Your Nest cameras just got better at identifying faces and pets

Google’s plans to level up your smart home experience aren’t limited to bringing Gemini to your devices. The company is also upgrading its Google Home app to make your Nest camera footage far more useful.

According to a new Nest help forum post, the latest update for the Google Home app brings improvements for the familiar face detection feature, which should help your cameras more accurately identify the people visiting your home. The feature relies on Google’s Familiar Face detection algorithm, which uses images stored in the Familiar Face library to recognize people.

Google notes that sometimes the library contains low-quality images with blurry or incomplete faces, which can reduce detection accuracy. With this update, the company has improved the quality of images stored in the library, making familiar face detection more reliable.

Your Nest cams are also getting smarter at recognizing pets

The update also brings improvements for the animal detection feature, allowing Nest cameras to “better distinguish between cats and dogs from a distance, reducing misidentification.” It also enhances animal color handling to “ensure higher color accuracy and minimize incorrect animal colors in poor lighting conditions.”

Along with upgrades for familiar face and animal identification, the Google Home app update improves how the Home Brief feature describes people in events when a familiar face is not identified. The company has also leveled up AI descriptions on longer videos, which should now offer more detailed context and insights.

These improvements should result in fewer false alerts and more accurate notifications, so you won’t get a flood of unncessary notifications every time someone walks by your door or when your cat jumps on the couch. For example, if a delivery person shows up, your Nest camera should now correctly identify them without confusing them for a familiar visitor. Similarly, pets wandering into the frame should be recognized more reliably, even in low-light conditions.