How To Spy On Your Pet While You’re Away

When we leave on vacation, it's always with a bit of unease. We worry about whether our stuff is safe and if the cat sitter is actually feeding Mr. Meowgi like she said she would. But, until now, most home security systems were expensive and limited to home owners. Enter the new Nest Cam, which lets you keep track of your place — whether you own or rent — affordably. Nest Cam is a $200 smart home monitoring camera. It's designed to be super easy to use — just 60 seconds to set up — and not only allows you to see what's happening in your home, it also lets you use your phone like a walkie-talking to talk to whoever's in your place, too. If you catch your dog snoozing on the couch, you can yell at him to get off. If your neighbor is confused about where you stashed the litter, you can direct her to the kitty litter cupboard. You can check what's happening at any moment in the Nest app, which also delivers a stream of notifications when it detects people, motion, or sounds. The camera shoots 1080p full HD resolution video, which is made actually useful through an 8x digital zoom (the app has an enhance button that zooms in and clarifies images just like all those "enhance" moments from TV and movies!). The Nest Cam also has improved nighttime viewing over its predecessor, the Dropcam. With the Nest Aware $10/month subscription service, you can keep a history of 10 days of video on file at all times ($30/month if you want to up that to 30 days). Nest Aware also gives you more detailed, customized alerts — for example, if someone walks through a doorway. The Nest Cam is available for purchase today and ships next week. Once you've got one, you can set it on a bookshelf and leave it alone. Then, you can vacation in peace, knowing your phone will alert you if anything is amiss in your home. And, if you get lonely, you can talk to your pet just like you normally would.