Google details new Nest Cam improvements and tweaks in the Home app [Gallery]

Ben Schoon | Aug 26 2025 - 3:45 am PT

Over the past few weeks, Google has been rolling out various improvements to how the Home app works with Nest Cam products, and the company is now detailing everything new.

The performance of Nest Cam products in the Google Home app has been a long-standing headache for long-time users of Nest products. Whether it’s an older model or a new one, the Google Home app long lagged well behind the performance and functionality of the original Nest app. Google has addressed many of the main functional complaints over the years, such as improving video scrubbing.

In a post this week, Google breaks down several of its recent performance improvements to Nest Cam in the Home app, including:

Improved camera live playback: We’ve made under-the-hood corrections to ensure the app accurately reports whether your camera is online or offline, improving live streaming performance.

Enhanced Camera Performance: Experience reduced latency to the first frame and improved reliability for cameras through better signaling.

Reduced “no video available” errors: Camera users will see fewer cases where a recent video is not yet available for streaming.

Camera stream reliability: Fixed an issue where turning a camera off and on during a live stream would result in a “Camera Unavailable” error, ensuring the stream recovers properly.

The post also mentions “quick seek,” which allows users to double-tap either side of the display to skip through footage by 10 seconds (which started rolling out in March), while also referencing improved video clarity, better timeline reviews, and “substantially improved reliability and speed” for older generations of Nest Cam and Doorbell products.

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*10-second “quick seek” for video history*

Google has also introduced a few new features and tweaks to the Home app in regards to Nest Cam devices.

As added in one of the latest updates, camera previews in the Home app now store a static image of when they were last updated and show that time in the top corner while the live footage loads. Similarly, notifications on Android and iOS show a static photo at first before adding an animation when they are expanded.

Google has also added new “camera controller gestures.” This new feature allows users to more easily navigate camera footage and live views. A swipe from left or right swaps between the timeline and event list views, while a swipe up or down on the middle “control bar” will put the video into full screen. Meanwhile, a swipe down from the very top of the app closes the camera view and brings users back to the camera page.

As mentioned earlier, many of these changes have been rolling out for a matter of weeks, but some went unexplained or largely under the radar, such as the new gesture controls.

Acknowledging shortcomings, Google admits that “we may not always hit the mark, we remain committed to listening to our users and building intuitive, reliable, and high-performing camera features for your home.”

This comes right as leaks have revealed that Google is finally delivering a hardware refresh to its Nest Cam lineup, with a new Nest Cam Indoor, Outdoor, and Doorbell (wired) on the way.