Here’s what happens to your Google Nest devices when the subscription ends

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If you’ve owned Nest or Google smart home products for a while, you know that there used to be a subscription service called Nest Aware. Namely, it was a useful cloud service for Nest smart security cameras to store video history as needed. Nest Aware is now Google Home Premium, with some feature upgrades, which also integrates Gemini AI for quick automations and live chats through speakers and displays, among other uses. If you had a Nest Aware subscription, it is replaced by Google Home Premium, and if you purchase a new Nest device, Home Premium is the subscription you will be offered. It’s a unified subscription for all Google Home and Nest devices, and you can even take advantage of a 30-day trial to test it out. But what happens when this subscription ends? Are your devices no longer working at all?

The simple answer is that your devices continue to work, for the most part, but you lose some advanced features. It really depends on what devices you have. Aside from advanced features, most devices should continue to work with basic functions still available. Security cameras, for example, lose a 30-60 day video history of events, but you should still be able to view the live feed. Also disappearing are the constant 10-day video backups for things like a Nest Video doorbell. During this time, some smart features and AI-powered smart alerts will stop working on other devices, such as your Nest displays.

If you cancel or let your subscription expire, you also lose audio and video clips saved in the cloud. You will want to back up any important clips or files before proceeding to Undo.

The good news is that you can practically use most Google Home and Nest devices without paying a premium subscription. This includes Google Home smart speakers, displays, streaming devices, Nest thermostats, security cameras, doorbells, and networking equipment. What you’ll lose is access to some of the most advanced security, cloud, and AI features. This is also one of the main drawbacks of using the Google Home app as a smart hub for your connected devices: some options are locked behind a paywall.

Because there are many devices, each with their own differences, it would be absurd to list everything here and explain what the premium service unlocks. Google maintains a list of supported features on its support page. Some devices like the Nest Thermostat Gen 4 don’t need a subscription at all: it’s optional.

To give you another example, older Google Home speakers are still supported; anything from 2015, anyway. You can call on the basic home assistant as is. There is still much to do. You can control smart home devices, perform simple search queries, listen to or play media, plan your day with calendar support, set alarms or timers, and much more. However, a Google Premium subscription will give you access to Gemini Live, the advanced AI-based assistant that gives more natural responses. This is part of Google’s latest smart home upgrade and is certainly changing the way you interact with your smart home. You can ask her for recipes, spark ongoing conversations, etc. But you lose a lot without the paid plan. Whether it’s worth it or not is purely subjective.

If and when a subscription expires and you lose features, it makes sense to start thinking about replacements. Whether it was part of the original plan or not, losing access to features can be downright frustrating and significantly reduce the usefulness of a device. Without Google Home Premium, you can still use many of your smart home products as intended, it’s the advanced bits that disappear. But it also depends on the product.

Losing a few features of a smart speaker is a little different than losing features of a security camera. Cloud video storage and image backups for security cameras can be incredibly valuable, especially when you need that footage as evidence or for future reference. Without cloud saves, you’re exclusively redirected to the live stream, which won’t really help you if you need to recall audio or video. Then it might make a lot of sense to replace a Nest video doorbell or security camera that doesn’t have access to the cloud. You can find alternatives that offer local storage – both video doorbells with local storage and security cameras with local storage – or systems that make local backups to the cloud on a device like Reolink’s Home Hub, no subscription required.

However, losing access to Google Home Premium is not the same as losing critical security and software support for abandoned devices. In other words, until your Google Home or Nest product has reached its end of life, it will continue to be supported by the company and should be safe to use. Google says Nest devices will have security support for up to five years after launch. You do not need a subscription to access standard updates.