Google ends support for Dropcam and the Nest Secure home security system within one year, on April 8th, 2024. It is among the few remaining Nest products that are not brought to Google Home, and its demise also indicates that the new Google Home app may be barely be here. At least, not more than a year left. certainly.
Google is also winding down the last few old Works with Nest connections, but not until September 29th.
Existing Dropcam cameras will continue to work until April 8, 2024, after which you will no longer be able to access them from the Nest app. To soften the blow, Google is offering a free wired indoor Nest Cam to Dropcam owners who subscribe to Nest Aware. Non-subscribers will receive a coupon for 50 percent off. The promotion runs through May 7, 2024, so you can keep using your Dropcam until it stops working.
Dropcam (fka Dropcam HD) came out in 2012, and Dropcam Pro in 2013. Then Google bought Nest, and Nest bought Dropcam. In 2015 Google surrounded Nest when it formed Alphabet, and for a while, Google and Nest were both of them Making smart home products. Then Google reaccommodated Nest in 2018, and there was a lot of messy business trying to integrate Nest products into the Google Home app — and killing the ones that couldn’t be integrated.
Now that the Dropcam and Nest Secure have been dropped, Nest Protect smart smoke alarms are the only Nest app-only devices left, and Google promises to bring them to the new Google Home app. The updated app has been in public preview since October, and there’s still no exact date, but it must be getting close, right?
Presumably there are people who have bought Definitely the first Dropcam back in 2010 and replaced it with a free Dropcam HD in 2015 who will now be trading that in Nest Cam. This is kind of neat from a customer service standpoint but not great from an e-waste standpoint (although Google will ship you a prepaid recycling bin if you ask).
Nest Secure was…a less auspicious and less graceful round. It was launched in 2017 and was canceled three years later, right after Google invested a bunch of money in ADT. Like Dropcam, it will continue to work until April 8th, 2024, but Google will definitely want you to upgrade before then. Google’s statement says,