Learn about familiar face detection

Important: Before you save any of your camera’s face data, check your local privacy laws. If required, get the person’s permission first before you save their face data.

Whenever your camera detects a face, the activity is marked in your camera's recorded video in the Home app or Nest app.

When your camera detects an unfamiliar face, the app should ask whether it’s someone you know. You’ll have the option to save the person’s save data in the familiar face library. This helps your camera recognize the face as someone you know.

Based on which Nest camera model you have, you can change settings and manage the familiar face library in the Home app, Nest app, or both.

Whenever your camera recognizes a face, photo snapshots of the person’s face will be saved in the familiar face library. From there, you’ll be able to edit the face profile of each person and manage photos.

All home members in the app have access to the familiar face library, and may be able to categorize faces your camera detects.

When your camera recognizes a face, the activity is marked in its recorded video. You can find this information when you review specific camera events, or when you filter an activity in your camera’s video history.

Each home member can change whether they get familiar face notifications.

If you turn familiar face detection off, your camera can still send alerts when it detects a person. However, it won’t recognize faces.

You can turn familiar face detection on or off for each camera in its settings.

Nest cameras in the same home share the same familiar face library. If you add a new camera to the same home, it uses the same familiar face library as the other cameras in your home. This means it won’t take as long to recognize certain faces.

You can only use familiar face detection for the cameras with a 1st gen Nest Aware subscription. Cameras without a subscription don’t have familiar face detection.

When you add or change a person’s name in the familiar face library in the Home or Nest app, it’s also reflected in the other app.

Home app

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions  Google Home Premium  Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings   Familiar faces.
5. To add or change the name, tap a face and enter a new name.

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Tap Settings   Familiar faces.
3. Choose the familiar face profile you want to name. 
4. Tap Name.
5. Give the person a new name. You can use their actual name or enter a description like “mail carrier.”

Home app

There are a few ways to find and categorize unfamiliar faces in the Home app.

• In the Settings:

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions Google Home Premium Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings   Familiar faces.
5. If your camera has detected new people, you can tap New faces to find and categorize them.
6. For each new face, tap Yes, No, or Not a person. Then, follow the on-screen prompts to identify the face.

To find anything you’ve tagged as Not a person, go to Familiar face detection Options Faces that aren’t people.

• Camera event details:

1. Tap the camera event in the Google Home app's Activity ..
2. Once the clip is open, tap Information for more details.
3. In the “Faces” category, tap Face library, then follow the prompts to identify the faces your camera didn’t recognize.

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Select your camera.
3. At the bottom of your camera’s Sightline, tap People.
4. If your camera has detected new people, you should be asked whether you know them. Select Yes or No.
   • If your camera misidentifies an object as a face, tap the drop-down menu and select This isn’t a person.
   • Anything you’ve tagged as not a person, such as your pet, a painting, the TV, and others, shows up in the Not a face category in your familiar faces library.

Home app

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions  Google Home Premium  Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings   Familiar faces.
5. Start edit mode (2 different ways):
   • Option 1: At the top right corner of the screen, tap Edit. Then, select the faces you want to merge.
   • Option 2: To select the first face in edit mode, touch and hold a face on the screen. Then, tap the other face you want to merge. Both faces are selected when you do this.
6. At the top right corner of the screen, tap Merge .

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Tap Settings Familiar faces.
3. Tap Select the duplicate profile that you want to combine.
4. If there are many duplicate profiles, tap the others as well Merge .

You can permanently delete specific face profiles saved in your home’s familiar face library in the app.

• This removes the person from your familiar face library.
• This also erases any snapshots used to help your camera recognize the person.
• If you do this in either the Home app or Nest app, the change is also reflected in the other app.

If you have more than one home in your account and you delete faces, it only applies to the home you’ve selected. Your familiar face library in other homes should be unaffected.

Home app

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions Google Home Premium Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings  Familiar faces.
5. Select the face profiles you want to merge. There are 2 ways to do this:

• Option 1: Tap Edit . Then, select the faces you want to merge.
• Option 2: Touch and hold a face profile to select it in edit mode. Then, select any other face profiles you want to merge.

4. At the top right corner of the screen, tap Delete .
5. Confirm your choice.

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Tap Settings Familiar faces the face you want to delete.
3. Tap Forget this face Remove.

This feature is only available in the Home app.

Move photos to another face profile

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions Google Home Premium Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings  Familiar faces.
5. Select a face profile with photos that you want to move.
6. Tap Edit , then select any photos that you want to move together.
7. Tap Move .
8. Search and select a person saved in the familiar face library, or type in a new name to save the photos in a new face profile.
9. Tap Yes to confirm your choice.

Delete photos in a face profile

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions Google Home Premium Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings  Familiar faces.
5. Select a face profile with photos that you want to delete.
6. Tap Edit , then select any photos that you want to delete together.
7. Tap Delete .
8. Confirm that you want to remove the photos.

You can permanently delete all face profiles from the entire familiar face library in the app.

• This removes all faces from Nest’s face recognition algorithms for your account.
• This also erases all camera snapshots used for identification.
• If you have more than one home in your account and erase the familiar face library, it only applies to the home you’ve selected.

Home app

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initial.
3. Tap Home settings .
4. Tap Subscriptions Google Home Premium Familiar face detection.
   • Optional: Tap Home your camera Settings  Familiar faces.
5. At the top right corner of the screen, tap Options Delete face library.
6. Once you receive the confirmation pop-up, tap Delete.

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Tap Settings Familiar faces.
3. Scroll and tap Clear library.
4. Tap Clear library again to confirm.

Older Nest camera and doorbell models that are set up in the Nest app store familiar face data to the cloud. To help protect user privacy, this data is encrypted and is not accessed by Google.

Newer Nest camera and doorbell models that are set up in the Home app store familiar face data directly in their internal memory. While the cloud is used for clean-up, it doesn’t store familiar face data.

To help protect user privacy, locally-stored familiar face data is also encrypted. For security reasons, the internal memory for these devices is not accessible or removable.