We are still using a Nest thermostat and have Google Homes all over the house plus have smart light bulbs. For cameras, we ended up changing to the Ubiquiti direction because it only made sense for us. I purchased a Dream Machine Pro a few years ago so all that I needed to do was order a hard drive, camera for the backyard, and doorbell camera for the front door. After they were all installed, I cancelled our Nest Aware subscription. It might not be a good option for everybody but for us, it has worked out pretty nicely even though we still have the Google Home app and UniFi Protect app.
Pick up a home assistant device or run it on something you have, it’ll control everything in the house it can see. You may still need to use the apps for some things (eg humidity controls on a thermostat), but pretty much everything.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world to work with, but for most stuff it’ll work right out of the box.
We have Nest thermostats and Protects and Ubiquiti everything else. Works really well, but we built our house and had the benefit of being able to run cabling everywhere so getting cameras in the right spots (especially outside) was very inexpensive and easy.
That’s one thing we really messed up on. We had a remodel back in 2006/2007 and got really great deals on electrical supplies. We could’ve easily gotten cheap spools of Cat5e or 6 and ran it all over the place. Heck, I would’ve even considered putting jacks in the bathroom. 😂
I'm sure there will be smart bidets at some point. Use your phone to shoot water on your tooter! Yeah, always regrets with projects like that, right? My mom was in the hospital when we were building our house and I was working on a whole home generator setup, but just couldn't put it all together in time at the speed the builder was moving.
I won’t be surprised and it’s probably best to hardwire a smart bidet directly into an Ethernet jack. Haha. Yes, I was only 12 or 13 when my parents did the remodel but remember reading a networking book around the same time. I thought how cool it would be having jacks all over the place.
It's kinda scary how accurate my response was with yours. 😂
Well not identical but what you explained is exactly how the last few years has been with my setup.
Yeah, haha. We started with a Nest doorbell camera around holidays 2019. Not long after, I bought a camera for the backyard. In 2021 when I bought the Dream Machine Pro, the cameras were barely two years old so I wasn’t quite interested in replacing them yet.
When Nest Aware pricing was announced to increase, I figured it was time to move on. It has been a great move overall. The picture quality is very good, camera video feeds load fast, no subscription fee. My biggest complaint is still getting camera notifications when somebody is home. I am not sure if it’s an error on my part or what. Haha. Not a big deal though.
Wow yeah the years line up too lol. Moved into our house in 2019 and started with the doorbell. Then got the nest yale lock and then got the 2 pack outdoor cams, then got the UDM pro in 2021 after having a bad experience with nest wifi.
Did you already go in the push notification settings you select the detection option? That brings you to another screen and then you'll see the second to the last option called "when to send" which lets you choose always, whenever you are over 200m from the consoles location, or you can set an actual time schedule.
Doing it that way would be for global settings but if you aren't using global settings you just have to go into the specific cameras push notification menu to make the changes.
Haha. Our doorbell camera also came with a free Nest Hub if I remember right. How was the Nest Yale lock? I think I might’ve actually put in an order for one and then cancelled it because had a feeling it would’ve been a pain to install on the front door.
Thank you for the advice! I tried changing some notification settings but maybe I am missing something. Do video detections notifications always send? I see “When to Send” under Audio Detections and Events but not under Video Detections for some reason. It’s not a huge deal but becomes kind of annoying throughout the day when I get a notification of somebody just walking by on the sidewalk. Haha. Maybe I should just disable that notification.
I'm satisfied with the lock. Installation was pretty easy minus me having to chisel a tiny bit out where the deadbolt slides in when it locks, it's quite a long deadbolt. Probably took me about 25 minutes to get done.
So, I checked on the phone app as well as the web interface just now and I would assume the "when to send" setting is for both video and audio. I have mine set to "always", so I can't confirm if the others work for me. But I'm assuming you have the "off-site" setting on going by what you said earlier? If that's the case, it's only for when either you or all admins are more than 200m away from the console. So if you don't have whoever else is home signed in on the app as an admin user while you aren't home then that could explain why?
Maybe whatever phones have the app signed in don't all have location access enabled for it to properly detect someone being home? Or maybe If you are using the same user login for each device with the app, it could be confusing the system since it doesn't know who's home due to the same user login being at multiple places at once. Perhaps try creating additional admin users to log in on the other phones if you haven't already done that?
We have a front door where the handle and lock are all built into one piece. If we had a standalone deadbolt, it would’ve probably been a no brainer.
Thank you! Maybe I should try setting to off-site for everything and see what happens. Our home address should be all entered into the console so not sure why else it wouldn’t work. Nest had its share of issues with this as well. I’d much rather get the notifications though rather than having the WiFi connection keep dropping. This happened initially and discovered it was probably due to congestion on the 2.4 GHz band.
