Product Library / Hubs & Controllers

Protocols: WIFI · BLUETOOTH · THREAD · MATTER^{[1][3][4][25]}

Plans and ongoing costs^[7][8]

◐ Works without a subscription: Yes. The maker also sells an optional paid plan.

• Free: Smart home control, media search and playback, alarms and timers, calendars, notes, lists and reminders — Google states these basic Gemini for Home features are available at no cost, The built-in Nest Cam's live view, and motion and sound alerts on your phone, Face Match, Quick Gestures, Voice Match and the display's own screen functions
• Behind a plan: Continuous video recording from the built-in camera, and familiar face alerts, Event-based video history: 30 days on Standard, 60 days on Advanced, Gemini Live and the Advanced plan's daily summaries (from $10/mo)
• Plan tiers: Standard $10/mo · Advanced $20/mo
• 5-year cost if you add the plan: ~$600–$1200 depending on tier — price verified 2026-08-21

Vendor account required: Not established — we have not sourced this yet.

The display works fully without a plan; the CAMERA is the part that is half a product without one. Google's own product-page sentence draws the line: 'Keep an eye on things at home with the built-in Nest Cam. Check in for a live view and get motion and sound alerts on your phone. With a Google Home Premium subscription, you'll get continuous video recording, familiar face alerts, and more.' So live view and alerts are free; recording is not. Tier prices read from Google's own Home Premium page on 2026-08-21: Standard '$10/month or $100/year — Save $20 with an annual subscription', Advanced '$20/month or $200/year — Save $40 with an annual subscription', with the comparison table giving Standard '30 days of event-based video' and Advanced '60 days'. Google's trial footnote states the renewal in the same numbers and adds 'Valid form of payment and Google Account required at signup.' ⚠ A buyer costing this out should add the plan to the hardware: at $229 plus Advanced at $200/year, the camera half of this device costs more per year than most standalone indoor cameras.

Maintenance and offline use

• Works without the internet: Not established — we have not sourced this yet. It does not mean the product fails without the internet.
• Mains-powered and sealed — Google's Ports row lists a single 'DC Power Jack' fed by a '30 W power adapter' (100-240 V, 50/60 Hz), and there is no battery, filter or consumable of any kind. The one piece of physical maintenance a buyer should know about is a privacy control rather than upkeep. Google documents a hardware switch on the back, in unusually plain terms: 'To physically turn off the microphones, camera, and the features that rely on input from them, slide the switch on the back of Nest Hub Max. This switch, which cannot be accessed remotely, makes the microphones and camera completely inoperable. When the camera and mics are turned off, you'll see an orange light on the front of Nest Hub Max.' ⊕ How much of the display keeps working without Google's servers is deliberately left blank here rather than answered: nothing read for this page establishes it, and a yes or no put here would assert something no source supports.
• Security updates: ⚠ Google Nest's declared security-update support ran to September 9, 2024 (US-declared — the maker states this commitment for its US market) — that date has passed. It keeps working exactly as it does now, and no security flaw is known or implied here — but the manufacturer no longer has a stated obligation to issue security fixes for it.^[5] ⚠ THIS DATE PASSED ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO, AND GOOGLE'S SAME TABLE ROW SAYS THE DEVICE IS STILL BEING PATCHED — both halves matter to a buyer. Google's connected-home security-updates page carries the row verbatim across its four columns (Device | Release date | Release date + 5 year minimum | Currently receiving critical security updates): 'Nest Hub Max | 9/9/2019 | 9/9/2024 | Yes'. The commitment on that page is a floor, not an expiry: 'Google Nest connected home devices will receive automatic security updates for at least 5 years from the date we start selling them on the US Google Store.' What ran out in September 2024 is Google's stated obligation, not the updates themselves. The date is published here as it stands rather than softened, because a device sold new today at $229 whose minimum support window ended two years ago is exactly the fact a buyer is not told at checkout. Google also links a per-device 'Nest Hub Max results PDF' of security-validation results from the same table; that document has not been read, and nothing here rests on it. ⊕ This promise is scoped to the US, in Google's own words: 'from the date we start selling them on the US Google Store.' The scope comes from the document itself, not from the fact that the US model is the one listed here.

The catch

Four things, and Google publishes all of them — just never together. First, you probably cannot buy it: it is listed at $229 with financing offered, and both colours read Out of Stock in the Google Store's own structured markup, with no end-of-life notice published anywhere. Treat availability as unresolved rather than as either current or discontinued. Second, its five-year security-update minimum expired on 9/9/2024. Google's own table still marks the row 'Yes' under 'Currently receiving critical security updates', so this is a lapsed commitment rather than an abandoned device — but the commitment is what you can hold a vendor to, and it is gone. Third, the camera is the reason to buy this over the smaller Nest Hub and the reason it costs the most to own: live view and motion and sound alerts are free, while continuous recording, familiar face alerts and video history need Google Home Premium at $10/month or $100/year for Standard, $20/month or $200/year for Advanced. Fourth, the voice assistant is mid-migration and the migration is one-way — Google states that once a home switches to Gemini for Home, 'it can't switch back to Google Assistant', and the switch applies to every compatible device in the home at once. One thing worth knowing before the camera puts you off: the privacy control is a physical switch on the back rather than a software mute, and Google states what it does in unusually specific terms — it 'cannot be accessed remotely' and 'makes the microphones and camera completely inoperable'.

Who it's for

A Google-ecosystem household that wants one device to be three: a 10-inch kitchen or hallway display, a Matter controller with a built-in Thread border router, and an indoor camera with a real hardware kill switch. It fits where the camera is genuinely wanted, because that is what the extra money and the extra subscription buy — if the camera is unwanted, the smaller Nest Hub (2nd gen) is the same hub role in a device with no camera at all. It does not fit anyone outside Google's platform: there is no Alexa, Apple Home or SmartThings route, and Home Assistant gets a cast target rather than a control surface. And it does not fit a buyer who needs a supported-until date, because the published one has passed.

Sources & method

Numbered sources below back the facts marked with the matching number above. This is a research profile: compiled from manufacturer documentation, certification registries, and published testing — we state facts, not verdicts, and we have not physically tested this unit. How we work →

Compatibility and lifecycle information reflects the last-verified date above and can change without notice (firmware updates, cloud-service changes, discontinuations). It is provided as-is, for information — verify with the manufacturer before purchasing. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Full terms: Terms of Service.