Google is finally bringing an old feature to its new Nest cameras. Starting this week, you can stream video feeds from all your Nest cameras and video doorbells to your TV using Chromecast with Google TV. Google announced the feature in a blog post on the Google Nest Community forum on Wednesday morning.
“What?” You ask. “Couldn’t you already do that?” Well, yes and no. It was possible to watch video feeds from older Nest cameras — like the Google Nest Doorbell (wired), the now-discontinued Nest Cams, and the Nest Hub Max camera — on the biggest screen in your home.
But, as I noted in my review of the new Nest Cam (indoor, wired), none of Google’s newer cameras can stream to Chromecast devices. (All Nest cameras can stream to Google smart displays and Amazon Echo smart displays).
Starting this week, you can stream live from your Nest Doorbell (battery) to your TV using Chromecast with Google TV. Photo by Dan Seifert/The Verge
The blog post confirms that “All Nest Cams and Nest Doorbells will be supported, including our newest devices that were released in 2021: Nest Cam (outdoor or indoor, battery), Nest Cam (indoor, with cable), Nest Cam with spotlight and Nest Doorbell (battery).”
However, Google only lists the newer Chromecast with Google TV as supported, so we don’t yet know if it will work on other Chromecast and Google TV devices.
The new integration is rolling out this week, according to Google. And there is nothing to activate to activate it. Just make sure your Chromecast is on the same Wi-Fi network as your cameras. You can either use the Google TV voice remote by pressing the assistant button and saying “show me the front door camera”. Or ask your Nest speaker or smart display by saying “hey Google, show me the front door camera on my TV.”
Now we just need Google to follow through on its promise to add a web portal option to its new Nest cameras so they can finally get feature parity with the old Nest cameras.
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