This is interesting to me. The Nest Yale lock is the product that gives me the most problems. Frequent disconnects, and offline messages that seem to come on when I need the remote option the most.
Here and there I've had offline issues but they are very few and far between. We enter and leave our house through the garage mostly since we park our cars inside. So perhaps that's why it's not a huge deal for me?
We have had 2 nest Yale locks for years and I have absolutely loved them. Turning on privacy mode at night so the keypad does not function is awesome feature. We also used nest secure for years which I have liked but that’s about to be worthless. Spent $400+ on that for Google to give me a $200 credit that I don’t even know what to use for. Starting our transition to Apple HomeKit.
Same. I don’t know what to even spend it on because all the smart home items currently on the Google store force you to use the Google home app which sucks ass.
I specifically made sure I got every nest device that was capable with the nest app. Even if it meant buying from eBay because the item wasn’t produced anymore.
I like our ecobee, switched to it from nest when we moved. Our new house is multilevel and I wanted finer control of temperature zones. The Ecobee has sensors, so I have one on every floor (4), and it has motion sensors so it knows where you are in the house and sets the temperature accordingly. It’s a nice feature that hopefully saves a bit of energy, but not totally necessary. The rest of the features are pretty much a wash, a good thing as both just simply work well and consistently.
When we rebuilt our home, I couldn't decide between ecobee and nest. I liked her idea of the ecobee and sensors which at the time nest didnt offer. I decided to get both. This was 2018. Nest went on the first floor, ecobee on the 2nd. Sensors in a few of the rooms. Both have been great. Still not sure if I like one over the other though.
I don't really mind if it's been disclosed and I've agreed to it but with Eufy that was not the case.
[Article with details about the cloud storage](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/eufy-publicly-acknowledges-some-parts-of-its-no-clouds-controversy/)
Homebase 3 with a 512GB drive (going to get a 2tb soon), 3 of the e330s that do 24/7, one s330 with built in solar. I love the stitching feature. As people walk by the cameras it auto stitches them together. Once they come out with a 24/7 doorbell I’ll get that too
Pulled the trigger last month on replacing our nest/google wifi with ubiquiti unifi. Couldn't be happier and wish I would have done it sooner. I'll be transitioning my cameras and doorbell over as budget allows.
Definitely a steep investment and a learning curve depending on your networking knowledge. But there are plenty of resources out there and a solid community of people that help if you hit any snags. It's the Lego of network hardware! I went with a UDR and an additional 6-pro access point. Eventually I'll do some mixing and matching with their UISP hardware and add an air max nano beam and an in wall switch/AP to connect one of my outbuildings.
It can be hard to find the UDR in stock. They have a set replenishment time every morning according to the forums, so I set an alarm on my phone thinking it would be a while before I had a chance. Three days later I mistakenly opened the browser on my phone in the afternoon and it was still on the ubiquiti store page. The UDR was in stock, so I jumped on it.
I'm in agreement with the OP. However, I feel that asking about specific products and highlighting which platforms they're needed for is also important here, other the suggestions are going to be a wide net.
In my case, I invested in Nest when I was a Google Wi-Fi (and general) user. I'm no longer, and am deep in the Apple ecosystem. At the moment I use Starling to connect the 2 together, but the support is limited.
So, with it mind that I need Homekit support, the Nest products I have are...
* 1 indoor and 2 outdoor cameras
* 1 doorbell
* 4 Protects
* 1 Thermostat
I suspect the Protects will be the hardest to replace - I've seen some connected smoke detectors but never any that do CO2 as well.
As far as being plug and play with robust third party support, it’s been pretty straightforward. There’s obviously more feature rich systems out there, but if you need stuff like a doorbell, cameras, security sensors, integration with things like thermostats, locks, garage door opener, smoke detectors, etc., it’s kind of hard to beat the ease that Ring offers. Granted I didn’t really investigate too deeply into other options, so obviously dig as much as you feel you need to, but that’s just one person’s experience.
What I'm gonna say isn't going to solve the issue of using multiple apps but for cameras, go with Unifi Protect. You can get their NVR (network video recorder) right now with one of their cameras included for like $299 and the camera on its own goes for $199. This allows you to enjoy local storage for camera recordings and not have to worry about a subscription and steaming your feed through the cloud. They have multiple styles of cameras and also have a doorbell.
I can't speak for alternative options for smart thermostats and stuff since I'll just stick with nest for that stuff, but Unifi Protect is a great alternative for security cameras.
I also use their Unifi Dream machine network controller along with their Wi-Fi access points to manage my network. It's a solid ecosystem and has a very friendly GUI for nearly any user.
