Nest has unveiled their latest smart home camera, the IQ. Similar in looks to the Nest outdoor camera, the IQ packs an 8-megapixel (4K) sensor that supports 12x digital zoom and HDR color. The camera doesn’t stream in 4K but rather uses that 4K video to supersample to 1080p for super clear video and a significantly improved zoom. Nest calls this technology Supersight, which allows the camera to zoom in and track movement in the room, following whatever moves around with clear video. The Cam IQ also supports picture-in-picture viewing of the zoomed footage. You can, of course, still view the full wide angle shot of the room in 1080p, with an improved 130-degree field-of-view.
The most impressive feature that Nest is rolling out is the intelligent facial recognition technology built into the IQ camera. The Cam IQ can tell the difference between a human and other objects and zooms into the face so you get a clear picture of who is in view. This is an advancement over the current Nest feature that can roughly identify a human subject by size. That part of the system is free, but the coolest part is locked behind the Nest Aware subscription service.
The Cam IQ can use facial recognition to identify if the person is a stranger or a “Familiar Face” so you will only get alerts if an unidentified person walks into view. The Nest Aware subscription, which costs $10 per month, also enables smart audio alerts which can identify sounds like speech and dogs barking, and also enables time lapse, cloud recording and more.
The Nest Cam IQ ships for $299 or a 2 pack for $498, and is available for preorder in the US and parts of Europe, with more available on June 13th.
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