Help with older Nest Cams and a new Nest Cam with Nest Aware

[cowboychincs]

I tried to look at several posts on this subject, but I am in the "slow group"... 
I have 4 older outdoor Nest Cams (on the Nes app with Nest Aware subscription) and just purchased 2 new Nest outdoor battery cams (with outdoor power cords).

I have installed only one new outdoor Battery cam and, found out it has to be on Google Home App... which I did not know beforehand.  GRUMBLE!

My issue is I want all 5 cams on one app and I want my Nest Aware 24/7 video available for all 5 cams.
From what I read, that is problematic...  so what are my easiest options to get what I want?  Possible?  What steps do I need to take (yes, I'm an old fart, so any help is greatly appreciated)

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@cowboychincs 

Well, first you need to migrate your Nest Account to a Google Account (https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9297676).

If you did NOT migrate before installing your battery camera, then the Google Account you used to install your battery camera is now attached to a separate Nest Account, and you will have to remove your existing 1st gen cameras and doorbells from the Google Nest app, switch to using "Sign in with Google", and then reinstall them in the Google Nest app. See the "Error message: Google Account is already linked with another Nest account" topic in the above link for instructions on this manual process.  (Note that you will lose any Nest Aware video history during this process.)

You will also need to cancel your existing 1st gen Nest Aware subscription; it would be best to do this before removing them and reinstalling them, because you lose access to the 1st gen Nest Aware link (http://store.nest.com/account/subscriptions).

Then you will need to purchase a 2nd gen Nest Aware Plus subscription, which covers ALL 1st gen and 2nd gen cameras and doorbells in the same Google Nest "home/structure"; pricing is here: https://store.google.com/us/product/nest_aware?hl=en-US&modal=upgrade-pricing.  We've been using Nest Aware Plus since 2020, covering all of our cameras and doorbells.

Note, however, that the new battery camera (we've had one since Sept. 2021) has to be plugged in with an optional power cable in order to be able to get 24/7 recording. And it has to be plugged in at the time of the install for the Google Home app to recognize that it is plugged in.

You should also be aware that Google Nest is in the midst of a multi-year effort to get us to "transfer' our 1st gen cameras and doorbells from the Google Nest app to the Google Home app, using the beta "Public Preview" version of the Google Home app (https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/Public-Preview-updates-Expanded-support-for-Nest-Doorbel...).

We have not transferred any of our cameras or doorbells over, and are not using the beta version because the Google Home app still lacks so many Nest app features (https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13038234#zippy=%2Cnest-app-only-features). So we've been using 2 apps for almost 3 years to access our cameras, and will continue to do so, hoping that Google Nest eventually adds the missing features to the Google Home app.

P.S. I'm an old fart Google Nest customer as well.