Nest has announced a new indoor security camera to its portfolio in the Nest Cam IQ. The next-generation indoor security camera is able to differentiate between person and thing, and the company claims it offers best-in-class imaging and intelligent features. 

The Nest Cam IQ features a 4K image sensor at 8-megapixels, 12x digital zoom and enhance, HDR for detail and two 940nm infrared LEDs for Night Vision. There are three microphones on board delivering noise suppression and echo cancellation for clearer audio and Nest claims the IQ's speakers are seven times more powerful than 2015's original Nest Cam Indoor.

The Nest Cam IQ has a similar design to the Nest Cam Outdoor in order to blend into most home interiors, with Nest saying it is more of a design object than a camera. It has a polycarbonate white body with the head of the camera built onto a swivel mount for flexibility of movement.

Out-of-the-box features, without the Nest Aware subscription, include person alerts and something called Supersight. Person alerts are where the Nest Cam IQ will identify a person rather than a pet or shadow and send an alert to the user with a zoomed in image, something that was previously only available with the subscription on previous Nest Cam models.

Supersight is a feature within the Nest app, where the user will see a picture within a picture, showing a full 130-degree view of the room, as well as a close-up tracking view of the person in the home.

With the Nest Aware subscription, the Nest Cam IQ will also offer facial recognition technology to identify, categorise and learn to distinguish familiar and unfamiliar faces, like the Netatmo Welcome does. You will also get intelligent audio alerts for things the camera can't see, such as a dog barking or person talking.

Additionally, the Nest Aware subscription will offer the existing features comprising 10 or 30-day video history, clip and time-lapse creation and sharing and Activity Zones, such as automatic door detection for more precise notifications.

All features will work in Night Mode too and there will be a software update coming this summer to enable walkie-talkie mode for more fluid conversation through the camera. At launch, the Nest Cam IQ still offers two-way talk however, with a blue LED ring indicating this feature in action, while a green LED light shows the camera is watching.

The Nest Cam IQ will be available for £299 or $299, with pre-orders starting in the US and UK from 31 May. Shipping is expected by the end of June. The Nest Aware subscription costs £8 a month with no contract or £80 a year.