3 features the new Nest Doorbell needs to compete with Ring

Despite the Made by Google event announcing hardly anything about smart home, the aftermath of the event saw many speculations and rumours surrounding a Gemini-powered smart speaker and a whole fleet of Nest security devices.

Among them is a new Nest Doorbell. There hasn’t been a new video doorbell from Google since 2021, and looking at the specs from the current Nest Doorbells on offer, Google has given its wired and wireless models plenty of handy security features that can rival its competitors, even the likes of Ring.

What we do know about the third generation of the Nest Doorbell has been revealed through leaks and rumours on Reddit and Android Headlines. So far, we know that it’ll be wired and come in multiple colours, including snow, hazel and linen. The Nest Doorbell is also being upgraded with 2K resolution, and is expected to have features like Zoom & Crop, event video previews of up to three hours, local storage fallback and daily summaries.

These rumoured features definitely have me excited, but I think the Nest Doorbell needs to prioritise these three features if it wants to beat Ring in the video doorbell game.

1. Better head-to-toe views

Right, hear me out on this one. Yes, the existing battery and wired Nest Doorbell are designed to offer head-to-toe views with its 3:4 tall vertical field of view. But compared to the Ring Battery Video Doorbell (2024), which has a 150-degree vertical field of view, the current Nest Doorbell only offers 145-degrees of vertical views.

But according to a leak spotted by TechRadar, the new Nest Doorbell could be upgraded to a 166-degrees diagonal field of view. This definitely gives me more hope that the Nest Doorbell will be able to see all the way down to your door mat, but I do wonder how Google will achieve this, as it’s been speculated that the Nest Doorbell will only have one camera instead of two.

Having a top and bottom camera in a video doorbell or security camera is becoming the norm, so it’ll be interesting to see how Google achieves this. Regardless, the new Nest Doorbell needs to up its angles if it wants to compete with Ring.

2. Colour night vision

While the existing Nest Doorbells might appear to capture colour during low light conditions, they actually work by using high-power infrared LEDs to illuminate footage when it’s dark. If there’s sufficient ambient light, newer Nest cameras and doorbells can show and highlight colour in the dark.

Essentially, Nest Doorbells don’t currently have colour night vision built into them, something I think needs to change. While black and white night vision can massively enhance images and video footage, colour is much better at capturing clearer details, like people’s faces and license plates.

3. A chime!

Older Nest Doorbells don’t have a built-in physical chime. Instead, they connect to your existing wired doorbell’s chime and notify you on your phone or play a noise through a Google Nest speaker or Hub if you have them connected.

Ring doesn’t have a built-in chime either – rather, you have to buy a chime separately. But I’d like to think that considering the advancements in smart home technology and AI, we should be able to get a video doorbell with a built-in chime, so I’m hoping the new Nest Doorbell surprises me with this feature.

The Nest Doorbell and other Nest security devices are expected to launch on the 1st October 2025, so we’ll find out more about what it can do then.