Google Nest Doorbell (Battery) Review: Smart but 'spensive

As the name may suggest, the Nest Doorbell (Battery) is Google's take on a smart home wire-free video doorbell. Its first, actually, which makes it a touch more accessible for those who aren't able to hardwire a device at their place. The Nest Doorbell (Battery) has the key features you'd expect from a video doorbell - a two-way intercom and a live video feed you can access from your phone - backed up by some smarts like package detection.

Installing the Nest Doorbell (Battery) is a fairly simple affair. Broadly speaking, you'll need to install the Google Home app on your phone, scan a QR code on the back of the doorbell, and then follow the prompts. Partway through the setup, you'll be instructed to mount the doorbell itself. There's even a dedicated how-to video to help. While it doesn't require any wiring, you will need to drill two small holes for the backplate. This means the Nest Doorbell (Battery) isn't 100% renter-friendly.

Buzzing the doorbell rings out a chime on the device itself, but will also trigger a push notification on your phone with the Google Home app installed. There's a short delay between when someone rings the bell and when you get the push notification - maybe four or five seconds - but I found this was still enough time to either rush to the gate or respond using my phone.

If you want to respond with your phone, you can either use the Google Home app to chat to whoever's at your door via intercom functionality, or shoot through a canned response like "you can leave it". This has worked reasonably well both over WiFi at home, and when I've been out over a mobile network.

The Nest Doorbell (Battery) can also be paired with a Google Nest Hub smart display or any Nest speaker. In my experience, the doorbell rang on my Nest Hub a few seconds before a notification showed up on my phone. The Nest Hub also brings up the video feed, and the same response options as you get on a phone.

In addition to triggering when someone explicitly rings the doorbell, the Nest Doorbell (Battery) can also send you notifications when it detects motion. I've got it set up to alert me to people and packages, but you can customise these settings and have it trigger on cars and pets as well. There's also an option to send a notification on any detected motion, but Google says this can come at the cost of battery life. And would almost certainly lead to too much notification spam.

Each notification comes with a little snippet of recorded video, and the camera quality is pretty decent. You'll only get black and white footage at night, however. Unless you pay for a Nest Aware subscription (starting at $9 per month), the Nest Doorbell (Battery) will only keep these clips for three hours, which isn't ideal if someone tries to break in overnight, for example. And even if you do pay for a subscription, the Nest Doorbell (Battery) can't do continuous 24/7 recording. It will only start filming when it detects motion. It's not exactly a replacement for a dedicated security camera. 

If you decide to pay for Nest Aware, you also get extra features like alerts for specific people you know, rather than generic "person seen" notifications. Notably, all this processing is done on-device, without Google having to offload footage to the cloud.

When it comes time to recharge the Nest Doorbell (Battery), you'll need to take it down entirely using a special tool to remove it from its wall mount. Thankfully, you shouldn't have to do this too often. In about two weeks of usage, my unit has gone from 70% when I first set it up down to 40%. At this rate, I'd expect between a month and two per charge. Charging the doorbell will put it out of action for a while, however. According to Google, you're looking at four-and-a-half hours for a full charge.

I'm a big fan of the Nest Doorbell (Battery)'s clean design. While it's a tall lad, it's got a simple, matte look to it. It's not as in your face as some other options on the market. The doorbell is also weather-resistant, and it's still chugging along fine after plenty of miserable successive rainy days.

My only major concern with the Nest Doorbell (Battery) is price: you'll need to drop $329. That puts it at the premium end of the pricing spectrum for a smart doorbell, which can be had for under $150 these days. But if you're after a battery-powered option that plays nicely with the Google smart home ecosystem, the Nest Doorbell (Battery) delivers.

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