackets as templates, mark where the screws need to go, drill your pilot holes, and screw the bracket and wedge (if you need it) into your door frame. The doorbell then snaps into the bracket. All said and done, it shouldn’t take you more than half an hour from unboxing to ding-dong.

Google Nest Doorbell Tech Specs

One thing that’s often overlooked when picking a video doorbell to install is making sure it fits where you intend to place it. That’s not a big issue with the Nest Doorbell thanks to its slim design, but nonetheless, here are the measurements of the wired and battery versions. Basically, the battery-powered version is bigger because it houses a battery, but the difference in size is minimal.

For more comparisons between the two versions, you can refer to Google’s doorbell comparison page.2

Nest Doorbell: Day-to-Day Use

Overall, I was really happy with the performance of the Nest Doorbell. It was reliable, all of its functions worked as they should, and I never felt like I was missing important activity. Let’s talk specifics, though.

Image Quality

The Google Nest Doorbell’s resolution is 960 x 1280 pixels, and it records up to 30 frames per second. If that doesn’t mean much to you, the long and short of it is this: The image quality is good, verging on great. It’s not the best I’ve ever seen, but it certainly gets the job done and then some.

That said, the Google Nest Doorbell’s video quality is a step-down from its predecessor, the Nest Hello. The Nest Hello uses a 3 MP image sensor, whereas the Google Nest uses a 1.3 image sensor. The zoom was also reduced to six times compared to the older one that can zoom in up to eight times.

That’s one weakness of the Nest Doorbell compared to the Nest Hello. The latter can double as an outdoor security camera with its excellent clarity and zoomability, whereas the Nest Doorbell focuses just on being an excellent doorbell camera, but nothing more. If you have a pretty substantial lawn like I do, it’d be hard for the Nest Doorbell to capture license plates, especially when outdoor lighting isn’t that good (see image below).

The Nest Doorbell’s image quality is fairly solid.

Another thing to point out about the image quality: The Nest Doorbell has a 145-degree diagonal view. What does this mean, exactly? It means it sees “tall” rather than “wide.” While that might not sound important, it really is when you consider how video doorbells, especially those with package detection, are used. You want to be able to see as much of the ground beneath the camera as you can, as that’s where packages are placed.

When I tested the Nest Hello when it first came out (2018), I noted how it has a limited view. It had a 160-degree diagonal viewing angle, mind you, but the 4:3 aspect ratio meant that I had to angle the doorbell slightly downwards to watch over my packages. With the Nest Doorbell, the viewing angle to the side is narrower, but the 3:4 aspect ratio meant more floor coverage.

Two-Way Audio

One of the great things about video doorbells — good ones, anyway — is that you can use them to talk to whoever turns up at your door without having to physically be there. They’re great for safety, and great for introverts like me. No, I don’t want to hear about your special offer, thank you.

The Nest Doorbell installed

Two-way audio functionality really works only if two things are working in tandem: low latency and high-quality speakers. The Nest Doorbell, I found, has both. While it wasn’t exactly like speaking with someone face-to-face, it was close enough to be really functional.

There is one drawback. The Nest Doorbell also has “quick responses” that you can use if you don’t want to talk directly to the person standing at your door. These include options like “We’ll be right there” and “No one can come to the door.” I found, though, that these quick responses were anything but. It took five or six seconds from the time the response was selected for it to play through the speaker. Again, not a deal-breaker, but something to point out.

That said, the fact that the Nest Doorbell offers quick responses puts it at an advantage over similarly priced competitions. When I reviewed the $199 Ring Video Doorbell 3, for instance, its lack of a similar feature was one of the cons that I pointed out. Some Ring doorbells, such as the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Pro 2, offer pre-recorded responses, but those ones cost over $200.

Alerts

Another great thing about the Nest Doorbell is the ability to tailor how sensitive it is to your needs. You can switch alerts on and off for passing cars, animals, and all motion. One of the most annoying things about setting up a new piece of smart security equipment is going through the mountain of alerts it starts giving you and trying to lower sensitivity levels. With the Nest Doorbell, it comes pretty much calibrated right out of the box.

This is another area where Nest flat out beats Ring, one of the most popular video doorbell brands. Even with the best Ring doorbells, you’d have to manually set up activity zones to reduce false alarms, and having done that with several Ring doorbells, I can tell you that it can be a tedious process. With Nest, all you have to do is go to the app, turn off alerts for certain types of movement, and you’re good to go.

Reliability

Finally, I did want to mention the Nest Doorbell’s reliability. At no point during the testing period did I feel like I was missing anything. Everything worked exactly as expected, and there were no major service interruptions. Fully charged, the doorbell will run for about two-and-a-half months, and if your Wi-Fi goes out, it will record to onboard storage for up to an hour. Rock-solid performance.

But that’s just the day-to-day functionality. Now let’s get into the more fun stuff.

Nest Doorbell: Advanced Features

Google packs its products with some pretty high-tech features. Let’s take a look at some of the best ones for the Nest Doorbell now.

Familiar Faces

One of my favorite features in the Nest suite of products is the Familiar Faces function. As the name implies, when this feature is active, your Nest Doorbell will recognize certain people and alert you if they’re seen. The first time the doorbell notices a new person, it will ask if you know them. If you do, you can enter their name. Google then remembers them and will tell you when they’re around. It works very well, and it’s extremely reliable. At night, it can be a little finicky, but for the most part, it never misses.

