Nest Hub
Photo: GoogleTarget, The best purchase, Bed Bath & Beyond
Smart monitors are very similar to smart speakers in that they have many of the same functions, but as you might guess, they have a monitor. It is useful because when you request a weather report, for example, you can see all the details yourself. This model is small enough to be useful on a bedside table or kitchen counter (and doesn’t have a camera). It can also track your sleep, even though the feature was in beta when we tested it, and it wasn’t very polished.
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The advantage of the camera’s smart screen is that you can make video calls with friends and family. In Nest Hub Max (8/10, WIRED Recommends), it works through the Google Duo app. This screen has better speakers than its sibling above and a larger screen that makes it more comfortable to follow recipes. If you need it to pause an alarm, timer, or song, just show it in the palm of your hand – handy if you’re involved. to the kitchen and you don’t want to touch the screen.
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Nest Cam
Photo: NestTarget, The best purchase, Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart
The new Nest Cam is in our guide to the best outdoor surveillance cameras, but it works just as well indoors. This is battery-powered, so you can place it almost anywhere (within range of your Wi-Fi network) and only need to charge the battery after a month or more. When you want to charge it, you can just take it off the rack – it attaches magnetically. 1080p video quality is stable and motion alerts are seamless. You can pay for a Nest Aware subscription ($ 6 a month) so it can learn faces, use 60-day event history, and more. The wired version is also available for a much cheaper $ 80 ($ 20 discount).
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We haven’t tested Nest Doorbell, but this new model adds HDR and night vision. The sun or street lights do not turn off the image and ruin the footage. You can get customized alerts for people, packages, animals, and cars, and you can talk through the doorbell when you’re not home.
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We haven’t tried this model, but we’ve tested and liked previous Nest thermostats. You can control your home’s heating and cooling system from your phone and set schedules. It can remind you to change the filter and it can detect when you are leaving home to enable Eco mode to save energy.
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