Google Nest – Create and Manage Activity Zones

Created by Lamont Gibson, Modified on Mon, 22 Jun at 11:20 AM by Lamont Gibson

Set up and use Activity Zones

You can create custom Activity Zones for your camera or doorbell for different types of activities that you want to be notified about. Just use the app to draw a zone around a specific area in your camera's view. For instance, create a zone around a door if you want a notification when a person walks through it. The person who walks through the door Activity Zone also creates an event in your video history timeline.

Activity Zones is a feature that comes with cameras and doorbells set up in the Home app. For all other cameras, Activity Zones is available if you have a trial or paid Google Home Premium subscription.

Tip: Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor cameras require a Google Home Premium subscription to use Activity Zones.

With Activity Zones, you can:

Monitor up to four zones per camera.
Give each zone a custom shape, size, colour and name.
Get people alerts and other motion alerts when activity happens in a zone. If you have a Nest doorbell, you can also get parcel alerts.
Get notifications which include the name of the zone, so that you know exactly where something happened.
Set up a zone where there's activity that you don't want to be bothered about, such as a window that overlooks a busy view, but get alerts for activity throughout the rest of the room.
Find markers on your video history timeline for activity that happened in each zone, so that it's easy to review everything.

Activity Zones don't change what your camera detects

Even after you create Activity Zones, your camera still streams its entire view and stores the footage in your video history. The video feed will stay the same with or without Activity Zones.

However, when you have Activity Zones, you can receive alerts about motion in certain parts of your camera's view and also check activity that has occurred there in the past.

Create and use Activity Zones on a phone

Create a new Activity Zone

Home app

If the option to create Activity Zones doesn't appear in the Home app, follow the Nest app instructions in the section below.

Open the Google Home app .
Tap Home Cameras your camera.
Tap Settings Events Seen events .
Choose + Add a zone. The new zone appears in the middle of the camera's view.
Change the shape of the zone to capture what you want.
- Turn your phone to go into landscape mode for a full screen of your camera's view. Make sure that the screen rotation setting on your phone is on.
- Tap and drag inside the zone to move it.
- Tap and drag any of the eight dots on the sides of the zone to change its shape.
To change the colour of the Activity Zone, tap Zone colour. You can pick from four different colours.
Under the camera view, tap on the Zone name to give your zone a descriptive name.
Under Event history, you can choose which types of events you want to record in that zone and which notifications you want to receive.

Nest app

Select the camera for which you want to make an Activity Zone.
Tap Settings .
Select Activity Zones. You'll need to have an active Google Home Premium subscription. Otherwise, the Activity Zone option won't appear.
Tap Create zone . The new zone will appear in the middle of the screen.
Turn your phone to go into landscape mode for a full screen of your camera's view. Make sure that the screen rotation setting on your phone is on.
Tap and drag inside the zone to move it.
Tap and drag any of the eight points on the sides of the zone to change its shape.
On the bottom of the screen, tap one of the coloured circles to change the colour of the Activity Zone. You can pick from four different colours.
At the top of the screen, tap the pencil to give your zone a descriptive name. Then, tap the tick to save the zone name.
Tap the tick to save the zone.

After you create a zone

Any events that happen within an Activity Zone are colour-coded to match the zone, even if they happened before you created the zone.

Edit an Activity Zone

Home app

If the option to create Activity Zones doesn't appear in the Home app, follow the Nest app instructions in the section below.

Open the Google Home app .
Tap Home Cameras your camera.
Tap Settings Events Seen events .
Update the zone with the changes that you want to make. The app saves your changes automatically.

Nest app

Select the camera with the Activity Zone that you want to edit.
Tap Settings .
Select Activity Zones.
Select the zone that you want to edit.
Change the zone any way you like. You can change its size, shape, colour and name, just like you would if you create a new Activity Zone.
Tap the tick to save. If you change your mind, at the top-left corner, tap Cancel .

Remove an Activity Zone

When you delete an Activity Zone, it doesn't erase footage from your video history, but it removes markers on your timeline that show when your camera noticed activity there.

Home app

If the option to create Activity Zones doesn't appear in the Home app, follow the Nest app instructions in the section below.

