**The Great Security Camera Showdown: Ring vs Nest**

In our latest showdown, we put two popular security cameras to the test: Ring and Nest. Both cameras are designed to provide top-notch security and notification features, but which one comes out on top? In this article, we'll dive into each camera's performance, including their vision tests, reliability, and features.

**The Setup**

Our test began with a simple setup exercise. We had both cameras pointed at the same location, with Nest placed first to gather data on its performance before Ring was brought in. The cameras were positioned to capture as much of the scene as possible, and we were eager to see which one would perform better.

**The Vision Test**

One of the most important aspects of a security camera is its ability to capture clear footage, even at a distance. We conducted a vision test to put both cameras through their paces. Starting with a close-up, just five feet away from each camera, we held up our patented CNET Eye Chart to assess the cameras' resolution. Ring performed admirably, with clear images of row eight and almost row ten. However, Nest was clearly sharper, with visible rows that Ring could only read through row seven.

As we moved further back, to 15 feet away, the results became even more pronounced. At this distance, Ring began to lose clarity, with only the top row of letters still readable. In contrast, Nest continued to hold its own, with clear images of rows five and six. Even at a long distance of 25 feet, Nest outperformed Ring, with visible letters in row four that were fuzzy on the ring camera.

**Day vs Night**

While both cameras performed well during the day, we knew that nighttime would bring out their true strengths – or weaknesses. At close range, just five feet away, Ring fared better, but it struggled to capture clear images at night due to glare issues. Nest, on the other hand, was more reliable in low-light conditions.

**The Verdict**

In our vision test, Nest emerged as the clear winner, outperforming Ring at every stage of distance and lighting condition. However, we also acknowledge that some users may prefer Ring's sleeker design and lower price point. While both cameras have their strengths, Nest is ultimately the better choice for those willing to invest in top-notch security.

**Additional Features**

While performance was our primary focus, we also looked at each camera's additional features, including software quality and compatibility with smart displays. Nest has the edge here, with a more user-friendly interface and seamless integration with Google Assistant. Ring, on the other hand, is well-suited for those already invested in Amazon's ecosystem.

**The Final Verdict**

In our showdown of Ring vs Nest, we declared Nest as the winner. Its superior vision test results, combined with its reliability and compatibility features, make it the clear choice for security camera enthusiasts. However, if you're looking for a more affordable option with similar features, Ring is still a great alternative.

**The Links**

Want to learn more about our testing process or want to read in-depth reviews of these cameras? Check out our links below to get started.

[Link 1: CNET's Testing Process]

[Link 2: In-Depth Review of Ring and Nest Cameras]

