We have taken two of these cameras and we have put them to compete to get the idea of the benefits of each of them. On the one hand, we have taken a more premium product such as the Nest IQ Indoor. This ‘start-up’, known for its connected thermostats, was acquired by Google a few years ago. Now the search engine, taking advantage of the rebuild of the launch of its smart speakers, has put a wide range of these products. The price of the device we have used exceeds 300 dollars or 20k INR. In the other corner of the ring, the Mi Home Security Camera of Xiaomi. An appliance with lower utilities but more affordable. The goal of this duel is to give you an idea of which device best suits your needs.
Nest IQ Indoor
This is one of the crown jewels of Google’s home automation offering. It’s probably one of the best cameras of its kind that you can buy, even if they have to loosen pasta for it. It has a fairly clean design. The centerpiece, finished in plastic, is held on a base that can act as a stand but is also prepared to be placed on the ceiling or a wall. It measures 12, 4 centimeters high and weighs 357 grams. It is not the most discreet in the world but it has a minimalist appearance so that it does not destroy the decoration of the house.
Let’s talk about its technical characteristics. It has an 8-megapixel sensor that can record video in 4K, although online recordings and backups in the cloud are limited to 1080p at 30 frames per second. Does this mean that it is wasted? Absolutely. You can see the raw material. The images look much better than when captured in native Full HD.
Another thing that is perceived is the richness in colors and details by combining the capabilities of this sensor with the HDR. Another advantage of having the muscle to capture images in 4K is the result in digital zoom. The Nest IQ Indoor is prepared to do 12 increases. The digital zoom, as it is well known, is nothing more than a clipping of the image. In this way, with this quality, we can expand up to four times without losing details. Until 8-9 the performance is quite passable. With ten or twelve, well, something can be differentiated. The lens has an angle of 130 degrees. The image quality during the day is very high. The same happens at night, where I was personally surprised by its sharpness and how it captures details. This night mode is supported by high precision infrared LEDs.
You can choose the type of notice you want: if it detects noise, movement or people. You have mobile alerts or by mail. If you place it in a very busy place, for example, in the reception of an office, you can delimit the attention area. It allows you to establish an area so that it only alerts you if there is activity there. In my tests, I have done it with the door of the house and the terrace and I have been surprised by the almost millimetric precision with which it respects the marked limits. With familiar faces, it has also been quite reliable, although there have been times when I was alerted to a new face and it turned out to be the same.
The conclusion I draw is that it is technically one of the most trained indoor cameras on the market. The problem is that of its price and that of the subscription. One option may be to hire it only the month you are out (includes a free 30-day period). However, it is a somewhat high investment for someone who wants to use it very sporadically.
MI Home Security Camera 360º 1080p
The other contender of this particular duel. As usual in Xiaomi products, we find one of those products with enough good performance for the price that the brand decides to hang. We find a very clean design, designed in white plastic. It is appreciated that they have opted for a matte finish because it helps and much to go unnoticed without breaking the harmony of the decoration. The central piece has a circular shape and is joined on a conical base. The ‘ball’ of the main part has a black strip, where all the optical machinery is placed. The back, meanwhile, is the area chosen to place the speaker. It can be hung from the ceiling or a wall, although we have chosen to place it on the countertop and on a shelf. It measures 7.8 centimeters tall and weighs 240 grams.
Although not as complete as the Nest system, it also has a motion detection system. It does not allow you to fix familiar faces and segregate so efficiently, although it does allow you to modulate the sensitivity from the app. He has reacted very well. In our tests, the reliability has been 100%. Even having it pointed at the window, it was able to activate when a sparrow landed. Once it detects the movement, it sends an alert to the mobile and records a 10-second clip.
His two biggest hits, in my opinion, are the following. The audio is not so fine, both to speak and to listen, and there are times that if you move away from a little you miss some more volume, chicha. The other problem, perhaps the biggest one, is that you don’t have the option to save what you’ve recorded easily in the cloud. It all depends on a microSD card up to 64GB or a network storage device (NAS). For 15 days you keep a temporary copy. But once that time has expired you have to save it in physical storage.