Open the Google Home app .
Tap Home Cameras your camera.
Tap Settings Events Seen events .
Select the zone that you want to delete.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap Delete zone.

Nest app

Select the camera for which you want to delete an Activity Zone.
Tap Settings .
Select Activity Zones.
Select the zone that you want to delete.
At the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap Delete . Confirm that you want to delete the zone.

Create and use Activity Zones on a computer

You can only create and edit Activity Zones on a computer if you set up your camera or doorbell with the Nest app.

With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can make an Activity Zone for any area that you want to keep an eye on. You can also edit or delete existing Activity Zones.

Create a new Activity Zone

Sign in to the Nest app on a web browser.
Select the camera for which you want to make an Activity Zone.
At the bottom-right corner, select Activity Zones . If the Activity Zones icon isn't there, try to make your browser window bigger to reveal it. Tip: You'll need to have an active Google Home Premium subscription. Otherwise, the Activity Zone option doesn't appear.
Select Create. The new zone will appear in the middle of the screen.

Move and shape an Activity Zone

You can move an Activity Zone and change its shape to fit around any area or object that you want to keep an eye on.

Click and drag inside the zone to move it.
Click and drag any of the eight points on the sides of the zone to change its shape.
At the bottom-left corner of the screen, click the coloured circle to change the colour of the Activity Zone. You can pick from four different colours.
Once you've given the Activity Zone the shape and colour that you want, give it a descriptive name. At the bottom-left corner of your browser, type the name into the box.
To save the new Activity Zone, select Done.

Receive alerts for your Activity Zones

Although Activity Zones doesn't change the footage that your camera streams and records, when you add a zone, you can get more useful alerts as it tells you where the motion happened.

If you already have a zone set up, you can use the Nest app to manage whether or not you get notifications to alert you when there's motion in that zone.

Go to your camera's video stream in the Nest app.
Select Settings .
Select Notifications.
To get alerts within the zone, tap a zone's name, then select People or All other motion, or both. If you have a doorbell, you can also select Parcels, which can let you know that a parcel has been dropped off or picked up within its view.

If People is selected, you get an alert even if there's a partial view of a person within the zone, such as an arm.

You can also personalise your alerts in the Home app.

Customise the Google Home app's Activity Activity icon . to show only the events that you want.

Open the Google Home app .
Tap Activity .
At the top, tap Filter.
Select the events and devices that you want, then tap Show results.

If you have email alerts or push notifications enabled for your camera, you'll also get a snapshot of what your camera detected when it sent you the alert.

Edit an Activity Zone

Use a web browser to sign in to your account at home.nest.com.
At the bottom-right corner of the screen, click Activity Zones .
Select the zone that you want to edit.
Change the zone any way you like. You can change its size, shape, colour and name, just like you would if you create a new Activity Zone.
When you've finished, click Done.

Select current zone or add a new zone screen

Remove an Activity Zone

When you delete an Activity Zone, it doesn't erase footage from your video history, but it removes markers on your timeline that show when your camera noticed activity there.

Use a web browser to sign in to your account at home.nest.com.
Select the camera with the Activity Zone that you want to delete.
At the bottom-right corner, click Activity Zones .
Select the zone that you want to remove.
Click the red Delete button.

Review Activity Zones

Whenever your camera spots activity in a zone that you've created, your timeline will be marked to let you know. Just scroll through the timeline and look for the dots and bars that mark events. They are coloured to match the colour of your Activity Zones. Tap on one to review the recorded video.

Learn about your Sightline and video history

Tips to set up Activity Zones

Create small zones

A big Activity Zone captures more activity. In general, the smaller and more precise the Activity Zone, the more accurate your camera's alerts should be.

If your zone is too large, objects that don't appear to be in the zone can trigger an in-zone recording or notification.

Experiment with the size and placement of your Activity Zones to get the effect that you want.

Don't overlap zones

If you overlap two or more Activity Zones, you only receive a notification for the Activity Zone where the activity first occurred. If the activity actually happened in two or more Activity Zones at the same time, you only get a notification for one of the Activity Zones.