Google’s smart home venture Nest has been teasing updates to its cloud subscription package since October. Nest has officially announced, from Tuesday,a new $6 Nest Aware plan for its users.
Nest Aware includes Nest IQ Camera, Nest Hello, and security cameras with high-tech features such as facial recognition. It has been deemed optional but is necessary if you want your video footage saved. This new subscription plan has included audio detection, smart speakers, and smoke detection screens. These features are widely available with other less known brands too. But the introduction of smart displays and smart speakers are a welcome change when we look at Nest Aware.
The plan, which was previously made available by Google, was priced at $5 per month, which gave you 24/7 rolling video history for a time frame of 5 days. It had features like facial recognition and activity zones. There were plans priced at $10 and $30, which gave users the ability to record the footage for 10 and 30 days, respectively.
But the catch in this business model was that the Aware subscription was limited to only a single camera and each additional camera required a separate Nest Aware subscription. Additional Aware subscriptions were often given out to the users for discounted rates but sometimes not. It also depended upon the plan selected by the customers and also the fact whether the additional cameras would be installed in the same house or not.
With this new plan, Nest has now announced that the subscription model will cover all the cameras installed. It doesn’t matter whether you have three cameras or 13. This will save a lot of money for people who have installed multiple cameras in their homes.However, the Nest Aware Plus plan priced at $12 will provide the users with event-based recordings for 60 days and will also offer 24/7 saved footage for a rolling period of 10 days. Aware Plus too is available for multiple cameras.
Also, there have been reports of customers expressing anguish over migrating from the Nest account to Google Account. They have stated that device integration often failed after migrating to the Google account.
Let’s see how the users in the coming days welcome this new plan. What are your views on the same, do let us know in the comment section.
