Google clearly has a goal of putting the Google Assistant just about everywhere. Today you can find it in smartphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, watches, smart speakers, headphones and soon, smart displays. There's one place you haven't seen the Assistant, though: a camera. Today Google is fixing that by updating the Next Cam IQ with Google Assistant support. The device is now basically a mini Google Home with a camera on top.

The Nest Cam IQ is Nest's top-of-the-line indoor camera, with a 4K sensor and an outrageously powerful (for a camera) six-core processor. All that power is put to work crunching that 4K video feed down to a more reasonable 1080p size, with the 4K sensor used to power the "12x digital zoom" feature available for its app. The Nest Cam IQ has always featured a microphone and speaker for remote communication, and now it will also be put to work to power your usual Google Assistant commands.

With the update, you'll be able to speak the usual "OK Google" commands, and the blue ring around the Nest Cam IQ will light up to show it's listening. Just like every other Google Assistant device, it supports questions, smart home commands, making shopping lists, buying stuff, controlling Chromecasts, and a score of other things.

It should be no surprise to see Nest and Google products working more closely together, as Nest was recently demoted from standalone Alphabet company to Google subsidiary. In addition to ending Nest's tumultuous run as an Alphabet company, the move also allows Nest to merge with the Google Hardware team and build products that work better together.

Of course the big downside to the Nest Cam IQ is still the price, both initially and ongoing: it's $300 for a camera and then you still need to pay a monthly "Nest Aware" subscription fee for each camera in order to record video. The 10-day video history costs $10 a month (or $100 a year) for the first camera and $5 a month (or $50 a year) for every additional camera, while a 30-day recording plan costs $30 a month (or $300 a year) for the first camera and $15 a month (or $150 a year) for each additional camera. Today, Nest is announcing an even lower-tier subscription fee: a $5 a month plan for five days of recording time.

A cloud-powered camera is pretty cool, and with today's batch of updates, Nest is improving the Nest Aware service with two new features. There's face recognition across cameras, so a shot of someone outside the house can be matched with a shot of someone inside the house, and person alerts inside activity zones, so you can be alerted if a person (as opposed to any motion) enters a specific area.