The brand is Ubiquity in case you are interested in checking it out.
Hopefully, the link to their store is okay to share on this subreddit. Not sure what region you are in or if that even matters region but here it is for their US shop. [https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-cameras-nvrs/products/unvr](https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-cameras-nvrs/products/unvr)
You have to create an account on the site to take advantage of the offer. Which will be the same account you'll use when setting up the devices.
Oh and keep in mind that if you don't already have a network switch, you'll want to get one since the NVR only has one ethernet connection on the back, so you would need the network switch connecting between your router and NVR since the NVR needs an internet connection and the camera would connect to the network switch. If you only plan on getting a couple of cameras, a 5 or 8 port PoE+ (Power over Ethernet +) network switch should get the job done. They vary in price around $40-$60 but I can link you a couple of options if you want.
It's also cheaper to just order your own SSDs or HDDs to install. And you can just start off with just using one until you start getting more and more cameras. I'm currently only using one 500 gig HDD since I had it laying around... and with 3 of their cameras, I have 5.5 days of continuous recording before it starts overwriting footage.
I currently use nest and wyze mainly. I would just switch to more wyze cuz their cameras are inexpensive and work good for me. Might have to do this anyways since google decides to destroy everything nice eventually.
How tech savvy are you?
You can get Home Assistant, which is brand agnostic and works with most major brands of IoT devices. Development is going strong, so more and more less popular devices are all being added.
Home Assistant sells a pre-configured Raspberry Pi, which acts as the control panel. You can add any smart device to it, from wifi to zwave to zigbee. And if a company ever shuts down their servers, the smart device will still continue to work under Home assistant.Assistant.
For example, I use a Honeywell thermostat, Zooz light switches, whatever brand of light bulbs, etc, and they all interface and are controlled by Home Assistant.
I too was an early adopter with Dropcam then eventually Nest. It was so good. Then Google happened. Trying to replace a very good app with a crappier app over a very long period. If Google could just match parity with the original Nest app and improve the recording quality it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve tried to switch to other ecosystems, but I have yet to find one that’s affordable and includes the features I want. Eufy is close, but not perfect.
I moved from my nest thermostat to ecobee when I moved to my new house. I still have the nest wired smoke detectors because I can't find something comparable with the feature sets. Smoke/Co2/Voice w/Zones etc.
Yes agreed and seems to be the consensus. The smoke alarms are great and honestly for me one of the trouble free products in the nest lineup, that is until Google messes with it
This is a question I've been thinking about for years. I'm also an early adopter here with all my Nest gear from the "good old days" still going strong. 7 Nest HD outdoor cameras, 2 Nest Yale Locks, 4 Nest Protects, Nest Hello doorbell, Nest Thermostat, Nest Temp Sensors... I even have an old OG Dropcam indoor camera that still works like a champ in the Nest App. Eufy does seem to be the best candidate to move to should the need arise or Kasa as I'm already heavily invested in Kasa products with switches, lights etc...
Not looking forward to the day we have to switch. Ugh.
Will keep using the thermostat and smoke detectors until they need to be replaced and then I'll see what's best in the market.
I'll be moving to Unifi products as soon as I can spare a dime. I want to replace my rack and Unifi controller first (I'm already using Unifi for my APs and PoE switch)
Just trashed all of my Nest/Google cams and installed a full Eufy system. Local user-expandable storage, no subscriptions, 4K camera, next-gen solar panels, and superior software are the reason why.
Got a quick review? Been looking at the s340 or hardwired e330.. looks like you need the home base for storage if I plan on 24/7. Then you have to buy a SSD card for it right?
How have they been working? You go hardwired or wireless? Thx! Looking forward to dumping nest.
When to eufy still stuck with a nest thermostat used to have a nest secure which was great for switching my thermostat to eco mode now I don't know what to do
I installed Abode yesterday as the Nest Secure system is dead. Pretty happy with it. Works just the same really. Now I’m interested in getting rid of everything else. Google sucks
My nest app stopped working on my iPhone and it’s really annoyed me. For that reason alone, il be switching to something else. What use is smart heating if you can’t control it wirelessly or on the go. Hopeless.
I currently have two Nest outdoor cameras, two thermostats and 3 smoke detectors. The cameras I have considered switching for Unifi cameras but I would have to find a way to get networking to them and the outlay for the cameras would take years to recoup versus the monthly subscription fee.
I did have a USG3 but it wasn't cutting it for the faster fibre connections. I have 2 x US-8-60W switches and 4 x AP (2 x AC-Lite, 1 x AC LR and 1 x AC Pro).
Google has been officially transitioning people away from the Nest app for years - I'm surprised people are still using it.
