How To Change The Name Of Your Nest Cameras

Naming conventions are a highly personal affair when it comes to your smart home. And cameras aren’t necessarily an exception to that, so if you’ve been looking to change the name of your Nest Cameras or Doorbells for easier recognition — or just for fun — this guide can help you accomplish that.

There are a few things to be aware of before changing your camera names

Now, before diving into the “how” portion of this guide, there are a few things to be aware of when it comes time to change designations for your Nest cameras. Not least among those things are the differences between the Nest and Google Home apps. This has been a common theme throughout our how-to guides for the devices.

For starters, when you set up your cameras in the Google Home or Nest app, you’re given the opportunity to name them. And to set their location. But that doesn’t automatically apply those things to the other app, regardless of which app you’ve used to start. Or at the very least, not in the way you might expect.

Each app has its own designations. In Google Home, the app lets you set a camera name and its location is set based on where you’ve put it. In the Nest app, it will be designated based on where you’ve placed it. The Google Home app also doesn’t offer anything near the level of customization and setup as the Nest app. While the Google Home app can be a bit quicker at loading up the camera feeds. It also comes with added features like “Quiet Time” for doorbells.

So you may be using both apps, and, in fact, you’ll want to check and potentially rename the cameras in both apps if you’re doing so. Moreover, if you’re using the latest “(Battery)” Nest camera or doorbell, those won’t appear in the Nest app at all. So you’ll need to focus on the first segment of this guide, covering the Google Home app.

Here’s how to change the name of your Nest Cameras and Doorbells

Regardless of whether you’re changing the name of a camera or doorbell, thankfully, the process is the same. So these two guides will work for either device type. In fact, this will also work for any gadget in the Google Home ecosystem once it’s been added. However, simply by selecting that device from the list after step one below. And then by skipping to step three.

Change the names in the Google Home app

1. Open up the Google Home app
2. Select the “Cameras” option at the top of the UI, just above where devices are listed by room
3. Select the camera or other Nest camera device you’d like to rename
4. Tap the gear-shaped Settings icon at the top right-hand side of the UI, as shown in the images below
5. In the resulting menu, select “Device information”
6. At the top of the “Device Information” menu, select “Name”
7. Enter a name for your camera or otherwise-selected Nest gadget
8. Select the “Save” button at the top right-hand side of the UI
9. In the same menu, you can also change the name of the “Room” the device is in. Note that entering a new name will create a new room and if there’s nothing left in the previous room, you’ll see an option to delete the room. Select the “Room” option in the Device information menu
10. Enter a new name for the room and select “Next”
11. Now, the reason we’re including the method for changing the room name in this list of instructions is fairly straightforward. Namely, tapping Next in the previous step actually provides another chance to change the name of the gadget. So you can also change the name of the gadget by first changing the name of its location in the Google Home app. The next option you will see is the same as is shown in step 7 above

Change the names in the Nest app

Now, to change the name of your Nest Cameras or Doorbells in the Nest app takes a bit more work. Mostly because Nest doesn’t do things in quite the same way on its end. Moreover, you can’t change the name of your other gadgets in the Nest app, aside from Nest-branded products like thermostats. Otherwise, it’s fairly straightforward too.

1. Open the Nest app
2. Select the device you’d like to rename from the main page of the app, as shown in the images below
3. Once loaded, select the gear-shaped Settings icon at the top right-hand side of the UI
4. Scroll to the bottom of the resulting menu
5. Select “Where” from the “About” section of the Settings
6. The “Where” is the location of the camera or doorbell. This is the name Nest will always call your camera in lists and in settings. As well as in notifications — as shown in the featured image at the top of this guide. So the first step will be to select the “Where” option from within the “Where” menu
7. You can use one of the pre-existing options in the resulting list, as shown in the images. Or, as with the Home app, you can scroll to the bottom to reveal a Custom option
8. Once the “Where” has been set, select “Label” from the “Where” menu
9. The Label is the secondary name Nest gives a device. This is useful if you have multiple devices in the same location. Type a custom label
10. Nest will now show your where your device is located along with a label — shown in parenthesis