Which Nest cameras are best?

If you want a connected home, you may already be a fan of Nest products. The company makes smart devices to help you keep tabs on the many goings-on that occur when you’re not there. Nest of surveillance cameras live up to the company’s reputation for providing well-designed, attractive products that interface easily with a smartphone app. Peace of mind is just one benefit of having a Nest camera in your home. Read on to learn about the other benefits of owning a Nest camera.

What to know before you buy a Nest camera

Nest benefits

Nest cameras offer many advantages over some competing security cameras, including ease of use and clarity of video. What’s more, users can record 24 hours a day without interruptions — many other home surveillance systems only offer recording when movement is detected.

You can access your Nest camera remotely through your Nest phone app. With this feature, you can hear and talk to people or pets on the other side of the camera. With a subscription service, Nest will hold your video feed for up to 30 days. The company also gives you three-hour “snapshots” of what has been going on in your home.

Nest Cameras have a reputation for durability and reliability. Perhaps that’s one reason why they range in price from about $200 to $350, which is slightly more expensive than other surveillance camera options on the market. A Nest camera on the lower end of the price range could double as a baby or pet monitor; it’s easy to set this up with a simple plug into a wall outlet. Higher-end Nest cameras work with an “IQ” that enables them to identify human faces. Nest also offers a service called Nest Aware that can tell the difference between human movement and other movements. It can also learn to identify faces.

Nest camera FAQ

Q. Will a Nest subscription cost me more if I have more than one camera in my home?

A. Yes. With a subscription, Nest requires you to pay for each camera. However, after the first camera, each additional camera can be added to your service at a discounted rate.

Q. Does a Nest camera work with Alexa?

A. Yes. Nest builds connected devices. If you have the Amazon Echo Show, you can access your feed by simply asking Alexa to show you the area of your home it covers.

What’s the best Nest camera to buy?

Top Nest camera

Google Nest Cam Outdoor or Indoor, Battery – 2nd Generation

What you need to know: This Nest camera is made to withstand outdoor weather conditions (though you can also put it inside) and provides a high-quality image.

What you’ll love: It’s attractive and compact, can handle being outdoors, is wire-free and includes a magnetic mount. It’s also easy to install. If there’s an outage of power or Wi-Fi, it will store up to an hour of recorded events.

What you should consider: Though the battery makes installation convenient, some users say it can drain quickly.

Top Nest camera for the money

Nest Indoor Security Camera (2nd generation)

What you need to know: This camera is unobtrusive, easy to set up, and not exorbitantly expensive. It’s a great unit for someone on a budget who would like to keep tabs on home (kids, pets, and so on) when at work or away.

What you’ll love: It works with Alexa. The built-in mic/speaker combo allows you to chat with those at home and also monitor them.

What you should consider: Some customers had difficulty with the camera not recording all events.

Worth checking out

Google Nest Cam with Floodlight

What you need to know: This camera not only provides wide, clear views, but also acts as a security floodlight.

What you’ll love: This particular Nest camera can distinguish between a person, an animal or a vehicle and send alerts to your phone via the Google Home app. You can also customize the light settings and talk through this camera.

What you should consider: It’s the most expensive Nest camera.

Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change.

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By MEAD GRUVER

A judge sentenced a former Colorado county clerk to nine years behind bars Thursday for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome.

Judge Matthew Barrett handed down the sentence after jurors found Tina Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity.

The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.

At trial, prosecutors said Peters, a Republican, was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the presidential election results.

A one-time hero to election deniers, Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.

It’s never a bad time for stories celebrating acts of kindness, but the current news cycle makes it ever so more appreciated. In the new film “White Bird,” in theaters Friday, the act is quite significant: A family in Nazi-occupied France shelters a young Jewish girl, whose friends and family have all been taken away.

From German director Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland,” “The Kite Runner”) “White Bird” is a handsome adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s graphic novel aimed at young adults. This, too, is perfectly suited to that audience — a story within a story with all the drama of war and young romance wrapped up in it. Let’s just not overplay the idea that it’s part of some shared cinematic kindness universe with the Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson film “Wonder,” also based on Palacio’s work.

It’s framed as something a grandmother is telling her grandson, who seems to be going down the wrong path. Helen Mirren is said Grandmère, or Sara Blum, a famous artist who opens up to young Julian (Bryce Gheisar) one evening over dinner about what she went through during the war. For being a neglected rich kid who is prone to getting kicked out of fancy private schools, Julian’s immediate, earnest interest in what his Grandmère has to say is perhaps the most unbelievable part of this story, which includes some deus ex machina wolves. It’s a way in, I suppose, and Mirren makes for a lovely narrator.