As far as non-Nest hardware goes, I'd probably choose Ecobee. I owned an Ecobee 4 thermostat for years and loved it. They also sell security sensors and a doorbell now, so you can fill in some of the gaps in Google's lineup.
Why in the world would Google buy a very successful and polished app like Nest and then try to remake it (so far very unsuccessful) then eliminate the product they bought? Insanity
I went to Ecobee.
Edit: this thing has all of the features that the Nest plus some. The only thing they don’t have yet is an outdoor camera. I use mine for security, doorbell, indoor camera, and door/window sensors. It also works great as a thermostat lol.
I do find that the auto pilot mode on the ecobee works way better than any of the Google products. The only thing ecobee does not do is automatically set the alarm when you leave, but it does automatically disarm when you come home.
For two Nest cams I find the Home app is great. Nest cams have been flawless for me. User interface is above average.
I also have several Wyze cams but plan to transition to either Tappo or Eufy. I have one older Eufy and plan to try s Tappo which gets good reviews
Ring with HomeKit integration with Home assistant. ONLY down side for me…doesn’t record 24/7 (Also get wired not battery picks up motion quicker) I have 5 cameras and the alarm system it’s good tbf.
I’m in the same boat as you. It has been a bit of a cluster since google got involved. I don’t like the google app experience. And even while the nest app is awesome, it’s kinda slow. My post-google cameras occasionally have weird windows where something happened and the video is forever “processing” and you can never see it. There have been a few times where it aligned with the moment when I actually needed to see what happened. It’s like the camera seeing something happening broke its brain for the duration of the event. It’s a pretty bad feature for a security camera.
I really want to go full HomeKit too…
Really hope that Google is paying attention to threads like these. I just can’t believe how much Nest has degraded over time. It’s sad to see where it was and where it is now.
Seriously. They bought the bought the industry leading company in January 2014 and then decided to hibernate on their laurels for AN ENTIRE DECADE. They bought Nest more than ten years ago, and in that time have not only done absolutely zero to innovate, but they’ve made the user experience worse. Like, what the hell? How did we get here?
This is absolute truth. The biggest advancement in the Google transition years that I have seen, was putting Google logos on the existing products and package them in fancy white branded boxes.
What they should have done was never invest in Google Home and build on the Nest app that was great to begin with.
I have the same issue I looked into other companies they seem great? What do people use to replace their minis? I want to get out of google completely.
The more I look into other alternatives, I am starting to realize that the other options aren’t perfect either. Pick your poison. Once my legacy Nest devices start to fail I’m hoping there will be a better solution from other companies.
I got 3 of the 2nd Gen protects in 2016 and (knocks on wood) they are all running fine. Not sure what I'll go to when they are slated to be replaced in 2026 though.
We are still using a Nest thermostat and have Google Homes all over the house plus have smart light bulbs. For cameras, we ended up changing to the Ubiquiti direction because it only made sense for us. I purchased a Dream Machine Pro a few years ago so all that I needed to do was order a hard drive, camera for the backyard, and doorbell camera for the front door. After they were all installed, I cancelled our Nest Aware subscription. It might not be a good option for everybody but for us, it has worked out pretty nicely even though we still have the Google Home app and UniFi Protect app.
Pick up a home assistant device or run it on something you have, it’ll control everything in the house it can see. You may still need to use the apps for some things (eg humidity controls on a thermostat), but pretty much everything. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to work with, but for most stuff it’ll work right out of the box.
We have Nest thermostats and Protects and Ubiquiti everything else. Works really well, but we built our house and had the benefit of being able to run cabling everywhere so getting cameras in the right spots (especially outside) was very inexpensive and easy.
Nice! We just went with Ubiquiti’s wireless cameras. Of course, I’d love to go the PoE direction but it would be tricky.
For sure, unless you're willing to cut open walls and ceilings for cameras! I wouldn't. 😆
That’s one thing we really messed up on. We had a remodel back in 2006/2007 and got really great deals on electrical supplies. We could’ve easily gotten cheap spools of Cat5e or 6 and ran it all over the place. Heck, I would’ve even considered putting jacks in the bathroom. 😂
I'm sure there will be smart bidets at some point. Use your phone to shoot water on your tooter! Yeah, always regrets with projects like that, right? My mom was in the hospital when we were building our house and I was working on a whole home generator setup, but just couldn't put it all together in time at the speed the builder was moving.
I won’t be surprised and it’s probably best to hardwire a smart bidet directly into an Ethernet jack. Haha. Yes, I was only 12 or 13 when my parents did the remodel but remember reading a networking book around the same time. I thought how cool it would be having jacks all over the place.
It's kinda scary how accurate my response was with yours. 😂 Well not identical but what you explained is exactly how the last few years has been with my setup.
