The best smart doorbells are an excellent way to interact with visitors and delivery people, even when you're busy or away from home. For instance, when someone rings your door to deliver a package, you can tell them to leave it at your doorstep so that you can pick it up when you're home later in the day. Occasionally, the package can be left at your door without someone ringing, but your Nest camera can still let you know automatically and instantly.

Your Nest doorbell makes it easy to see if the package has been delivered, regardless of whether someone rang. More importantly, it can notify you if someone tries to steal the parcel by telling you when it senses a motion or if the package is gone. The best part is that there is no need for a paid Nest Aware subscription to benefit from this feature.

Setting this up is easy and only takes a few minutes. The instructions below work for any Nest Doorbell, as well as Nest cameras. Here's how it's done:

How to set up package alerts on your Nest doorbell or camera

All Nest doorbells and cameras allow you to easily set up package notifications in a few clicks, so you can be notified when there's a package at your front door:

  1. On your phone, open the Google Home app.
  2. Tap the doorbell or camera for which you'd like to turn on package alerts.
  3. Tap the cogwheel icon in the upper-right corner.
  4. Tap Events.
  5. Select Seen events.
  6. Define specific zones for which you'd like to define events. You can use the same zone for all notifications if you don't use zones.
  7. Activate Packages and the associated notifications to be notified when a package is left at your door.

Turn on motion or people detection

In addition to the notifications when receiving a package, you can activate motion detection or people notifications to be aware of everything happening in your front yard and proactively be notified before someone rings the door.

  1. On your phone, open the Google Home app.
  2. Tap the doorbell or camera for which you'd like to turn on motion or person detection alerts.
  3. Tap the cogwheel icon in the upper right corner.
  4. Tap Events.
  5. Select Seen events.
  6. Depending on which notification type you'd like to turn on, tap People or Motion.

Skip home delivery altogether

Unlike other cameras on the market, the Nest Doorbells don't require a paid subscription to benefit from advanced features like package and people recognition, as well as motion detection. They also integrate seamlessly with other Google and Nest products, such as Nest Hub smart displays, so you can see who's at your door.

If you live in an area where package theft is common, you may want to avoid having packages delivered to your house in general. If you're ordering something from Amazon, you can have your order delivered to a local Amazon Hub Locker.