One glaring weakness of this feature, however, is that it’s not active by default. In fact, you can only use this feature if you shell out a monthly (or yearly) fee for a Nest Aware subscription. We recommend getting Nest Aware anyway for the cloud storage, but the fact that you have to pay for Familiar Face alerts can be a deal-breaker for those looking for a smart video doorbell to use without monthly fees.

Package Detection

Who doesn’t love getting something in the mail? I certainly do. What I don’t love is when I don’t know that my package has shown up and it gets rained on or grows legs and walks off. With the Nest Doorbell’s package detection system, that won’t happen. Its AI tools recognize boxes and will alert you immediately when they show up on your porch. And with the long field of vision, there aren’t a whole lot of blind spots like I saw with this doorbell’s predecessor, the Nest Hello.

The Nest Doorbell’s package detection

Activity Zones

Like I said above, the Nest Doorbell’s sensitivity is pretty well dialed-in right off the bat, but if you’re still running into problems with unwanted alerts — maybe you live on a busy street or in a ground-floor apartment — you can set up activity zones to exclude certain motion.

The Nest Doorbell’s activity zone

Just drag the points to where you want the doorbell to pay attention. That should cut down on the noise. If not, you might consider adjusting your settings or maybe repositioning the doorbell itself.

So that’s about it for daytime operations. Let’s talk briefly about how the Nest Doorbell performs at night.

Nest Doorbell: After Dark

Similar to what I saw when I reviewed the Google Nest Cam, the Nest Doorbell uses traditional IR night vision, meaning that once the sun goes down, things switch over to black and white (which isn’t really my favorite). For the price, I’d expect color night vision. It’s not a total deal breaker, but you might miss important details once your color drops out.

Nest Doorbell’s night vision

As far as the reliability and visibility, things were great. The picture was still very crisp, and for the most part, all of the AI tools like package detection and facial recognition still reliably worked. I just wish it was in color!

And speaking of enhancements to the Nest Doorbell, let’s talk about Google’s subscription service — specifically, whether or not it’s worth it.

Nest Aware: Do You Need It?

There are two main reasons to get a Nest Aware subscription: if you want to record and store more video, or if you want to take advantage of the advanced features mentioned above. Without a subscription, your Nest Doorbell is going to store up to three hours of recordings on its own, and Familiar Faces won’t work. To help you determine if you need Nest Aware, here’s a quick breakdown.

Nest Aware Price Structure

For the price, we think the features are worth it. You’ll be getting the most out of your camera, but it is important to consider the monthly or annual cost when you’re considering which security system to go with. And speaking of price …

Nest Pricing Structure: How Much Is the Equipment?

When you’re thinking about purchasing a home security system, you have to think about things comprehensively. Security is iterative, and one piece of equipment builds off of the next until you have a complete security posture. More simply — in Yoda-speak, a video doorbell alone does not a complete home security system make.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a quick look at Google Nest’s prices.

Nest Product Snapshot

We have more information on this in our guide to Nest’s pricing and costs, but as you can see, these pieces of equipment aren’t exactly cheap. So considering that, let’s see what other users are saying about the Nest Doorbell.

I scoured Amazon for user reviews and found one that said this about the Nest Doorbell while comparing it to the Nest Hello: “Another advantage I had not anticipated is that I get notifications of people at the door almost instantaneously, whereas with the Nest Hello it was typically 20-30 seconds later. I attribute this to the local processing of images, rather than sending them to the cloud for recognition.”

As someone who has tested both the Nest Hello and the Nest Doorbell, I can attest to this. Although the older version is better in some areas (like video quality), the Nest Doorbell improves on a lot of its front door security features.

Even former Ring users are impressed with the Nest Doorbell. One wrote: “I was a long time user of the Ring. It wasn’t bad but I started researching and trying alternatives once they raised their prices. NOTHING came close to being as useful as this video doorbell. Not only can this differentiate between people and random dogs/cats, it can also correctly identify both when a package is left and when it has been taken.”

That review highlights one of Nest’s greatest strengths: smart detection. While there are other doorbells that can differentiate human motion from that of inanimate objects and detect packages left or taken from your front door, Nest is simply ahead in terms of recognition. To me, that makes it well worth its price. But how does it sound to you?

Nest Doorbell: Is It Your Best Option?

There are plenty of video doorbells on the market today: some great, some good, and some you shouldn’t even bother with. Where does the Nest Doorbell fit on this spectrum? I’d argue somewhere between good and great.

The Nest Video Doorbell’s profile

The Nest Doorbell is well designed, reliable, and easy to use. It’s got advanced functionality that feels more meaningful than gimmicky, and I could easily see myself using this product long term. It does have a few drawbacks — namely, its lack of color night vision and a few latency issues — but overall this is a really strong offering by Google in this space.

Is it worth almost $180, though? I can’t decide that for you, but I will say I wouldn’t feel ripped off at that price point. Do I wish it was a little cheaper? Sure, but I could say that about a lot of things. Should you check out your options before pulling the trigger? Absolutely. So head over to our list of the best video doorbells. There, you can compare some of the top names in the industry to find what’s right for you, your family, and your budget.

Nest Doorbell FAQs