According to the Nest Cam website [1], the camera (without Nest Aware) offers the following features for customers:<p>- 24&#x2F;7, continuous 1080p HD streaming<p>- Motion alerts<p>- Sound alerts<p>- Night Vision<p>- Talk &amp; Listen<p>- Clear Zoom<p>- Quick, easy setup<p>- Nest App<p>- Software updates over Wi‑Fi<p>With exception of the HD streaming, Talk &amp; Listen and the app, all of those are pretty basic features which I imagine could be run on the camera hardware itself.<p>Streaming and Talk &amp; Listen could be implemented such that the video stream is directly routed to the app and the cloud only brokers the connection.<p>So, I don&#x27;t understand, why operating a Nest Cam needs a cloud-based service with image recognition at all.<p>Nest Aware adds a recording service, which makes more sense in a cloud setting. But again, it&#x27;s not clear to me why this is the only option and there is no way to store the stream, e.g. on a NAS instead.<p>As far as I can see, the page doesn&#x27;t mention image recognition. Nest Aware supports face detection, but as far as I know, that&#x27;s a feature that middle-class smartphones and digicams can do on local hardware. I don&#x27;t see why you&#x27;d need a cloud service for that.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nest.com&#x2F;camera&#x2F;install-and-explore&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nest.com&#x2F;camera&#x2F;install-and-explore&#x2F;</a>