Like all Google Nest Products, this camera did everything it says on the tin will and more.
Night vision is great, picture quality is good and AI features was okay too.
This will stop working without a decent WiFi Connection though as there is no on-device recording unlike the new Nest Products.

However, this gets a 3 star review because the wiring to the camera is VERY restrictive in the installation method you want to chose.
Basically you are limited to 2 methods of install - 1) Small Length Cable, plugged into outdoors power socket or 2) 7.5M Length Extension box, but still requiring it physically plugged into an outdoors power socket.
As you can see, what I'm saying is if you want to plug in the camera inside a power outlet in the house, prepare to need to drill a hole that is around 2cm in diameter!!! Yes almost an inch hole for a wire! No good for this type of install.
If you want to power from inside the house, you can only buy the latest Nest Outdoor Battery Camera.

Loved the camera, I chose to install it inside and drilled a hole from outside into my lounge, where I just plugged in, this way it saves you having to mount the adapter

The only grips is the large cable you have to pass through to the wall its about 1 inch wide and was a massive hole that blew my brick outside that needs repairing

I've owned the Arlo Essential for 9 months, originally as a security camera but latterly so that I can keep an eye on the front door while in my home office in the attic. I bought the Google Nest Cam a week ago as a replacement because the Arlo had started to freeze when streaming. This review is a comparison between the two cameras.

Price: Google £120, Arlo £70. Both systems have a subscription (google £5 flat, Arlo £2.50 per camera). Without a subscription the Arlo is only a streaming camera, while the Google maintains a significant record of stills from events.

Build quality: Both cameras are really well made, however the google mounting system is significantly better than the Arlo. I was worried about it being a magnet mount, but it's more than strong enough and much more adjustable.

Notifications: The image recognition of the Arlo is significantly better than the Google. The Arlo identifies the movement - person, animal, vehicle - and gives you a zoomed-in image in the notification. The Google has 2 categories - person and motion - but the motion can be anything - leaves, rain, reflections of passing cars' headlights, or a cloud passing infront of the sun. I live on a busy road, even using a activity-zones to exclude the road itself, the reflections etc result in 3500+ notifications a day. It's hard to work out what the cause of the notification was, from the notification themselves - you have to watch the whole clip, even then you might never know. On the phone, you only get the latest notification. So if two people come to the door, the notification will only link to the latest clip, you will have to scroll back through the history to find the previous. In my case, this history includes 1,000s of passing cars, even though I've disabled notifications for the road zone they are still recorded in the event history. The Arlo queues up multiple notifications, so you can view them all in turn. Where the Google is better, is that it is always recorded, therefore the event clips include a lot of build up - the Arlo often only starts recording when the visitor is halfway down the drive. The always recording has another benefit, you can scroll back as far as you want to see the build up to events. For example, I put some scrap out by my gates with a "please take me" note, and the camera caught someone taking it. Curiously, the person appeared to be on foot, so I scrolled back a bit and found that a van had gone past in one direction, turned round, come back slowly, then parked a couple of doors down, run back, grabbed the scrap, then legged it. In a more nefarious situation, this additional footage would have been very useful.

Picture quality: In daylight the pictures are about equal, but the Arlo's night vision is superior.

Installation: Being wired makes installing the Google potentially more difficult. They suggest you plug it into an outside socked, but I just fed the wire out through a gap in the top of my garage door. The wire is very long, over 7m, split 50:50 before/after the USB dock. If you were to drill through the wall, you'd need a big drill bit and then be limited to approx. 3m on the outside. The Arlo is battery powered, so no worry about wires, but that does mean that you need to position it somewhere where you can take it down every few weeks to recharge, taking care to reposition it perfectly when replaced. To avoid this problem, I drilled a hole through the wall and ran a USB cable through and then siliconed the cable into the charge port to keep it in place and waterproof.

Conclusion: Although there's a lot about the Google that I am disappointed with, I am going to get a 2nd camera (when I can find one on offer again).

Without a subscription the camera sends detection notifications every few minutes.
Too many to monitor. So they get switched off making the camera pointless until we purchased the Nest Aware Subscription.

Activity zones and people detection is locked behind a subscription paywall £50 per year.
Once subscribed you can filter what type of detection sends a notification, and only then does the camera work as required.

Excellent quality imaging, because it is mains-fed, with continuous recording, which is motion triggered. For £5, you can record for 30 days, and that’s £5 for 1 or 5 cameras, not £5 each. Better than commercial cameras. Incredible detail at night, you can see detailed faces, and talk through the cameras. The text alerts are incredible. It has proved when Amazon delivery drivers throw things on my doormat in the rain, and walk away, instead of putting things in my safe place as directed!

After 5 months of use the camera started to fail constantly (approx 50 times a day, every day).

Nest just blamed my wifi network even though the camera is only 3m from the transmitter.I am technically savvy and have proved beyond all doubt that my wifi (full strength mesh) network is fine, and no other devise has any problem whatsoever.Zero help or even interest from technical support.

I will never purchase another Nest product - truly dreadful experience.

If there was a NO STAR option, that would be my true rating.Product is simply not fit for purpose.

AVOID ????

Quality

The quality of this nestcam is great and the night vision works well too. The motion detection isn't sensitive enough to always detect small movement such as a cat but always detects people.

Subscription

I now have 4 nest cameras and pay £10 per month for Nest aware which gives 24/7 recording along with motion detection and notifications. I think this is pretty good value.

Installation

Installation is probably the worst part about this product, specifically if you have to run the cable through an external wall in order to plug it inside your home. The main issue being that the USB end that needs to pass through the wall requires a 20mm hole to be drilled through the wall. Most people will need to purchase a specific drill bit in order to do this or cut and reconnect the cable which isn't recommended.
Apart from that, Installation is easy, just plug it in add it in your nest app and you're good to go.

Security

My main concern about the security of this product is its reliance on WiFi. I have Virgin broadband in my home. The Installation Engineers ran the cable along the outside wall of my property just above the DPC which I believe is normal practice. All any intelligent theif would need to do if they recognise the Nest product would be to cut the broadband cable which would render all of the cameras useless.

I got this for placing on my balcony to record the goings on in the street below. Ultimately the zoom wasn’t powerful enough for my liking and the Nest interface I found to be a bit lacking when wanting to review specific things (only recording some things and not others). It’s probably better if you want to keep a watch over a very quiet porch or some area where there is very little motion going on but forget it if you want continuous recording. So for me it just didn’t cut it.

The app is great, gives you full control over the video footage for either a £5 or £10 monthly fee. However the quality of the camera image at this price point is abismal. Testing the outdoor camera, in good natural light conditions with an excellent wifi signal (indoors next to the router), at 5 meters distance, I could not see a recognisable image of my face.

We used this camera for a blind spot in our previous home security. We now have our two french windows covered and plugged the camera into a socket in the shed. We were impressed at the way the camera could be angled very easily after fixing in place. The instructions to integrate the new camera with the two existing camera’s was clear and easily auctioned.