Google Nest Cam previews are still broken on Pixel Watch & Wear OS, but work on Apple Watch

Ben Schoon | Dec 14 2022 - 10:56 am PT

The move over to the Google Home app has been messy for Nest Cam owners for a variety of reasons, but things are finally coming together. If you use a Wear OS watch, though, the Google Home app is still missing the useful previews from Nest Cam, even on Google’s own Pixel Watch.

Since its inception, Google’s Wear OS platform has been able to show images within incoming notifications. This includes the Nest app, with incoming notifications showing a preview that shows a few frames from the clip of motion detected. It makes these notifications far more useful, as they can show you the information you need at a glance rather than requiring you to interact and open the Home app.

With the move over to the Google Home app, though, Nest Cam previews have been removed on Wear OS. This isn’t a new change, but rather has been the case for well over a year at this point, and it’s incredibly frustrating that it remains in place.

Whether you use a Google Pixel Watch, a Samsung Galaxy Watch on Wear OS 3, or an older Wear OS 2 smartwatch, these Nest previews simply don’t show up in Home app notifications. This is made a bit more frustrating for a few reasons.

Firstly, this all used to work. The original Nest app supported previews on Wear OS for ages, but the functionality randomly broke about a year ago and was never working at all in the Google Home app. Second, Wear OS has its own Google Home app now. While that app doesn’t support viewing cameras, one would think that full support for the Home app on your phone would come before a dedicated smartwatch app.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing in this whole situation is that, for quite some time, the Google Home app has supported sending Nest Cam previews to the Apple Watch. The simple fact that Google’s own cameras can’t send image previews in notifications on Google’s own smartwatch is truly astonishing, especially as we’ve been dealing with this for over a year now.

Is Google working to rectify the situation? Maybe! The Made by Google Twitter account said that the company would take the idea as a “feature request,” but made no promises or hinted that it could be coming in the near future.

To its credit, Google has been making many improvements in its smart home efforts in recent months. Right now, the Google Home app is undergoing a complete redesign and improving support for home automations. Furthermore, we’re seeing feature gaps filled, such as the debut of Google Home for Wear OS and for the web. But still, it’s missing features like previews on Wear OS – that just go to show how much work Google still has to do.