Smart home gadgets exist to solve problems, automate processes, and generally make your life easier. If you have a bunch of smart home gadgets keeping your household moving, you've probably wondered what will happen to them when the internet connection drops. Unless you're using a local, self-hosted smart home server, your accessories count on a stable internet connection to link them to the cloud. Without it, the fast, wireless, and remote smart home control experience starts to fall apart.

I have tens of smart home accessories connected to Apple Home and Google Home over Matter and Thread. While internet outages in my area are relatively rare — hopefully I don't jinx that — they do happen occasionally. So, I proactively unplugged the internet to see how my smart home behaved, and the results surprised me.

Google Nest cameras are the perfect example of smart home devices you'd expect to turn into paperweights when the internet starts acting up. They rely entirely on Google's cloud infrastructure and even require a subscription for anything beyond a basic six hours of event recording. When I unplugged the internet, my third-generation Nest Cam Indoor security cameras didn't stop working. Instead, they continued recording for eight minutes straight, before switching over to event-based recording.

This behavior is partly because the camera remained connected to power and I had an active Google Home Premium Advanced subscription — both are required for 24/7 recording. My battery-powered Nest Doorbell could only continue event-based recording. That said, both cameras could continue to capture events until they hit an hour of total recordings.

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