All Google Nest cameras now work with Alexa smart displays and speakers
Good news for smart homes divided: as of this week, the newest Google Nest cameras can now stream to your Amazon Alexa smart displays, including Echo Show devices, Fire TVs, and Fire tablets. Following Amazon’s announcement last week that third-party cameras can take advantage of its new person and package announcement features on Echo smart speakers, Google Nest has updated its languishing Alexa skill to include its latest cameras.
The Google Nest Alexa skill adds the ability to view a live feed and get motion announcements on Echo speakers from the Google Nest Cam (outdoor/indoor, battery), Google Nest Cam (wired, indoor), and Nest Cam with floodlight. It also adds doorbell press notifications and two-way talk to Google’s support for the Nest Doorbell (battery).
That’s in addition to existing support for live views from the older Nest Cams, Nest Cam IQs (indoor/outdoor), and the Nest Doorbell (wired), formerly called Nest Hello. Alexa’s new person detection announcement feature will be coming to the new cameras at some point, according to Amazon, but package detection announcements are not currently planned to be supported.
What this means is that you can now stream all your Nest cameras to an Echo Show and see a live feed of the newer models on a Fire TV or Fire tablet. You can also receive motion announcements on your Echo speakers and smart displays, and both see and talk to visitors at the Nest Doorbell (battery) through an Echo Show.
In addition to two-way talk on the Nest Doorbell, you can also get doorbell press notifications, letting you use an Echo Show like an intercom for your doorbell. Of course, if you have a Google Nest smart display, you’ve been able to do this for a while — the same if you have a Ring Doorbell with an Echo Show device. Both of those setups can also automatically pull up the feed on your smart display if your doorbell is pressed. That doesn’t appear to be the case for the cross-platform integration.
Alexa voice commands for the new skill include “Alexa, show the [camera name] feed” and “Alexa, answer the front door.” The skill also incorporates the previous skills from Google Nest that allowed Nest Thermostat users to control their thermostat (all models) and older Nest cameras. If you do have older Nest devices, the skill will only work if you’ve migrated your Nest account to a Google Account.
All this harmony in the smart home is good to see and is likely a precursor to the coming smart home standard Matter, which promises to unify all our devices so we can control anything with any app or voice assistant we choose. While cameras aren’t part of the Matter spec’s first iteration, it’s nice to see that everyone is still getting along.
Now, when can we expect to pull up a live view from a Ring camera on a Google Nest Hub smart display?
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