This image released by Lionsgate shows Ariella Glaser in a scene from “White Bird: A Wonder Story.” (Larry Horricks/Lionsgate via AP)

Ariella Glaser plays young Sara Blum, who leads a nice life in her small French town with educated, professional parents Max (Ishai Golan) and Rose (Olivia Ross). She barely notices the changing tides as the war ramps up, more concerned with her friends and the cute boy in school. The story takes care to note that she barely noticed the classmate that would end up saving her life: Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), who walks with a crutch and whose father works in the sewers. Not, in other words, a popular kid. In an awkward moment, the audience, and Julien, realize that she doesn’t even know his name.

But when the Nazis come to round up the Jewish students in the school, he’s there to help get her to his family’s property. Gillian Anderson plays Julien’s mother, Vivienne, a grounding presence but very much a side character until a devastating sequence late in the film.

This image released by Lionsgate shows Gillian Anderson, left, and Ariella Glaser in a scene from “White Bird: A Wonder Story.” (Larry Horricks/Lionsgate via AP)

The young actors are very good and well-cast in their journey to friendship and then first love. They get to know one another and spend time dreaming up a world in which they’re not confined to a barn, their imaginations brought to life through dreamy projected images.

“White Bird,” which was shot in early 2021, was delayed several times over the past two years. Often, that signals some sort of quality issue and an obligation to begrudgingly release in spite of it. But that’s not the case here: This is a very finely made movie that seemed to have just gotten caught in a sort of release limbo that’s only partially related to the strikes.

This image released by Lionsgate shows Orlando Schwerdt, left, and Ariella Glaser in a scene from “White Bird: A Wonder Story.” (Larry Horricks/Lionsgate via AP)

It’s a little by-the-book — exactly, perhaps, what you might expect from elevated historical fiction aimed at young adults. Being a good-hearted, straightforward film that might even have you shedding a few tears is no crime against cinema.

‘White Bird’

A Lionsgate release in theaters Friday, Oct. 4
Rating: PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “thematic material, some strong violence and language.”
Running time: 120 minutes.
Stars: Two and a half stars out of four.

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A 61-year-old Bloomington man who funded videos of monkeys being tortured and killed in Indonesia and then shared them with others online has pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of conspiracy to create and distribute videos of animal cruelty.

Federal prosecutors said Jeffrey Radtke and his co-conspirators used an encrypted online messaging platform to fund videos depicting “the torture, murder, and sexually sadistic mutilation of animals, specifically, juvenile and adult monkeys.”

Radtke and others routinely communicated with a co-conspirator in Indonesia to fund and instruct how to carry out the videos, according to a criminal complaint filed in August in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va.

Between June 2021 and July 2022, Radtke received over 20 electronic payments ranging from $1 to $300 from his co-conspirators to fund payments to videographers in Indonesia. He then sent more than 40 payments ranging from $25 to $295 to the Indonesian co-conspirator to create videos and send them back.

Law enforcement seized Radtke’s electronic devices in April of last year and his computer contained over 2,600 videos and 2,700 images depicting animal torture, the complaint said. One video that Radtke commissioned involved hanging a monkey by its arms, with a rock tied to its legs. The abuser then pulled out the monkey’s teeth with pliers and beat it with a stick. Once the monkey was cut down, its throat was slashed and tail cut off.

Radtke was charged in August under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, which makes it illegal to create or distribute depictions of “animal crushing,” defined as burning, suffocating, impaling or causing the serious bodily injury of animals. He pleaded guilty last month and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 13. He faces up to five years in prison.

Radtke is among about a dozen people prosecuted in the U.S. and U.K. over the past year for their roles in a monkey torture ring out of Indonesia. They include Kenneth Herrera, a western Wisconsin pharmacist, who was sentenced to a year in prison in December for creating, selling and distributing an animal crushing video. Several Indonesian suspects have also been charged.

An investigation by the animal protection nonprofits Action for Primates and Lady Freethinker uncovered in 2021 an online group that was set up by an Ohio man and others and worked with people in Indonesia to facilitate monkey torture videos.

“The level of cruelty inflicted on these helpless infant monkeys is horrifying and inexcusable,” said Nina Jackel, founder of Los Angeles-based Lady Freethinker, which issued a statement following Radtke’s Sept. 24 guilty plea. “I applaud all of the recent actions by law enforcement and hope to see additional prosecutions soon.”

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