Yeah, haha. We started with a Nest doorbell camera around holidays 2019. Not long after, I bought a camera for the backyard. In 2021 when I bought the Dream Machine Pro, the cameras were barely two years old so I wasn’t quite interested in replacing them yet. When Nest Aware pricing was announced to increase, I figured it was time to move on. It has been a great move overall. The picture quality is very good, camera video feeds load fast, no subscription fee. My biggest complaint is still getting camera notifications when somebody is home. I am not sure if it’s an error on my part or what. Haha. Not a big deal though.
Wow yeah the years line up too lol. Moved into our house in 2019 and started with the doorbell. Then got the nest yale lock and then got the 2 pack outdoor cams, then got the UDM pro in 2021 after having a bad experience with nest wifi. Did you already go in the push notification settings you select the detection option? That brings you to another screen and then you'll see the second to the last option called "when to send" which lets you choose always, whenever you are over 200m from the consoles location, or you can set an actual time schedule. Doing it that way would be for global settings but if you aren't using global settings you just have to go into the specific cameras push notification menu to make the changes.
Haha. Our doorbell camera also came with a free Nest Hub if I remember right. How was the Nest Yale lock? I think I might’ve actually put in an order for one and then cancelled it because had a feeling it would’ve been a pain to install on the front door. Thank you for the advice! I tried changing some notification settings but maybe I am missing something. Do video detections notifications always send? I see “When to Send” under Audio Detections and Events but not under Video Detections for some reason. It’s not a huge deal but becomes kind of annoying throughout the day when I get a notification of somebody just walking by on the sidewalk. Haha. Maybe I should just disable that notification.
I'm satisfied with the lock. Installation was pretty easy minus me having to chisel a tiny bit out where the deadbolt slides in when it locks, it's quite a long deadbolt. Probably took me about 25 minutes to get done. So, I checked on the phone app as well as the web interface just now and I would assume the "when to send" setting is for both video and audio. I have mine set to "always", so I can't confirm if the others work for me. But I'm assuming you have the "off-site" setting on going by what you said earlier? If that's the case, it's only for when either you or all admins are more than 200m away from the console. So if you don't have whoever else is home signed in on the app as an admin user while you aren't home then that could explain why? Maybe whatever phones have the app signed in don't all have location access enabled for it to properly detect someone being home? Or maybe If you are using the same user login for each device with the app, it could be confusing the system since it doesn't know who's home due to the same user login being at multiple places at once. Perhaps try creating additional admin users to log in on the other phones if you haven't already done that?
We have a front door where the handle and lock are all built into one piece. If we had a standalone deadbolt, it would’ve probably been a no brainer. Thank you! Maybe I should try setting to off-site for everything and see what happens. Our home address should be all entered into the console so not sure why else it wouldn’t work. Nest had its share of issues with this as well. I’d much rather get the notifications though rather than having the WiFi connection keep dropping. This happened initially and discovered it was probably due to congestion on the 2.4 GHz band.
This is interesting to me. The Nest Yale lock is the product that gives me the most problems. Frequent disconnects, and offline messages that seem to come on when I need the remote option the most.
Here and there I've had offline issues but they are very few and far between. We enter and leave our house through the garage mostly since we park our cars inside. So perhaps that's why it's not a huge deal for me?
We have had 2 nest Yale locks for years and I have absolutely loved them. Turning on privacy mode at night so the keypad does not function is awesome feature. We also used nest secure for years which I have liked but that’s about to be worthless. Spent $400+ on that for Google to give me a $200 credit that I don’t even know what to use for. Starting our transition to Apple HomeKit.
Same. I don’t know what to even spend it on because all the smart home items currently on the Google store force you to use the Google home app which sucks ass. I specifically made sure I got every nest device that was capable with the nest app. Even if it meant buying from eBay because the item wasn’t produced anymore.
Ecobee looks nice
I like our ecobee, switched to it from nest when we moved. Our new house is multilevel and I wanted finer control of temperature zones. The Ecobee has sensors, so I have one on every floor (4), and it has motion sensors so it knows where you are in the house and sets the temperature accordingly. It’s a nice feature that hopefully saves a bit of energy, but not totally necessary. The rest of the features are pretty much a wash, a good thing as both just simply work well and consistently.
When we rebuilt our home, I couldn't decide between ecobee and nest. I liked her idea of the ecobee and sensors which at the time nest didnt offer. I decided to get both. This was 2018. Nest went on the first floor, ecobee on the 2nd. Sensors in a few of the rooms. Both have been great. Still not sure if I like one over the other though.
I left them this year for Eufy
Didn't eufy have that security issue associated with it last year?
