Maybe this time Google won’t beat me… they’ve changed, Donnie… they swear they’ve changed!
I got an unexpected credit from Google for my two nightblind Nest Cam IQs. They were well out of warranty and I suspect that someone decided that being as I have a blog with ten of readers perhaps extending an olive branch would be a nice thing to do. It was. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in the previous article but these cameras are expected to live 5-8 years and mine lived 5 years and 3 months (for one) and probably right under 5 years for the second one. They lived as expected and I suspect started their night vision issues when we had temperatures near or below zero for a few days.
The credit, along with my credit from some Pixel purchase and discount for being a Google One subscriber ended up getting me their three pack bundle of the battery camera I’ve never been particularly fond of. I’m mostly not fond of it because attempting to export video clips is just a pain in the butt and handing things over to the police or a neighbor it’s easier if I just capture my screen and then post it on YouTube for them.
They didn’t have to extend the olive branch. I’ve dedicated quite a bit of my time to reviewing (unfavorably) their Nest WiFi and subsequent customer service interactions where I was told that the most generic and standard internet connection was in fact very strange and I needed to put my fiber modem, or work network, into a different mode. (Psst. I review Wi-Fi here as well as other stuff, I know what I’m doing. It wasn’t a complex network.)
I will be going three more cameras into the Google ecosystem. My night blind cameras still work perfectly fine for basic daytime use and I think I’m going to bring them to the office inside and create some grand and terrible experiment utilizing the known faces feature.
While it’s true I would not purchase their new cameras with the current software, I’m pretty much locked into the Google Ecosystem from the other cameras and as such this was a pretty cool thing on Google’s part to do.
So yeah, thanks Google. I mean it.
On to the creepy stuff however… and it may be just me as I suspect there’s a database of bloggers who have received Google’s sweet deep kiss and complained loudly about it (free stuff,) they contacted me on my personal email. There are ways to find it on Pocketables, but still a bit unexpected. My Nest Cams IQ that failed however were not free stuff, they were me wanting to play in the Nest playground since I really did love the thermostat.
I don’t have exact stats, but in the five years I’ve had the cameras I’ve been contacted by the police three times for events that went on at the apartment buildings across the street, recorded a shootout between idiots at a car dealership 500 feet from my kid’s bedroom.
recorded idiots shooting at a parked car who were actually caught by the police because the police were in a parking lot filling out paperwork 200 feet away, recorded my youngest attempting to run into traffic (she claims she didn’t, I’ve got video,) caught a cat vandal (below)
Watched as FedEx destroyed my lawn and left $500 of packages in the middle of the yard in the rain, watched as an army of slugs made a mass migration across my front yard to the neighbors, and caught video of a crazy man leaving a threatening note in the neighbor’s mailbox.
I’ve had video of people probably checking out whether they thought they could steal packages without being caught, mailbox thieves, missing animals, etc.
The Nest Cam IQs really served their purpose, and the rest of the Nest family of cameras has served to keep my kids honest, figure out what jacket they lost at school, and check in on the cats from time to time. The doorbell, well that’s been kind of a disappointment but that’s a different story.
I’m glad I’ve had them. I am going to miss the Nest Cam IQs software (Nest app)… hopefully they’ll get the Google Home app/webpage up to the level that the Nest app was six years ago… I can hope that it’s not another Google abandoned project.
And finally, while I made a joke about being in an abusive relationship with Google, if you’re in an abusive relationship be it with a corporate monopoly or a terrible partner, seek help and get out. Life is too freaking precious to let something as valuable as you are be abused.
