Julie’s gadget diary – It’s time to find an alternative to Nest

I’m in the process of a tech downsizing. I’ve already physically downsized my phone from a larger Nexus 6P to a smaller LG G6 which just arrived yesterday. And now I want to downsize the amount of data I upload to the cloud by finding an alternative to Nest cams.

Why do I care how much data I’m uploading to the Nest cloud? Because I’m also trying to find an alternative to my insanely expensive T1 line. If you don’t know what a T1 line is, it’s my broadband connection. Where I live, I don’t have the options for connecting to the internet as people who live in larger cities or even smaller cities. I live in a rural area where I don’t even have access to cable TV.

I had a Hughesnet satellite dish over a decade ago, but it wasn’t a good experience so I went with a T1 line.

The best things about a T1 line are that it’s unlimited and that the line is managed and has 24/7 support if it goes down… which it does at least a few times a year.

But the bad thing about the T1 line beside the monthly price is that the speed is only 1.5Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. Stop laughing, I know that’s slow. But it’s stable and it’s been my only option for the past 10 years until now.

The speed really hasn’t been a big issue when it comes to day to day surfing and even Netflix streaming. But if Jeanne and I are both surfing and one of us tries to watch a Youtube video, the other one knows about it because surfing comes to a crawl.

Now I’m going to try a wireless solution for my internet which comes with its own set of pros and cons. The pros are lower cost and faster speed, but the con is that it’s not unlimited data. It’s only 32GB a month. That might sound like a lot, but it’s not if you have home security cameras like the Nest cam which can upload from 60GB – 160GB a month per camera if you subscribe to Nest Aware which saves your video on the Nest servers.

I have 2 Nest cams in my home which means I am currently uploading as much as 320GBs a month which is 100 times my monthly limit. Yikes, that madness has to stop.

So it’s time for me to find a good home security camera system that has these features:

• Notifications sent to my phone when motion is detected
• 24/7 video saved to a local drive
• Easy access locally saved video even when I’m away from home
• Software that works with a Mac (although I could build a cheap PC or use a Windows laptop if needed)

If you want to help me brainstorm possible solutions, leave a comment.

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Julie’s gadget diary – It’s time to find an alternative to Nest originally appeared on on June 15, 2017 at 6:07 pm.

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Julie’s gadget diary – It’s time to find an alternative to Nest