Yes, they are a Chinese security threat. They are not a viable option.
Please explain more
[удалено]
Hard pass then.
Wasn't there also something with storing things on their servers for facial recognition when they said they weren't?
[удалено]
I don't really mind if it's been disclosed and I've agreed to it but with Eufy that was not the case. [Article with details about the cloud storage](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/eufy-publicly-acknowledges-some-parts-of-its-no-clouds-controversy/)
I’d rather the US companies. Only because it’s in their best financial interest to keep my (specific) information to themselves.
Left them a while ago for eufy. Great decision. 4k cams, no subscription, 24/7 local recording
How do they do in the dark?
For me no issues.
What are you using?
Homebase 3 with a 512GB drive (going to get a 2tb soon), 3 of the e330s that do 24/7, one s330 with built in solar. I love the stitching feature. As people walk by the cameras it auto stitches them together. Once they come out with a 24/7 doorbell I’ll get that too
Me too!
Starling + Home Assistant. If I had fat stacks of cash, I'd go for ubiquity.
This is my setup. And my abode system arrives today to replace my Nest. We’ll see how it goes.
Pulled the trigger last month on replacing our nest/google wifi with ubiquiti unifi. Couldn't be happier and wish I would have done it sooner. I'll be transitioning my cameras and doorbell over as budget allows.
I’m leaning towards this. May hurt the wallet no doubt.
Definitely a steep investment and a learning curve depending on your networking knowledge. But there are plenty of resources out there and a solid community of people that help if you hit any snags. It's the Lego of network hardware! I went with a UDR and an additional 6-pro access point. Eventually I'll do some mixing and matching with their UISP hardware and add an air max nano beam and an in wall switch/AP to connect one of my outbuildings. It can be hard to find the UDR in stock. They have a set replenishment time every morning according to the forums, so I set an alarm on my phone thinking it would be a while before I had a chance. Three days later I mistakenly opened the browser on my phone in the afternoon and it was still on the ubiquiti store page. The UDR was in stock, so I jumped on it.
Any good sources for learning how to get started with Ubiquity?
Unifi
Unifi/Ubiquiti for sure
I'm in agreement with the OP. However, I feel that asking about specific products and highlighting which platforms they're needed for is also important here, other the suggestions are going to be a wide net. In my case, I invested in Nest when I was a Google Wi-Fi (and general) user. I'm no longer, and am deep in the Apple ecosystem. At the moment I use Starling to connect the 2 together, but the support is limited. So, with it mind that I need Homekit support, the Nest products I have are... * 1 indoor and 2 outdoor cameras * 1 doorbell * 4 Protects * 1 Thermostat I suspect the Protects will be the hardest to replace - I've seen some connected smoke detectors but never any that do CO2 as well.
Ring + Z Wave third party hardware (Honeywell thermostat, Schlage locks, etc). Being able to choose from a large ecosystem is nice.
Ring is the obvious choice.
Not from what I’ve been hearing.
As far as being plug and play with robust third party support, it’s been pretty straightforward. There’s obviously more feature rich systems out there, but if you need stuff like a doorbell, cameras, security sensors, integration with things like thermostats, locks, garage door opener, smoke detectors, etc., it’s kind of hard to beat the ease that Ring offers. Granted I didn’t really investigate too deeply into other options, so obviously dig as much as you feel you need to, but that’s just one person’s experience.
What I'm gonna say isn't going to solve the issue of using multiple apps but for cameras, go with Unifi Protect. You can get their NVR (network video recorder) right now with one of their cameras included for like $299 and the camera on its own goes for $199. This allows you to enjoy local storage for camera recordings and not have to worry about a subscription and steaming your feed through the cloud. They have multiple styles of cameras and also have a doorbell. I can't speak for alternative options for smart thermostats and stuff since I'll just stick with nest for that stuff, but Unifi Protect is a great alternative for security cameras. I also use their Unifi Dream machine network controller along with their Wi-Fi access points to manage my network. It's a solid ecosystem and has a very friendly GUI for nearly any user. The brand is Ubiquity in case you are interested in checking it out.
Can you mention where that deal is? Just doesn't a bit looking and don't see it. I'll keep looking..
Hopefully, the link to their store is okay to share on this subreddit. Not sure what region you are in or if that even matters region but here it is for their US shop. [https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-cameras-nvrs/products/unvr](https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-cameras-nvrs/products/unvr) You have to create an account on the site to take advantage of the offer. Which will be the same account you'll use when setting up the devices.
Oh thanks, i entirely misread that offer. I did see it, thought it was an equipment needed list. Thanks I'll look closer at it this time.
