Nest, viewing the video feed on TV is finally back

Finally you can see the real-time video feed from all Nest cameras and video intercoms to your television via the Chromecast protocol: Google announced it last night. The feature is in fact a comeback – it has always been featured on the older models of Nest Doorbell (wired), Nest Cam and Nest Hub Max, but on newer products it had been one of the victims of the transition from the Nest app to Google Home.

Google has explicitly confirmed that the update affects all Nest products released in the course of 2021, however a crucial detail remains to be understood: the ad post specifically mentions devices only Google TV (therefore the smart TVs that integrate the new operating system and the new generation Chromecasts), while no mention is made of Android TV, older but much more popular operating system. We will have to wait for the first confirmation of availability to understand if it is only an approximation by Google or if there really is this difference in the treatment of the two OSs.

In any case, the post notes that to activate the functionality it will be sufficient to resort to voice commands. For example: “Hey Google, show me the kitchen camera”. If you want you can talk to a speaker or smart display, adding “on the TV [e quale, in caso ce ne fossero più di una]”at the end of the command.

With this update, therefore, the new Nest products come to offer almost the same functionality as the old ones, after some difficulties in the transition from the proprietary Nest app to Google Home. The web portal is still missing for video cameras; the company has already promised it will arrive, but there is no concrete information on the timing.