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ennight is coming sooner now so i have to protect this house from the dangers in the forest and beyond so i'm going to test the floodlights from nest and ring to see which one works the best darkness awaits perhaps the light can protect us and push it away if only for a moment or maybe the motion alerts can help or even the smart features so let's compare these two good options the nest cam with floodlight and the ring floodlight cam wired pro we'll compare their specs and then see how quickly they deliver alerts next we'll give them each a vision test and then turn out the lights and see how they fare in the dark let's meet the heroes of our story side by side this dynamic duo has a lot of similarities as you might expect they both have customizable motion alerts you can pull up a live feed the lights are nice and bright plenty of differences in the details and they both have a few unique odds and ends let's start with cost ring is 250 bucks with a three dollar subscription needed for most functionality nests 280. the subscription starts at six dollars a month but you do get a little bit more without paying that monthly fee ring has a 160 degree field of view nest is only 130. ring's light is 2 000 lumens but nests is 2400 both capture footage at 1080p the nest cam with floodlight includes three hours of event storage for free and can tell the difference between people pets and vehicles it processes a lot of info locally it encrypts video while in transit and when it rests on nest servers you can customize alerts and the floodlight settings based on what it recognizes and when with a paid subscription and at the base level you get familiar face detection 30 days of storage sound detection like glass breaking and the ability to call 9-1-1 from the app you need to pay for the high-end sub to get 24 7 recording though the ring floodlight cam wired pro has something called 3d motion detection so it can tell how far away something is when it triggers an alert the two-way audio comes with improved noise reduction it can't distinguish as much as nest in those motion alerts and ring comes with all kinds of privacy baggage but it does come with some super thorough encryption of your footage fancy specs a siren and as you'd expect since amazon owns ring it works really well with amazon's assistant and smart displays but the make of a camera cannot be defined by shiny features and bold promises it is forged in the heat of the moment when everything is at stake so let's put everything at stake since these are security cameras first and foremost let's see how quickly they deliver pertinent information our new producer hobie will pretend to be a car burglar looking to plunder and pillage my four-door sedan i've left piles of definitely real money in the center console the glove box and the safest place of all under the seat he'll go for it in that order and we'll see how many he can hit before i sound the alarm rings alert comes nice and quick it catches hobie when he's at the door of the car and i can sound the alarm by the time hobie gets to money pile number two he isn't even able to touch the third pile a solid result nest keeps up here as well i get an alert as he hits the door i scare him off as he reaches pile number two the difference during the day comes from the siren while i'm obviously able to replicate a siren perfectly you probably couldn't even tell the difference rings real siren actually scares hobie so slight advantage to ring during the day with darkness upon us hobie returns and this time he's really getting into it and i've conveniently reset the money back to where it was to see how these alerts fare at night this is how we pay new employees even at night rings alert comes right away a hair faster than it did during the day and it flips on the flood light as soon as he's entering the frame it's nice and prompt and i can sound the siren and annoy the neighbors by the time he's at pile number two an awesome showing for ring as it's just as fast without daylight nest was not nearly as good notice the light turns on before he even enters the frame but nest told me there was a moving vehicle not a person the alert itself was almost propped but then the cam glitched and i couldn't yell at hobie allowing him to get away with it all and take a bow not great so we tried again and didn't get any alerts nest might have been having a glitchy night but we double checked every setting it was the same conditions as ring this was a fail the battle was close during the day but ring wins handily thanks to being more reliable when we needed it to be at night getting prompt alerts is one thing but can you trust what you're seeing well let's get to the bottom of that with a vision test we have the patented cnet eye chart nope we have no patent on the side chart and we're going to hold it at increasing distances to see what the cameras can make out at a close five foot distance ring is pretty sharp through row eight and you can still almost make out row ten it's fine but it pales in comparison to nest look at how sharp that is you can make out a full extra row before things start getting fuzzy and side by side the image just looks that much more clear that difference holds as we move back to 15 feet at a medium distance you lose a lot of rows for ring row 3 is already starting to look blurry but you can make it and row 4 out with a little work but everything fades around row 5 and 6. with nest you can clearly see row 5 and you can make out 6 with a little work seven is mostly just shapes and nothing beneath but as you can see side by side you still get a couple of extra rows at a long 25 feet only the top row is clearly visible on ring row two and three are blurry but almost workable but by four it's all gone nest makes it easier to make out the letters through row three the fourth and fifth rows are almost there but nothing below that so neither fares particularly well at a distance but nest was clearer across the board in the daytime at night back to five feet you can easily make out through row four with ring it's much worse than during the day but the part you can see is still clear with some of the smaller letters blotted out due to the glare nest has the same problem though row 5 is nice and clear side by side you'll see that you actually lose more letters entirely to glare with nest which makes sense it has the brighter flood light but you can still read one extra row with clary moving back to 15 feet ring has lost most letters even at a medium distance you can still make out the very top but two through four are there but fuzzy and everything below that has just disappeared with nest the glare is actually less of a problem at a medium distance so you can actually see more letters than up close one row is less clear but you're still fine through row four so much less of a drop off than ring at a distance ring only shows you the top at all you lose almost everything else i guess you can kind of tell row two is there there was a big drop off for nest as well here only row one is really readable two is blurry and you can at least see that there is something for rows three through five so as far as comparing the two nest is still stronger nest was stronger at really every stage and is the clear winner of our vision test outside of the tests nest has the best software of the bunch if you're willing to pay more it also works the best with google assistant obviously so you can easily pull up a feed on your nest hub smart display or your tv with chromecast ring has a few cool high-tech perks and fits in easily if you already have amazon echo stuff here it is on the show complete with two-way talk if you want that put it all together and we're giving the win to the ring floodlight cam wired pro since these are security cameras first and foremost the notification test holds that much more weight obviously some of it will come down to preference nest did a great job with the vision test and is better with google assistant while ring is better with amazon blah blah blah blah but we have to declare a winner baggage and all ring gets this one thanks for watching please hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed the video and subscribe to cnet's youtube channel for more check out the links below if you're ready to make a purchase and we have links to cnet articles if you want to read more about the specific products and comment below to let me know how much money you think we spent on fake money and also i guess let me know which product you'd pick thanks again like and subscribe all right do did we get it what do i have