topic Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery in Cameras and Doorbells

Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 15:47:46 GMT

Hi,

Similar to some other posters here, I recently noticed that my Nest Doorbell battery (activated 2021-08-28), although wired, had lost much of its charge (down to 3%, indicated a 23 hour time to charge in Google Home app).

The 23 hour recharge estimate remained unchanged for 3 hours when kept wired to doorbell wiring.

From another recommendation on the forum, I decided to try unplugging from the doorbell wires and taking the doorbell indoors to charge via USB cable until 100%.

My doorbell remains plugged into a USB port, showing 2% charged, and an 18 hr 29 min time until full. It has been plugged in now for 1 hour, with no noticeable change in charge condition.

Outdoor temperatures have only recently dropped to below 0 degrees Celsius for longer than a few hours (max -7 degrees C).

Should I be concerned about the battery condition and how this doorbell is reacting to colder weather? Winter has yet to truly begin, and I am worried that this doorbell will not be functional as temperatures continue to drop. I know that ambient operating temperatures fall within -20 and +40 C (as indicated here).

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

solipsism — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 05:35:13 GMT

Mine stopped responding with a message in my Pixel 6 notification Tray stating it would return when the abnormal temperatures stopped or something along those lines.

Edit: I am also hardwired.

It's only -20C with 20km wind. This is barely winter here.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 14:29:42 GMT

An update to my case.

I decided to try unplugging from the doorbell wires and taking the doorbell indoors to charge via USB cable until 100%.

This worked for me eventually. A tip to anyone out there who experiences a similar "extremely slow" charge cycle, try charging the doorbell with a wall adapter rather than charging from a computer's USB port.

My actual fix that seems to have helped with the significant battery drain: I edited my camera zone to exclude some newly installed holiday inflatables that seem to trigger the motion event, as they were likely recognized as actual people (sorry inflatable Santa).

My power indicator on my doorbell now appears to be "infinite" once again.

Cold weather has persisted, but nothing near -20 degrees C just yet (however, when it does reach that cold here eventually, that s the bottom limit of the stated operating limits of the doorbell device, and I would expect the device to protect itself in certain ways if it does reach that low of a temperature).

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 16:55:46 GMT

-18c here today and it's failing wired in as well. Cannot see live video it says cause at 3 percent charge wired in. Why would this doorbell depend on battery life wired in? Looks like bad r@d on product and it's not even 4k.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:04:55 GMT

Curious, is your doorbell camera always registering movement and therefore storing clips to the cloud? This was the case for me, or so it seems, and after adjusting my zones, the problem has gone away.

To get the battery back to greater-than 3%, thought, I did have to unwire the doorbell and bring it back indoors to charge via USB-C.

There are other cases that seem to be dealing with the same rapid drain, and the inability for the trickle-charge via doorbell wiring to get it back up to an operational battery level.

Example 1

Example 2

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:11:04 GMT

Nope, I don't even have subscription enabled, just lets me know when someone is at door, this is cold weather only related. First time at -18C. Now I realize this won't work at all in December/January without some kind of warmer.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:16:10 GMT

Oh man... Now it's just wait-and-see for temperatures to dip further where I'm at then.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:18:06 GMT

Correction only -17C and battery is now completely at 0 and doorbell will not function at all. Will be colder than that tonight going down to -22C before warming up abit tomorrow.

Some kind of warming blanket is needed here, hope product is not completely destroyed now.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:23:58 GMT

I hope Nest officials can chime in here.

From other sources on the internet related to earlier generations, it seems that the original Nest Hello was able to meet (and exceed) the floor limit of sub-zero operating temps.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:39:53 GMT

I wouldn't hold my breath, if you google search cold weather doorbell, been happening for years on ring doorbells it seems.

Probably gonna have to come up with some kind of DIY solution to keep it warm here the equivalent of a car battery warmer blanket or something who knows.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:50:03 GMT

On a good note, I was thinking of buying the new floodlight google camera if doorbell could survive a Canadian winter, guess I have my answer now 🙂

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

MateyMax88 — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 10:23:04 GMT

I live in the UK - so the coldest it got was -2c

Yet, my doorbell doesn't record any event for a while now. I wonder if it would automatically go back to recording events once the weather gets warmer?

Pretty disappointed with the doorbell so far. Setting it up was a nightmare as well (although all my 10 other Nest devices never had any issues during setup)

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Brad — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 20:46:03 GMT

Hi there,

I apologize for my late response and thank you for all of your patience while waiting for a reply. I can definitely understand how frustrating your situation must be, but I wanted to make sure that your issue was addressed. Do you still need help with this issue? I know that there's been a delay in response since you posted.

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Best Regards,

Brad.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

Dan_The_Man — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 22:24:23 GMT

What kind of battery is used in doorbell, to start I heard only lithium could survive cold temperatures.

Anyways, I like most people are wondering why doorbell camera stops working when wired in, software issue?

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:24:05 GMT

Update: 1 Week Later 😬

Battery is down back to 3%, and the doorbell has since once again shut itself down... until it charges to a who-knows-what acceptable level before it turns back on.
- My attempt to changing zones to limit movement detection appears to have been fruitless long term.
Temperature has ranged between daytime highs of around 0 C and lows near -8 C. Well within stated tolerances in product documentation.

This isn't looking very good for my Google Nest Doorbell Battery, wired in.

@Brad any insight? And if you're reading this, then no, my issue hasn't been addressed, and yes, we all need assistance with this issue 😐

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:28:15 GMT

Anyone reading this in the future, this only temporarily worked. Yes, zone adjustment helped with the recording activities, but battery charging is still not happening on a regular basis, and seems to have started since weather neared freezing.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:29:51 GMT

☝️what @Dan_The_Man said, @Brad .

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

MplsCustomer — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 01:01:20 GMT

The technical specs for the Google Nest Doorbell Battery indicate the same operating temperature as existing Google Nest cameras and doorbells: -4 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and -20 to 40 degrees Celsius. To me, that means it should operate and charge the battery in that temperature range. (Our Nest Hello cameras and doorbells with the same temperature range have gone through a couple of Minnesota winters [with lows of -15 or -20 degrees Fahrenheit with no problems,] so it would seem logical that the battery doorbells and cameras could do the same.) It's especially strange that the battery isn't charging when you've brought it indoors.

I'm watching this because we have a new Google Nest Battery Camera connected with the optional power cable. So far, our lowest has been about 15 degrees Fahrenheit and the camera has had no problems yet.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 01:33:09 GMT

To be clear, the doorbell does charge when plugged in via USB-C. It holds the charge, and the battery indicator shows the infinity symbol initially. However, over the week, the battery appears to have stopped taking in electricity to stay charged, and the doorbell finds itself at 3% and powered off.

I contacted support via chat but got nothing but copy pasted information that mentions the temperature tolerances, and then got disconnected by the operator.

My patience is nearing 3% itself.

Re: Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

MplsCustomer — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 01:46:50 GMT

This is just my opinion, but it seems you either have a bad doorbell or the doorbell is inherently flawed and cannot operate within the stated operating temperature.
it makes me wonder how our battery camera will fare in Minnesota this winter. So far, our temperatures have been warmer than usual.