Nest Doorbell and HomeKit: how to activate assistance

byFlorian published on

If you like using Google and Apple smart home products, you must use the Starling Home Hub. In my original review, I noted that this was a streamlined, turnkey way to add all of your Nest and Google Home products to HomeKit. Over the past two and a half years, the team behind the product has continued to release updates to make the product even better. Today, firmware version 12.0 adds support for the new Nest doorbell which includes continuous recording.

Once you unbox the Starling Home Hub, plug it into power and an open router/switch port (no Wi-Fi), you will be taken to setup.starlinghome.io on any browser of the network name to begin with. Starling Home Hub works with Nest Accounts and Google Accounts that manage Nest products. It even works with two-factor authentication for Google accounts. In the two years I've used the product, I've never had any connectivity issues. If you already have the device, you will update the firmware from this section.

Starling Home Hub firmware update 12.0 adds full support for the new Nest doorbell, including HomeKit Secure Video, which means with the Nest doorbell you get a full in-app event history Apple Home, as well as rich notifications and HomeKit activity zones. This upgrade also doesn't change what you can do with the Google Home app. They work very well next to each other.

The Starling Home Hub team are quite impressed with the Nest Doorbell and HoneKit so far. They included this note in the email sent to their customers.

We've been testing the new doorbell since we got our hands on it, and we actually think it's one of the best video doorbells we've ever seen for responsiveness and picture quality, day or night. , thanks to Google's built-in image processing – despite the fact that the camera sensor itself is only in HD resolution.

Starling Home Hub is available for a one-time fee of $99 with no subscription fees. It works with all Google Home products. With Starling Home Hub, you can connect all Nest Cam, Doorbell, Thermostat, Protect, Secure, and Nest × Yale Lock products to HomeKit and Siri. It also lets you stream audio from any Apple device via AirPlay to Nest Audio, Mini, or Google Nest Hub. If you're looking for an option for the new Nest Doorbell and HomeKit, Starling Home Hub is just about the easiest option available.

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