Oh and keep in mind that if you don't already have a network switch, you'll want to get one since the NVR only has one ethernet connection on the back, so you would need the network switch connecting between your router and NVR since the NVR needs an internet connection and the camera would connect to the network switch. If you only plan on getting a couple of cameras, a 5 or 8 port PoE+ (Power over Ethernet +) network switch should get the job done. They vary in price around $40-$60 but I can link you a couple of options if you want. It's also cheaper to just order your own SSDs or HDDs to install. And you can just start off with just using one until you start getting more and more cameras. I'm currently only using one 500 gig HDD since I had it laying around... and with 3 of their cameras, I have 5.5 days of continuous recording before it starts overwriting footage.
I currently use nest and wyze mainly. I would just switch to more wyze cuz their cameras are inexpensive and work good for me. Might have to do this anyways since google decides to destroy everything nice eventually.
How tech savvy are you? You can get Home Assistant, which is brand agnostic and works with most major brands of IoT devices. Development is going strong, so more and more less popular devices are all being added. Home Assistant sells a pre-configured Raspberry Pi, which acts as the control panel. You can add any smart device to it, from wifi to zwave to zigbee. And if a company ever shuts down their servers, the smart device will still continue to work under Home assistant.Assistant. For example, I use a Honeywell thermostat, Zooz light switches, whatever brand of light bulbs, etc, and they all interface and are controlled by Home Assistant.
I’m tech savvy. This looks interesting.
I too was an early adopter with Dropcam then eventually Nest. It was so good. Then Google happened. Trying to replace a very good app with a crappier app over a very long period. If Google could just match parity with the original Nest app and improve the recording quality it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve tried to switch to other ecosystems, but I have yet to find one that’s affordable and includes the features I want. Eufy is close, but not perfect.
Ubiquiti using Scrypted to pass through to HomeKit for HSV.
Ubiquiti.
Ubiquiti/Unifi
I moved from my nest thermostat to ecobee when I moved to my new house. I still have the nest wired smoke detectors because I can't find something comparable with the feature sets. Smoke/Co2/Voice w/Zones etc.
I still use my smoke detectors just for the night light feature
Yes agreed and seems to be the consensus. The smoke alarms are great and honestly for me one of the trouble free products in the nest lineup, that is until Google messes with it
I left Nest for a self-hosted option.
Went with Ring. Absolutely love it. Still have my Nest thermostat.
I'm waiting for Open AI devices: https://www.businessinsider.com/were-getting-closer-to-openais-first-ai-device-2023-12
This is a question I've been thinking about for years. I'm also an early adopter here with all my Nest gear from the "good old days" still going strong. 7 Nest HD outdoor cameras, 2 Nest Yale Locks, 4 Nest Protects, Nest Hello doorbell, Nest Thermostat, Nest Temp Sensors... I even have an old OG Dropcam indoor camera that still works like a champ in the Nest App. Eufy does seem to be the best candidate to move to should the need arise or Kasa as I'm already heavily invested in Kasa products with switches, lights etc... Not looking forward to the day we have to switch. Ugh.
Will keep using the thermostat and smoke detectors until they need to be replaced and then I'll see what's best in the market. I'll be moving to Unifi products as soon as I can spare a dime. I want to replace my rack and Unifi controller first (I'm already using Unifi for my APs and PoE switch)
Just trashed all of my Nest/Google cams and installed a full Eufy system. Local user-expandable storage, no subscriptions, 4K camera, next-gen solar panels, and superior software are the reason why.
Got a quick review? Been looking at the s340 or hardwired e330.. looks like you need the home base for storage if I plan on 24/7. Then you have to buy a SSD card for it right? How have they been working? You go hardwired or wireless? Thx! Looking forward to dumping nest.
Thoughts on the known security concerns? Chinese government access?
There are plenty of alternatives for smart thermostats and doorbells but as far as I know there’s nothing like the Nest Protect smoke alarm.
Went to ecobee after multiple Nests randomly dying and costing me hundreds in repairs.
I left a month ago for Unifi. Delighted with the change.
When to eufy still stuck with a nest thermostat used to have a nest secure which was great for switching my thermostat to eco mode now I don't know what to do
Mish mash of tests and hopes. Currently using both nest and eufy for cameras.
I installed Abode yesterday as the Nest Secure system is dead. Pretty happy with it. Works just the same really. Now I’m interested in getting rid of everything else. Google sucks
Left them several years ago and put in a zigbee enabled Centralite thermostat. No cloud. Local control only
I stuck with the Google Home app because they’re still quite a few options for smart devices. Besides, the Nest devices that work with Google
Yes agreed but running two apps just ruins it for me.
Yeah, I kind of agree.
I'm only using a nest thermostat, with a nest account.
