My Honest Google Nest Doorbell Review

Considering A Google Nest doorbell? I’m sharing what we think of ours!

One of our first smart home purchases was a Nest thermostat and that was followed by a Nest smoke detector shortly after. I loved both Nest products so decided to take the next step and add a Google Nest doorbell.

We’ve now had it several years so I thought I’d share what I consider to be the pros and cons of Google Nest doorbell with you! (Note that my review is for the wired Nest doorbell, not the wireless which has less features). Post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my full disclosure statement {here}

There are lots of things to love about the Google Nest doorbell and a few things I don’t love too. Let’s start with the pros! These are four of my favorite things about my Google Nest video doorbell:

1. You Always Know Who’s on the Other Side of the Door

I hate opening up the front door not knowing who’s on the other side, partially due to safety reasons and also because I’m a girl who gets in her PJs at 5pm if I’m in for the night. 🙂 With my Google Nest doorbell, when someone walks up to my house, I get an alert on my iPhone that someone has been spotted at the front door.

I previously thought that the video only worked once the doorbell was rung but that’s not the case – you get an alert any time your doorbell senses motion or sees a person depending on how you set up your notifications. So what looks like this from the outside,

Front Porch Sources: Outdoor lanterns  |  Stone planters

looks like this on my phone:

The large image at the top is a live video of what’s going on outside my door and then below it is a snapshot of the person taken right when they walked up to the door. The video and quality is surprisingly good, even at night.

2. You Can Talk to Whoever’s At Your Door Through the App

Along with being able to see everything that’s going on outside our door, I can hear it too. And I can talk to whoever is at my door through my Nest app. I actually used this feature the very first day that my Google Nest doorbell was installed. I had been waiting ALL day for a delivery that I had to sign for and was told they’d call 30 minutes before arriving so I took off to run a ten minute errand and wouldn’t you know it… I was about three minutes away from my house when my app alerted me that someone was at my front door ringing the bell.

I pulled over and saw from the video on my app that it was a delivery person and I was able to talk to them through my doorbell and let them know that I would turn around and be back there in just a few minutes to sign for my package. It’s SUCH a nice feature!

3. You Know When Your Packages Arrive

I don’t know about your package deliveries, but our delivery people often don’t ring the doorbell. They just drop the package at the door and bolt. Since we typically come and go through the garage, sometimes packages ended up sitting at our front door overnight or longer without us knowing they’re there.

Now that we have our Google Nest doorbell, when packages are left at our front door like this,

I get a Nest alert on my phone that a person was seen outside my front door and one look at the live video feed on my phone app will show me that packages are outside waiting for us:

4. You Can Keep Track of Your Kids Coming & Going

Before my girls headed off to college, if I wasn’t going to be home when they got off the bus after school, I loved getting an alert as they walked through the front door. Total peace of mind for worrier moms (and dads)!

And if you have older kids who stay out late on weekends, you no longer have to park yourself by the front door so that you’re sure to hear them come home because your Nest app will alert you whether you’re in bed reading a book or hanging out in the family room watching TV.

2. It Can Suck Away Some of Your Wifi Juice

After we installed our Google Nest doorbell, at times I noticed that my laptop wasn’t responding as quickly as I’m used to. I didn’t put 2+2 together for a while, but we finally realized it was because our Nest Hello video camera was taking up a chunk of our wifi bandwidth. We ended up installing {this Orbi mesh system} which not only solved the problem but made our devices much faster than before we installed our video camera.

We also realized after the fact that our camera was set at the highest possible resolution. We probably could have lowered the resolution of the video a bit (which you can change in settings) and that would have taken care of the issue too.

Google Nest Installation

And if you’re wondering about compatibility and installation like I was before I got it, Nest has an easy to follow guide {here} that will help you determine if your doorbell wiring is compatible with Nest Hello. And for installation, detailed instructions are included with the Nest Hello video doorbell to make it easy to install on your own (they even supply you with the exact drill bit you’ll need) or you can go {here} to find a local pro installer.

As you guys know, I’m normally a DIYer but I had also just bought a Nest camera for outside our garage that was going to be a tricky installation because of the location so I had a pro come and install both at the same time. He had my new Google Nest doorbell installed in under 15 minutes. I watched each step and it seemed very easy and doable for the average DIYer.

And I’m happy with the look of it too – it’s narrower than other video doorbells I’ve seen (including the Ring doorbell_ and has a more clean-lined design. If you’ve ever spied my ratty old doorbell in pics of my front porch, you know that my Nest Hello video doorbell is a huge improvement from what was once there!

So what do you all think? If you’ve decided you want to buy Nest Hello for your own home, you can find the 2nd generation Google Nest doorbell {HERE} and {HERE}. Want to know what other smart home devices we have and love in our home? Check out my post on our favorite smart home products.

Have a great week,