Google's constant abondinment of products has me looking for an alternative

[Eric]

It started with Nest Secure and now they've dropped their outdoor cams, replacing it with a really poorly reviewed battery camera.

I get they're still supported but I can't upgrade or add to either of these products now and am frankly no longer confident in Google's ability to keep any of the products going forward.

I'll live with the security system for now and will likely upgrade to Simplisafe when I'm ready. But not sure what to replace the Nest Cameras with, wondering what people are going with these days.

 

[Cmaier]

It started with Nest Secure and now they've dropped their outdoor cams, replacing it with a really poorly reviewed battery camera.

I get they're still supported but I can't upgrade or add to either of these products now and am frankly no longer confident in Google's ability to keep any of the products going forward.

I'll live with the security system for now and will likely upgrade to Simplisafe when I'm ready. But not sure what to replace the Nest Cameras with, wondering what people are going with these days.

I’ve used Ring for a bunch of years. I have a hack which integrates them into Homekit, and they work well enough for my purposes. I started in their ecosystem before Amazon acquired them, and I’m not sure I’d got that way if I started from scratch today.

 

[Herdfan]

Have had Nest thermostats for years. Got some Nest cameras for my mom's house and went to add them to the Nest app. Nope. Have to use the Google Home app. WTF?

And now my Nest app is nagging me to move the thermostats over to the Google Home App. Grrrrrr.......

As to the battery powered outdoor cameras, so far they seem to be working fine. They have been up for about 6 months and I have had to charge one of them. The other two are still on the initial charge. The one I had to charge is the one facing the street and it gets more hits than the other two. Just hate they are bright white on a tan/brown house.

 

[Eric]

Have had Nest thermostats for years. Got some Nest cameras for my mom's house and went to add them to the Nest app. Nope. Have to use the Google Home app. WTF?

And now my Nest app is nagging me to move the thermostats over to the Google Home App. Grrrrrr.......

As to the battery powered outdoor cameras, so far they seem to be working fine. They have been up for about 6 months and I have had to charge one of them. The other two are still on the initial charge. The one I had to charge is the one facing the street and it gets more hits than the other two. Just hate they are bright white on a tan/brown house.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, for years they keep adding new products and then for whatever reason either cripples or deprecates them. I can't simply add a new camera to my Nest app, they've bastardized it into the Google Home app which is a total quagmire of confusing and nonsensical settings.

They can't be trusted anymore and that's all there is to it, it's a shame to see such a large company make such terrible decisions. So I'm out. Looking at Arlo now, they seem to have pretty decent reviews and I don't need anything too sophisticated.

 

[DT]

I've been pretty happy with our Eufy cameras (I just mentioned them in @Huntn's post about camera access points).

They're part of Anker who I've always had a terrific experience with, the packaging, hardware, software, etc., is all pretty stellar, HomeKit compatible if that's your jam (plus support for all other automation platforms). Even their own software is very nice - supports face identification, cloud and local based storage, all sorts of rules, triggers, etc.

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I wanted rechargeable cameras (so no worries about power location) that were outdoor/waterproof (that the ones I got were rated very highly with overall weather resistance), and of course, no required service, etc., you know, where they could run standalone (so to speak) if I desired.