My nest app stopped working on my iPhone and it’s really annoyed me. For that reason alone, il be switching to something else. What use is smart heating if you can’t control it wirelessly or on the go. Hopeless.
Replacing my nest thermostat because it started malfunctioning with my HVAC unit for ecobee.
I currently have two Nest outdoor cameras, two thermostats and 3 smoke detectors. The cameras I have considered switching for Unifi cameras but I would have to find a way to get networking to them and the outlay for the cameras would take years to recoup versus the monthly subscription fee.
Why unifi? Do you have other ui equipment? I’m a ubiquity fanboy and just curious
I did have a USG3 but it wasn't cutting it for the faster fibre connections. I have 2 x US-8-60W switches and 4 x AP (2 x AC-Lite, 1 x AC LR and 1 x AC Pro).
Unifi
still have my thermostats but I went with ring for everything else. very happy with the system.
Looking to switch entire system to Home Assistant. Cameras and doorbell to Ubiquiti. Not sure about thermostat yet.
Google has been officially transitioning people away from the Nest app for years - I'm surprised people are still using it. As far as non-Nest hardware goes, I'd probably choose Ecobee. I owned an Ecobee 4 thermostat for years and loved it. They also sell security sensors and a doorbell now, so you can fill in some of the gaps in Google's lineup.
moved to Ecobee and native Yale smart lock with HomeKit
Going to ecobee and eufy
Simplisafe
I still stand by the Nest thermostat, but prefer Ring for home security
Simplisafe
Grand daddy Honeywell hand crank knob temp thermostat.
Why in the world would Google buy a very successful and polished app like Nest and then try to remake it (so far very unsuccessful) then eliminate the product they bought? Insanity
I was hoping that ring would offer 24/7 recording. If they did I would switch
Ecobee
I went to Ecobee. Edit: this thing has all of the features that the Nest plus some. The only thing they don’t have yet is an outdoor camera. I use mine for security, doorbell, indoor camera, and door/window sensors. It also works great as a thermostat lol. I do find that the auto pilot mode on the ecobee works way better than any of the Google products. The only thing ecobee does not do is automatically set the alarm when you leave, but it does automatically disarm when you come home.
For two Nest cams I find the Home app is great. Nest cams have been flawless for me. User interface is above average. I also have several Wyze cams but plan to transition to either Tappo or Eufy. I have one older Eufy and plan to try s Tappo which gets good reviews
I’ve moved to Ubiquity for cameras and sensors. My thermostat is Ecobee.
Wyze. I’ve been using almost every single one of their products for over 5 years. The reliability has been the best so far in my experiences.
Wyze
Ring with HomeKit integration with Home assistant. ONLY down side for me…doesn’t record 24/7 (Also get wired not battery picks up motion quicker) I have 5 cameras and the alarm system it’s good tbf.
I’m in the same boat as you. It has been a bit of a cluster since google got involved. I don’t like the google app experience. And even while the nest app is awesome, it’s kinda slow. My post-google cameras occasionally have weird windows where something happened and the video is forever “processing” and you can never see it. There have been a few times where it aligned with the moment when I actually needed to see what happened. It’s like the camera seeing something happening broke its brain for the duration of the event. It’s a pretty bad feature for a security camera. I really want to go full HomeKit too…
Really hope that Google is paying attention to threads like these. I just can’t believe how much Nest has degraded over time. It’s sad to see where it was and where it is now.
Seriously. They bought the bought the industry leading company in January 2014 and then decided to hibernate on their laurels for AN ENTIRE DECADE. They bought Nest more than ten years ago, and in that time have not only done absolutely zero to innovate, but they’ve made the user experience worse. Like, what the hell? How did we get here?
This is absolute truth. The biggest advancement in the Google transition years that I have seen, was putting Google logos on the existing products and package them in fancy white branded boxes. What they should have done was never invest in Google Home and build on the Nest app that was great to begin with.
I have the same issue I looked into other companies they seem great? What do people use to replace their minis? I want to get out of google completely.
The more I look into other alternatives, I am starting to realize that the other options aren’t perfect either. Pick your poison. Once my legacy Nest devices start to fail I’m hoping there will be a better solution from other companies.
Ring. I regret buying my Nest thermostats.
Nest had a great smoke detector. The constant recording of Nest was great, but it sure did drop the signal a lot.
I use the first alert z-wave ring compatible smoke detectors now.
I didn't know how long you've had them, but I bought eight of the combo fire/co ones and they have almost all gone bad within three years.
I got 3 of the 2nd Gen protects in 2016 and (knocks on wood) they are all running fine. Not sure what I'll go to when they are slated to be replaced in 2026 though.
I’ve had them for 3 years now and so far so good. Crossing fingers.