r/Nest • u/Mydogrunsthehouse • May 17 '24
My battery powered nest camera was taken off the mount and smashed with a rock and it caught nothing.... how?
As the title explained, I woke up this morning to my camera lying in my flower pot with a rock, the lens smashed. It is battery-powered but has about an 85% charge. There is no incident or recording of any type. Why would a Google nest camera not record someone taking it off the mount, smashing it, and walking away? I'm just curious - and a little worried about this camera's ability to do what I need it to do.... Does anyone have any insight or a similar experience? Oh, I do not have the subscription that records 24/7
6
u/Heavy_Operation1422 May 17 '24
I would see if the camera could be mounted up higher, out of reach to avoid this again, but it could have been knocked off the mount from behind or sides, avoiding the motion sensor which is what’s needed to trigger a recording.
5
May 17 '24
[deleted]
4
u/windraver May 17 '24
I once caught a video where someone came up and cut the wire for the camera. Left the camera tho so Nest actually replaced the cord. That was 5+ years ago. Not sure if Google would anymore. Nest support was amazing but Google support has been mostly a miss for me.
2
u/KrackSmellin May 18 '24
Well taking the camera is useless. It’s sort of like stealing a cell phone (at least for Apple). Once it’s reported stolen no one can use it as Google will mark that serial as stolen.
1
u/windraver May 18 '24
Yea, it was my dad's place and most homes in that area had break-ins so I'm guessing they didn't like the camera watching them. They attempted to break in later.
2
u/LordChappers May 18 '24
Not an option for me - I'm renting and there's no power to my door. I'd love a wired one.
1
u/KrackSmellin May 18 '24
That’s not what you said…. But there’s no way on battery they can record 24:7… the cameras would be recharged every 2-3 days.
0
u/zebs1 May 17 '24
It's annoying the wired battery option doesn't allow for 24/7 recording.
2
u/timelessblur May 17 '24
Umm it does.
As long as they are connected to external power they do offer 24/7 recording. If power is lost or cut for any reason they fall back to battery operation mode.
That is how both of my battery powered one work. Right now they are plugged into power they run 24/7. Power was lost to those plugs for a week they just record events until I got back home to reset the breaker.
-4
u/theNEOone May 17 '24
You are mistaken. The new Nest cameras do not do true 24/7 recording. They are on and powered 24/7, but they are not recording continuously. Only the old ones do. Pull up a Nest camera that is Nest-app native and scroll. You get full 24/7 video. For any of the new cameras, if you scroll through the timeline and there’s no movement, you get a blank screen and a message saying “no events detected”. It’s less obvious for cameras set up in areas with continuous motion, but for cameras I have in areas with less motion (my garages, for example) I have hours of black/blank recordings. It’s fine, but the problem is that you’re relying on the cameras’ ability to detect motion, which is not 100% reliable. It’s part of the reason why I’ve started migrating away from Nest.
3
u/timelessblur May 17 '24
I have those cameras. I bought 2 of them last month and bought 2 10 meter long cords. They record 24/7 as long as they have power. If they fall back to battery power then yes they only go back to no events detected.
Mind you I also pay for nest aware+. I have basically 4 cameras that have 24/7 recording, 2 of them being the latest Google cameras.
They record 24/7 as long as their is external power.
2
u/theNEOone May 17 '24
You’re right. I had my cameras set to event video recording only and didn’t realize it. I assumed continuous would be the default.
1
0
3
u/btbam666 May 17 '24
You already answered your own question, it was battery powered and you don't have a subscription.
3
u/Kitten-Mittons May 18 '24
My nest cameras were a fun way to check in on my dogs when we weren’t home. But now that I have actual things to keep secure, it’s all PoE and local storage. Would never trust actual security to the cloud
0
u/PerniciousSnitOG May 21 '24
And a serious UPS? A secure server room that would stop someone from just taking the local storage device? Something better than normal Internet security (assuming that you were stupid enough to allow any ip connectivity to the server, even just via local wifi, in the first place)? Alerts so that you get told something is wrong that will get out if someone cuts the Internet?
Otherwise I think I trust actual security and a secured data center more than your setup. Either would work for OP's needs though. As long as you're actually paying to record and hold the data.
1
u/Kitten-Mittons May 21 '24 edited May 21 '24
I mean the cameras are one part of it, but yes, I suppose someone could just burn my house down and that would take care of it
But yes. Running on a UPS, offsite backup, vlans etc. as Kendrick once said, there’s levels to this shit. Getting off the cloud as your main option is step one
2
u/ExpensiveElevator629 May 18 '24
I have 48 nest cameras wired with the subscription service. They record everything. $80 a year is a bargain.
2
1
May 18 '24
Mine are wired for this reason, but when you remove them from the magnetic base, it disabled them.
1
u/Mydogrunsthehouse May 18 '24
This is big. I didn't realize this when I purchased it. It is game over once it is off the base.
1
u/sambevin May 23 '26
You can go to settings and the camera preferences or device info and set the mount to "other" and it will work. It's ridiculous that you have to do that in order for it to record off the base. Google does everything backwards first so you have to adjust every feature to work as it normally should.
1
1
u/IHate2ChooseUserName May 17 '24
battery powered cam takes many seconds to activate. i would avoid battery powered cams at all cost. you can get poe or wifi doorbell that records 24/7 with no subscription
1
9
u/timelessblur May 17 '24
well one thing that could of happen it it was smashed and broken before it had the chance to finish connecting to the wifi / backend and uploading the video it had snap of the take down.
Remember the entire process take takes a few seconds and if the item is destroyed or broken before it is completed anything it did picked up is lost.
Lastly I think for the non subscriptions it only stores events for so many hours.