After launching in Australia in an exclusive deal with Australian online comparison company iSelect, Alphabet company NEST has expanded their product availability to include Australian retailers.
The NEST cameras (Indoor and Outdoor), as well as the NEST Protect smoke detector (both Wired and Battery models) are now available at retailers Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Officeworks. As far as we can tell the NEST products started showing up in mid-late November, just in time for the all important Christmas shopping season.
There’s no sign of the NEST devices at frequent Google collaborator The Good Guys, nor at Bing Lee, but you can definitely hop into any of the other stores and pick yourself up a new NEST Protect, or NEST Camera.
There’s a minor bit of a kerfuffle over the certification of the NEST Protect, and rightfully so, you’re using these to protect your homes. As Adam Turner points out in his hands-on with the NEST Protect for SMH:
While the smoke alarm is double-insulated to reduce the risk of shock, the supplied power cable is not. This means to meet Australian safety standards the Nest should be installed with a junction box in the ceiling (not included in the box) which covers the supplied power cable – including where it connects to the mains power and to the Nest.
As far as the other devices go, they’re quite highly regarded and as a NEST Protect owner (Battery), I can say they’re very good – no alarms is good right? If you’ve been waiting for the online exclusivity to end then now is your chance.
I would have bought one of the nest cams if it wasn’t for the expensive subscription required for the motion activity zones. $15 a month is just way too much.
Ended up with an Arlo which has a decent free plan.
Rumour is that the “Sole Supplier” failed to meet the sales volumes by a country mile. On top of this it was chea[er just to co to Kogan or amazon.