Nest Outdoor Security Camera

The quality of the microphone and speaker is decent. The microphone was able to pick up the faint wind-chime noise while it would be harder picking up any talk of people from ~20+ feet away.

During daylight, was very happy with the image quality of the Nest Cam Outdoor.

The digital zoom though is next to worthless.

From my testing thus far, I am very happy with the hardware-side of the Nest Cam Outdoor. This outdoor WiFi camera is built very well, its design and magnetic mounting allows it to be very versatile and mounted almost everywhere, the power cable is very long, the wife approved of its appearance, and it appears as if it should hold up well in all weather conditions (I'll write back if it can't hold up to a midwest winter!). I'd say the Nest Cam Outdoor is safely the best outdoor WiFi camera I've ever come across, at least in the sub-$200 price-range.

Where I'm far less enthusiastic is with the Nest software: not supporting any local viewing short of the Nest App / Nest.com, the Nest.com interface requiring Adobe Flash, the email notifications for movement/persons detected seemed very unreliable, the digital zoom being quite useless, and the rest of the software user experience feeling rather mediocre. The advertised functionality works and is sufficient, it would just be better if Nest invested in much in their software experience as they do the hardware design.

Those interested in the Nest Cam Outdoor can find it available from Amazon.com and NewEgg.com for its retail price of $199 USD.