Google’s Nest Cam and Nest Doorbell get image quality tweaks

If the event videos from your Nest Cam and Nest Doorbell have been looking sharper and punchier lately, you’re not imagining it.

According to a post on the Nest Community blog, Google pushed out an update this week for its battery-powered Nest Cam and Doorbell that’s packed with image quality improvements, with HDR being among the tweaked features.

This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best home security cameras.

Specifically, the update targets the auto-exposure control (or AEC) algorithm that governs how multiple exposures of a video frame are combined into a final HDR-enhanced image, Google says.

The software patch should boost the accuracy of the AEC algorithm to help prevent video frames from being over- or underexposed, while improvements to local contrast should make the image appear more crisp, Google said. 

Google

In addition to the HDR fixes, the Nest Cam and Doorbell update also aims to add more detail when zooming in on an image.

Google says it has made “software and hardware optimizations” that should allow for “finer texture and detail” when you’re taking a closer look at a specific portion of a captured video.

Google said it rolled out the “automatic” software patch this week.

It’s not clear when–or if–a similar image-quality update will be inbound for Google’s wired Nest cameras and doorbells; we’ve reached out to Google for comment.

The Nest Cam and Doorbell software patch comes on the heels of a major overhaul of the Google Home app, which included an improved overview of Nest camera videos. The Google Home update also added Matter support for iOS users.

Google released the battery-powered Nest Cam and Doorbell back in 2021.

In our Nest Cam review, we called the camera “flexible and powerful” but criticized its high subscription and accessory costs.

Meanwhile, our Nest Doorbell review praises the “accurate and fast” motion detection as well as the on-device video processing, but again called out the lofty price tags for the device and subscription plan.