But if the battery gets low and you won’t be home to charge it, there are a number of security camera best practice tips to preserve its battery power. Below, find eight tips that can help you make your battery last longer. Then, you can get back to using your wireless security camera system for the important things – like peeping at your pets or keeping track of deliveries. 

A long-lasting battery is always a positive. But you’ll need to monitor your Nest Cam battery on your Google Home app¹, so you’re aware when it finally starts to run low on power. 48 hours after charging, the camera displays an estimation of how long the battery will last. This way, you can always have a heads up and recharge with plenty of time to spare. 

Battery duration ranges depend on how many daily events your camera captures. For example, if a friend knocks on your door, Nest Cam will register and record this as an event. Each event uses a small amount of battery. So, you can extend the battery life by reducing the number of daily events. There are a couple of ways to do this.

• Reduce the sensitivity settings. Nest Cam can pick up even the smallest movements, like a breeze through the trees. But you probably don't want a notification whenever something like this happens. Try reducing the wake-up settings. It'll help to ignore the small events and save battery for the big stuff. 

• Shorten the event duration. Another way to lessen power usage is to minimise how long each event records. This increases the time the camera isn't recording between events. 

Nest Cam's default setting balances battery life and video quality, so you don't have to. However, if you want to prioritise its battery without reducing the events recorded, there are some other adjustments that you can make in the Google Home app settings.  

• Lower the video quality. Nest Camera's exceptional video quality makes it a great choice for your home security. That said, lowering the resolution and bandwidth is one way to conserve battery.

• Turn on the automatic battery saver. This feature changes how Nest Cam works to help conserve more battery between charges.

• Turn off the motion detection. Nest Cam detects and recognises what you want to see, like your family and friends' faces. With the motion events feature, it can also record the motion in the background of these objects. When not needed, keep this setting off to extend battery life.

Is your camera facing an active area, like a busy road? If so, it's using power to detect all of the movement in front of it. Adjusting your camera's position away from high-traffic areas can save battery and record more of what you actually want to see. 

It's likely that you don't need footage of some things your Nest Cam records, like a window or a fence. By drawing Activity Zones, you can customise the areas you want to see. This helps you conserve battery by not wasting power on the things you don’t need to record. With Activity Zones, you can:

• Record up to four zones per camera

• Get notifications from specific zones

• Mark your video history to know what happened in each zone 

• Switch back to full view if you want to watch live (like if you spot your cat doing something cute while you're away) 

Nest Cam is weather-resistant. So it can keep an eye on your home inside and out. With outdoor use, keep in mind that as temperatures drop, so does Nest Cam's battery life. The battery also stops charging at freezing temperatures. To offer wireless outdoor security cameras more protection, place them in less exposed spots, like sheltered doorways. If you mount yours up high (above two metres), you can use a secure loop to help keep it in place.

Nest Cam's wireless nature helps you keep any area of your home safe – inside or out. But if you'd prefer to opt for long-term power over portability, connecting your Nest Cam to an external power source via USB keeps it charged without the battery. And, if you have a Nest Aware Subscription,² you can get 24/7 event video history while connected to a power source.³

If you'd like to start afresh, resetting your Nest Cam returns all battery settings to default. This can improve battery life if you've turned features like motion detection on. But it also erases your personal touch. So make sure you download all your favourite clips (like that one of Grandad sleepwalking). 

Once you've optimised your Nest Cam battery life, learn about getting the most from its memory.