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Nest Cam update heavily degrades video quality with washed out colors

Google’s new Nest Cam products have been getting better, thanks to an improved companion app, but a new update rolling out is taking a heavy toll on video quality with washed-out colors and more.

Some Google Nest Cam owners have noticed over the past two to three days that the video quality on their cameras is noticeably worse all of a sudden. The problem is quickly apparent, with Nest Cam video feeds losing a lot of their dynamic range and appearing very washed out, as pictured in the examples below. Reports have popped up across both Google’s support forums and Reddit.

The issue is attached to version 1.67 of the Nest Cam’s software, which is actively rolling out now. Version 1.65 is unaffected. Unfortunately, Nest Cam updates automatically, so there’s no way to prevent this update from being installed. For those affected, there’s also no way to revert, and some users note that a factory reset doesn’t fix the issue.

Notably, this is not attached to the Google Home app, so stopping automatic updates through your app store won’t stop this.

From what we can tell, this is only affecting the Nest Cam (Battery) and Nest Cam with Floodlight (which are the same core hardware, of course). Nest Cam Wired, Nest Doorbell models, and legacy Nest cameras don’t seem to be seeing the same problem even on the latest updates.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment, but the company wasn’t immediately available to provide a statement. We’ll update this post if the company offers clarification.

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Avatar for Ben Schoon Ben Schoon

Ben is a Senior Editor for 9to5Google.

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