(Tech Xplore)—Sounds trite but a new product appears to be a security camera on steroids. Gadget watchers this week are talking about what Nest has to offer in the way of an outdoor home security camera.

The Nest Cam Outdoor is now shipping, said TechHive.

Nest said on its site that with a Nest Aware subscription, Nest Cam continuously records 24/7 and it saves up to 30 days of footage securely in the cloud.

Michael Brown, executive editor, TechHive, reported Thursday on the Nest developments.

"In addition to the Spaces and 'person alerts' features Nest revealed earlier, the company has added a new feature that lets you scrub through days of captured video in just a few moments, so you can quickly find the video events you're looking for: someone sneaking past your gate, for instance, or the delivery person leaving a package at your door."

The camera can record every little thing 24/7. Nest is making a big thing out of the 24/7 part because this sets it apart from many other camera alternatives used to monitor things while the residents are away.

As Nest said, "Some cameras can't stay on all the time because they rely on batteries, so they only turn on when they sense motion. But if they miss something, you do, too. With a Nest Aware subscription, Nest Cam continuously records 24/7. And saves up to 30 days of footage securely in the cloud. So you never miss a thing."

The company site said, "We designed Nest Cam to plug into a standard indoor or outdoor power outlet so it can stream and record video continuously. Other battery-powered cameras can't do this because they're asleep most of the time. To preserve battery life, they only turn on when they sense motion. That delay means important footage might not get recorded. Pick the wrong motion sensitivity setting, and it might not record what you want at all. Not Nest Cam. Whenever it's on and connected to Nest servers, it's recording."

The Nest blog about the outdoor camera also announced a "Free 3-hour history for all. For the first time ever, Nest Cam owners without Nest Aware will get to glimpse into the past, with Sightline's free three-hour snapshot history. So even if you miss an alert, you still get a snapshot of what happened. Sightline's algorithms look at all motion and sound, and group activity into events. Then show you how long they lasted and a key image of the action." So what you can see are snapshots of activities that happened in the past three hours.

Aside from the 24/7 feature, Engadget similarly raised the important advantage about this product: In some other cameras, you have to scan through so much footage to find the instant that this something occurs. With Nest the updated app makes finding relevant events easier to see, said Roberto Baldwin.

One can thank something called Sightline, now added, for subscribers, to the companion app. The feature that creates "multi-day timelapses of footage and highlights key moments during that so users can quickly find what they're looking for," said Baldwin.

The Nest blog said, "Sightline is a new app feature that shows you what Nest Cam has seen and lets you speed through days of recorded video in seconds. It pulls out key moments automatically so you don't waste time digging through footage. Looking for the moment someone opened the gate two days ago? No problem."

The camera watches and sends an alert if it detects activity and lets the person talk back through the Nest app. (One might, for example, tell the mail delivery person to leave the package there.)

According toTechHive, Nest Cam product manager Mehul Nariyawala said, "Each Nest Cam captures up to 2.6 million frames per day, because it's recording 24/7."

But wait a minute. Could not a half smart burglar just rip out the camera and its features are in turn useless? The company has an answer for that. "Nest Cam Outdoor comes with specially designed cable clips that let you secure all 25 ft (7.5m) of cable from your camera to the outlet, making it difficult to remove or tamper with. You can prime and paint both the cables and cable clips to match your home so they blend in and are harder to spot."

Nest said that you can also add a lockable cover to the outdoor outlet to keep Nest Cam from getting unplugged. Mounting the camera up high, out of reach, would be another plus.

More information: nest.com/