something on me what's going onnight is coming sooner now so i have to protect this house from the dangers in the forest and beyond so i'm going to test the floodlights from nest and ring to see which one works the best darkness awaits perhaps the light can protect us and push it away if only for a moment or maybe the motion alerts can help or even the smart features so let's compare these two good options the nest cam with floodlight and the ring floodlight cam wired pro we'll compare their specs and then see how quickly they deliver alerts next we'll give them each a vision test and then turn out the lights and see how they fare in the dark let's meet the heroes of our story side by side this dynamic duo has a lot of similarities as you might expect they both have customizable motion alerts you can pull up a live feed the lights are nice and bright plenty of differences in the details and they both have a few unique odds and ends let's start with cost ring is 250 bucks with a three dollar subscription needed for most functionality nests 280. the subscription starts at six dollars a month but you do get a little bit more without paying that monthly fee ring has a 160 degree field of view nest is only 130. ring's light is 2 000 lumens but nests is 2400 both capture footage at 1080p the nest cam with floodlight includes three hours of event storage for free and can tell the difference between people pets and vehicles it processes a lot of info locally it encrypts video while in transit and when it rests on nest servers you can customize alerts and the floodlight settings based on what it recognizes and when with a paid subscription and at the base level you get familiar face detection 30 days of storage sound detection like glass breaking and the ability to call 9-1-1 from the app you need to pay for the high-end sub to get 24 7 recording though the ring floodlight cam wired pro has something called 3d motion detection so it can tell how far away something is when it triggers an alert the two-way audio comes with improved noise reduction it can't distinguish as much as nest in those motion alerts and ring comes with all kinds of privacy baggage but it does come with some super thorough encryption of your footage fancy specs a siren and as you'd expect since amazon owns ring it works really well with amazon's assistant and smart displays but the make of a camera cannot be defined by shiny features and bold promises it is forged in the heat of the moment when everything is at stake so let's put everything at stake since these are security cameras first and foremost let's see how quickly they deliver pertinent information our new producer hobie will pretend to be a car burglar looking to plunder and pillage my four-door sedan i've left piles of definitely real money in the center console the glove box and the safest place of all under the seat he'll go for it in that order and we'll see how many he can hit before i sound the alarm rings alert comes nice and quick it catches hobie when he's at the door of the car and i can sound the alarm by the time hobie gets to money pile number two he isn't even able to touch the third pile a solid result nest keeps up here as well i get an alert as he hits the door i scare him off as he reaches pile number two the difference during the day comes from the siren while i'm obviously able to replicate a siren perfectly you probably couldn't even tell the difference rings real siren actually scares hobie so slight advantage to ring during the day with darkness upon us hobie returns and this time he's really getting into it and i've conveniently reset the money back to where it was to see how these alerts fare at night this is how we pay new employees even at night rings alert comes right away a hair faster than it did during the day and it flips on the flood light as soon as he's entering the frame it's nice and prompt and i can sound the siren and annoy the neighbors by the time he's at pile number two an awesome showing for ring as it's just as fast without daylight nest was not nearly as good notice the light turns on before he even enters the frame but nest told me there was a moving vehicle not a person the alert itself was almost propped but then the cam glitched and i couldn't yell at hobie allowing him to get away with it all and take a bow not great so we tried again and didn't get any alerts nest might have been having a glitchy night but we double checked every setting it was the same conditions as ring this was a fail the battle was close during the day but ring wins handily thanks to being more reliable when we needed it to be at night getting prompt alerts is one thing but can you trust what you're seeing well let's get to the bottom of that with a vision test we have the patented cnet eye chart nope we have no patent on the side chart and we're going to hold it at increasing distances to see what the cameras can make out at a close five foot distance ring is pretty sharp through row eight and you can still almost make out row ten it's fine but it pales in comparison to nest look at how sharp that is you can make out a full extra row before things start getting fuzzy and side by side the image just looks that much more clear that difference holds as we move back to 15 feet at a medium distance you lose a lot of rows for ring row 3 is already starting to look blurry but you can make it and row 4 out with a little work but everything fades around row 5 and 6. with nest you can clearly see row 5 and you can make out 6 with a little work seven is mostly just shapes and nothing beneath but as you can see side by side you still get a couple of extra rows at a long 25 feet only the top row is clearly visible on ring row two and three are blurry but almost workable but by four it's all gone nest makes it easier to make out the letters through row three the fourth and fifth rows are almost there but nothing below that so neither fares particularly well at a distance but nest was clearer across the board in the daytime at night back to five feet you can easily make out through row four with ring it's much worse than during the day but the part you can see is still clear with some of the smaller letters blotted out due to the glare nest has the same problem though row 5 is nice and clear side by side you'll see that you actually lose more letters entirely to glare with nest which makes sense it has the brighter flood light but you can still read one extra row with clary moving back to 15 feet ring has lost most letters even at a medium distance you can still make out the very top but two through four are there but fuzzy and everything below that has just disappeared with nest the glare is actually less of a problem at a medium distance so you can actually see more letters than up close one row is less clear but you're still fine through row four so much less of a drop off than ring at a distance ring only shows you the top at all you lose almost everything else i guess you can kind of tell row two is there there was a big drop off for nest as well here only row one is really readable two is blurry and you can at least see that there is something for rows three through five so as far as comparing the two nest is still stronger nest was stronger at really every stage and is the clear winner of our vision test outside of the tests nest has the best software of the bunch if you're willing to pay more it also works the best with google assistant obviously so you can easily pull up a feed on your nest hub smart display or your tv with chromecast ring has a few cool high-tech perks and fits in easily if you already have amazon echo stuff here it is on the show complete with two-way talk if you want that put it all together and we're giving the win to the ring floodlight cam wired pro since these are security cameras first and foremost the notification test holds that much more weight obviously some of it will come down to preference nest did a great job with the vision test and is better with google assistant while ring is better with amazon blah blah blah blah but we have to declare a winner baggage and all ring gets this one thanks for watching please hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed the video and subscribe to cnet's youtube channel for more check out the links below if you're ready to make a purchase and we have links to cnet articles if you want to read more about the specific products and comment below to let me know how much money you think we spent on fake money and also i guess let me know which product you'd pick thanks again like and subscribe all right do did we get it what do i have something on me what's going on\n"