Do you need Google Home Premium?

Short answer: if you own a Nest camera or doorbell and you want to be able to look back at what happened, yes. Google's free allowance runs to a few hours of clips, kept just long enough to tell you that something moved and not long enough to find out what. If the camera is there for a live view and a push notification, you can skip it.

Five things get collapsed into one on this topic, so it is worth separating them. Google Home is the platform and the app. Gemini for Home is the voice layer that runs on it. Google Nest is the hardware brand. Google Home Premium is the subscription, and Works with Google Home is the certification programme Google runs for other companies' devices. This article is about the fourth one.

Nest Aware is now Google Home Premium

If you came here looking for Nest Aware, you are in the right place. On 1 October 2025 Google renamed Nest Aware (2nd gen) to Google Home Premium. The prices did not move and subscribers did not have to do anything: Google's line is that no action is needed to get access to Google Home Premium features unless you want to upgrade your plan.

The tiers were renamed too. Nest Aware became Standard and Nest Aware Plus became Advanced, on price and retention. Google has never spelled that mapping out on its own rebrand page, so treat it as the reading the press took rather than as Google's own words.

Older Nest Aware (1st gen) plans are a separate case. They were not migrated. Google says those subscriptions remain and keep the same features, which means the per-camera plans with 5, 10 or 30 days of continuous recording are still running for the people who hold them. Google has been winding 1st-gen down in some regions, though, and we have not been able to confirm where Australia sits. If you are on a 1st-gen plan, check your own billing before you assume anything.

What it costs in Australia

Paying yearly is the better deal on both tiers. Google puts the saving at A$30 a year on Standard and A$60 a year on Advanced.

The price is per home, not per camera. Google's own wording is that you have one subscription for all Nest cameras in your home, and it is the strongest argument for the product: add a second camera, then a third, and the bill does not move.

For context, the same two plans are US$10 and US$20 a month in the United States. Converted, that is close to what Australians pay, so this is not one of the products we get gouged on.

What you get without paying

More than most people expect, and less than they need. Free on every current Nest camera and doorbell, with or without a subscription:

• Live view, any time
• Sound and motion detection, with notifications
• Person, animal and vehicle alerts, though not on the legacy Nest Cam IQ, Nest Cam Indoor or Nest Cam Outdoor

What is not free is a history worth the name. The allowance depends on which camera you own, and it comes in two shapes that are easy to mix up.

The newer cameras give you shorter clips kept longer. The older ones give you longer clips kept less. Neither is a history you can go back through. If a parcel goes missing while you are at work, six hours has already run out by the time you get home.

Standard or Advanced?

Standard suits most homes. Thirty days of event history covers the two things people actually use a camera for: checking something they have been notified about, and going back to find footage after the fact. Familiar face detection is included in Standard rather than held back for Advanced, which is the detail most comparisons get wrong.

Advanced adds sixty days of event history instead of thirty, and 10 days of 24/7 continuous recording. The continuous recording is the real difference. The camera writes constantly rather than only when something triggers it, so you can scrub to any moment rather than to any event, and that matters where the thing you need may never have set off an alert: a driveway, a side gate, a shopfront. For a hallway and a front door it is double the price for a feature you will not open.

It is not only a camera subscription any more

Gemini for Home is an Early access release in Australia rather than a finished product, and Google Home Premium gates part of it. Gemini Live, the conversational back-and-forth mode, requires a subscription. So does 'Help me create', which writes an automation from a plain-English description. Camera event descriptions, AI notifications and Home Brief are Advanced only. Expect this list to move while the product is still in Early access.

The basics stay free. Device control, media search and playback, alarms, timers, calendars, notes, lists and reminders all work with no subscription, and so does the hardware itself: speakers, displays, Nest Wifi Pro and the Google TV Streamer are fully functional unpaid, including their job as Matter hubs. So Premium is worth a second look even if you own no cameras at all, which was not true of Nest Aware.

Check what you already pay for

Google bundles Home Premium into its AI plans in Australia. Google AI Pro includes the Standard plan and Google AI Ultra includes Advanced. If you already subscribe to either, you have this already and may not know it. Worth checking before you pay for it twice.

So, do you need it?

Buy Standard if you own a Nest camera or doorbell and you want to be able to look back. That is nearly everyone who owns one.

Buy Advanced if you need continuous recording rather than event clips, which usually means a driveway, a side gate or a business rather than a hallway.

Skip it if the camera is there for a live view and a notification and nothing more, or if you are still deciding whether the camera stays at all.