We're seeing lots of online companies making changes to their services to help ease bandwidth usage during the coronavirus pandemic, and Google's Nest division is the latest to make such a move.
Nest is emailing users today to tell them that it's "temporarily adjusting your camera quality and bandwidth in an effort to conserve internet resources." Nest goes on to say that it's adjusting the quality and bandwidth setting on Nest cameras to the default setting.
This change will take place over the next few days. You'll get a notification from your Nest app when the change has been made to your devices.
Nest does say that if you need a higher video quality setting for your usage, you can change it back at any time. You can do this by selecting the camera you want to change from your Nest app home screen, tapping "Settings", then tapping "Quality and bandwidth".
Many people are now self-isolating at home to fight the spread of the coronavirus, and as a result they're likely using the internet far more than normal. We've already seen Sony slow PlayStation Network downloads and YouTube default to standard definition video quality to help ease the strain on ISPs, and now Nest is making a similar move.
The move might be frustrating for some who don't want Nest to tinker with their camera quality, but there is an option to use a higher quality if you need it. Lots of folks may not even notice the change, and as a result this move will likely help to conserve internet resources.
