Nest Camera Outtages

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

While this has always been a sporadic issue the last week or two has been shocking. My outdoor cameras spend more time offline than they do online. The front camera which very rarely had an issue is almost constantly offline. I have a Google Wi-Fi unit downstairs in an elevated position in the living room and it's about 6 metres at most from where the front camera would be position on the outside of the house. It's a 2 bedroom 77sqm timber framed house so hardly a mansion.

I've been disappointed by the cameras but got over it as I put the short outtages down to hiccups. This has been constant now for the last while. I can only put it down to the actual outdoor cameras having some sort of issue as I have an indoor camera which is positioned upstairs as a baby monitor and it's always on.

Has anyone else been having any issues? I'm wondering if swapping the Google Wi-Fi unit out for a Netgear router will improve the situation. I can't imagine another Google unit will do it as the camera reports a weak signal from the router which is just a short distance away, albeit indoors.

Kintarō Hattori

Just spoke with a neighbour who has two on the front of her house- hers are fine. I haven't installed any new equipment recently so I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what this might be.

slicedpanman

I would suspect WiFi interference

When I installed mine initially all looked good but I was getting regular gaps in coverage

Turned out my WiFi signal was just on the edge of being good enough for the camera. So mostly ok but if there were strong competing WiFi signals during the day (we live on a busy street and there are loads of WiFi network spilling into the street from neighbouring houses) the camera would lose its connection

I solved it by putting a WiFi repeater by the front door

Check your signal outside with a WiFi signal tester app. And see what you can do to boost your outdoor signal

vintagecosmos

No issues with mine. Rarely it's down for a few minutes. Maybe try switching channels on your router

Kintarō Hattori

Unfortunately Google Wi-Fi doesn't let you change the channel.

Stoner

I'd agree this is most likely a wifi issue.

The cameras being outside lose the connection, I'd say they connect when you go looking for them but your router is dropping them off.

A better wifi, or mesh wifi option would help

With the doorbells having the 24 Vac at them was a big help for me.

I'm on 24-7 now. At the time people suggested my wifi was the issue but for ring and hello doorbells IMO using the highest recommended voltage improves the operation of the cameras, it certainly did in my case

L1011

Google WiFi *is* a mesh as far as I know.

wersal gummage

Not much help but just to say I've similar issue.

NEST hello works intermittently but completely useless the last few days. Also on Google mesh WiFi. WiFi speeds where doorbell is (with door closed!) are around 10 to 20 mpbs, so should be ok....

Gonna upgrade the bell transformer to make sure there's definitely enough power getting to it, but I doubt that's the issue.

RunDMC

I had this problem when I first installed the Nest Hello. I had a strong Wifi connection, also on Google Wifi, but not mesh. It turned out that the camera will sometimes work with less than 12 volts, but not reliably. I switched from the 8V transformer to a 24V unit and all of the connection problems went away. I'ts been rock solid ever since.

Here's the recommendation from Nest:

12 - 24 V AC and at least 8 VA (For Europe)

R

Kintarō Hattori

I did see the app was warning me on occasion about Wi-Fi interference but it also warned me about a weak signal and then lots of times it'd work just fine. I'll get an app and see what sort of signal I'm getting outside.

I did buy a Netgear extender and tried installing it last night. It was fine but when I tried to change the Wi-Fi network the camera was on the app just kept telling me to put the phone closer to the camera as they couldn't find each other...... it was less than a metre from it. Would you think I'd need to delete the camera totally and add it in again?
The Nest system when it works is great but a lot about it is really quite messy.

I uninstalled the Google Wi-Fi last night and went back to just using Virgin's Hub 3.0 router. Since then, it could be just a coincidence, the front camera has been on a lot more, as has the rear but that's just dropping out frequently. I'll try hooking the rear up to the extender which is in the room beside the camera.

slicedpanman

Make sure your phone is on the extender network too... It needs to be on the same network as the camera.

I'd start by making sure the phone was on the extender then deleting and re adding the camera - safest

Kintarō Hattori

slicedpanman wrote: »

Make sure your phone is on the extender network too... It needs to be on the same network as the camera.

I'd start by making sure the phone was on the extender then deleting and re adding the camera - safest

Ah so both cameras would need to be on the same extender network as the phone? That could be awkward as the front camera is on the main Wi-Fi but the upstairs camera needs to be on the extender. So how would that work?

slicedpanman

Sorry... I meant that when you are dropping and readding a camera that the phone plus the camera you are working on are on the same section of WiFi - individual cameras can be on separate networks (mine are like yours too)

Kintarō Hattori

slicedpanman wrote: »

Sorry... I meant that when you are dropping and readding a camera that the phone plus the camera you are working on are on the same section of WiFi - individual cameras can be on separate networks (mine are like yours too)

Ahh that makes sense, many thanks.

wexfordman2

How many wireless devices do you have in the house altogether, and how many would be connected at the same.time ? It may be that the demand_number of.connexted devices exceeds what your router can tolerste.

D3V!L

I had a the same problem and the turned out to be the microwave. I changed the channel until I found one the microwave didn't interfere with and the cameras have been happy since.

I used to be able to tell when my missus had breakfast because of the down time from the back garden camera.

Kintarō Hattori

I'd been trying this again and it gave eventually gave me an error code, NC023, which turns out to be an issue of some sort with regards to Bluetooth. From reading threads in the Nest community it appears to be an issue with the power supply.
Armed with that knowledge I logged onto web chat and started talking to someone. I knew I couldn't ask straight out for a new psu so said I'd go along with whatever they were going to ask me to do. Tried adding it, no luck. Tried plugging it out, turning bluetooth off and back on, no luck. Eventually they asked me to create a new account and try adding it from there- no luck. They asked me to try something else. Before I started that I wanted to delete the test account I had just created. Went into settings, delete account, 'are you sure'. Yep.... nothing appeared to happen. The test account was still showing in the app. Went into settings, did it again and nothing. Then a few moments later I'm logged out and can't login....... I'd only gone and bloody deleted my account. I'm guessing the app hadn't 'refreshed' for lack of a better word and it had deleted the test account even though it didn't look like it had.

Seemingly I can have my account back but need to give it between 24-48 hours until it's possible for me to log back into it. I blooming well hope I can.

Kintarō Hattori

Back up and running a while now but the rear camera wasn't working at all. A replacement camera arrived from Nest yesterday and got that installed when I got back. Put it on the range extender and so far there's been no drops, so all seems good for the moment.