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Broadcast bridging between two Homes (FIXED-ish) BUT can't add two accounts to Nest app

Wiinter
Community Member

The short of it: As some have found, even if you set up two completely discrete Google Homes, on two separate devices, the instant you share both of those homes with another Google account, via Household, you have "bridged" the two homes together. Which is fine except that the Broadcast command will go to BOTH homes.

Example setup:

  • myhome1 = Google Account & Home 1 at 43xx 4th St, Some Town
  • myhome2 = Google Account & Home 2 at 45xx 3rd Av, Another Town
  • propertyadmin = Property Administrator

If myhome1 and myhome2 add the propertyadmin account to their respective Households, then ANYONE residing in either of the homes can broadcast aloud to BOTH homes. Presumably, this is due to some sort of permission bridging by adding the same third-party member to both households. You don't need myhome1 to invite myhome2, or vice versa. Simply having both myhome1 and myhome2 invite a third-party to their respective households will create the bridge.

Okay, so major privacy issue, and Google fixed it, right? Nope. Instead, it is recommended that you simply uninvite the third-party from both Households, then in the third-party's Home app, choose ADD ACCOUNT, and add the two other Google Accounts. This is pretty slick, as it doesn't create a whole profile on the device, it simply lets you toggle between the Accounts within the Home app, and therefore allow access to all devices in the two Homes. It's no less convenient than simply being invited to the two Households, and getting to toggle between the Homes dropdown.

So, all is well, yea?

Well, not exactly. While the Home app supports adding two accounts, the Nest app doesn't.

This in itself wouldn't be such a big deal because you have access to nearly everything within the Home app that the Nest app has anyway, including viewing Nest Hello and Nest Cam video feeds.

The only problem that I've run into -- and it's a pretty big one -- is that you can't scrub through the cam footage, or view the event indicators/dots. Some events come through the Home app, and you can view clips there, but you can't just load the app and scrub through the footage without an event.

So, I guess this is a general question out there to anyone who has similar experience and maybe solved this, or has a good workaround. Or maybe even figured out a way to add multiple Google accounts to the Nest app without having to create alternate profiles on the device itself, or without having to add the Google account to the two home's Households (which causes the broadcast bridging issue).

Or, maybe there's a Google support person that is like "holy crap, I can't believe so many people have noticed this broadcast bridging issue, yet we haven't fixed it... imma talk to my manager".

EDIT: Wow, the post was instantly marked as spam. Will try again with edits...

8 REPLIES 8

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,
Sorry for the late response, but I wanted to drop in here to help.

I'm sure this can be confusing but I definitely wanted to stop by and see how I could help.

Just wanted to double check to see if you were still needing help on this? 

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Garrett DS
 

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,
Just wanted to see if you still needed help. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Garrett DS

Hi Garrett!  Thanks for the reply - mega appreciated.

No, I still haven't figured out a solid workaround that doesn't involve a compromise, when managing these two properties.

Just to be sure, is that a relatively well-known issue in your circle already, regarding the inadvertent Broadcasting from one tenant in one home, blaring over all speakers in both tenant's homes - even though they are two distinct networks, two distinct Google Accounts? The only thing that the two accounts/homes have in common is that they have both invited me to their respective households. And now, the tenants (mostly just their children) are inadvertently broadcasting across both homes.

The solution that one of your co-workers suggested to me last year is that I remove myself from both households. And then, instead, add the two Google accounts themselves to the Android device that will do the controlling/monitoring.  This works okay with the Google Home app, but the separate Nest app doesn't allow for multiple accounts. It's simply looking at Household accounts, right?

SO, I'm looking for a workaround to the workaround. OR, better yet, a status update on the Broadcast issue. But I'm okay with either!

For the sake of experience, I'm going to clarify a bit more with a fictious scenario. Probably over-clarifying 😂

Say "Jane Smith Tenant 1 at Gmail dot com" sets up a Google Home with a few speakers, at Address 123 Here St.

Then, "John Jacobs Tenant 2 at Gmail dot com" sets up a Google Home with some speakers, a hub, etc, at Adress 321 There Ave.

Jane and John then add their property manager, Wiinter, to each of their households via invite, as an administrator of the devices, locks, exterior cams, etc. Wiinter accepts the invite, and everything is cool. Then, one of John's smarmy kids uses the broadcast feature. Which goes out to Jane's speakers as well, scaring the crap out of her, prompting her to call Wiinter asking wtf...

I get that there are virtual 'structures', and that my account is bridging these two homes. I'm just curious if there's a fix or added options on the roadmap. Or maybe it's not an issue anymore (I can't test until April).

Or, perhaps there's going to be an update to the Nest app that will allow account toggling (not Household toggling). OR, maybe a Home app update that will bring the added Nest functionality (such as Nest Aware, and video scrubbing), making the Nest app obsolete.

Lots of solutions... just need one.

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 

Thanks so much for the clarification, and I really appreciate all the details. While there isn't something like account toggling at this time, I'm happy to take this feedback and pass it along to our developers to see if we can get that in the pipeline in the future as I totally understand the use of this and how it would be helpful. 

 

Please let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 
Just wanted to see if you saw our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards, 
Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 
Just wanted to hop in here to see if we still needed help on this. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours. 

Have a great day. 
Garrett DS
 

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks, 
It looks like we haven't heard back from the OP so I'm going to go ahead and lock the thread. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to create a new thread. 

Have a great day,
Garrett DS