Can't turn off notifications for specific zone or familiar faces in Google Home - cam w floodlights

[ZSCH]

I have a couple of Nest outdoor cameras with floodlights and am bombarded with notifications in google home on android.

I defined Zone 1 (area with street view) and turned off notifications for the zone but it keeps notifying anyway!

I also defined familiar faces but it still notifies every time a family member walks by.

Any ideas how to fix both problems please?

[MplsCustomer]

@ZSCH 

Our Google Nest Camera (Battery) (basically the same camera as the floodlight camera) honors our notification settings; we regularly turn "People" notifications on or off when we're expecting a package. (We have iPhones.) Do you have notifications turned off for "Outside of zone"?

Google Nest's "familiar faces" option does not work the way most of us customers would like it to. If it "knows" the person, it merely reports who the person is in notifications, but there is no way to bypass notifications for a "familiar face". I've seen many posts from customers who say they don't want to get "Dad is at the door" notifications, but there's no way to do that.

[ZSCH]

Thanks for the response @MplsCustomer , good to know google sometimes monitors these threads (I wish someone from google would respond to my other one which is bothering many customers!). Anyway, I turned off notifications for in zone 1 but Google Home is not honouring that and is sending me notifications for the zone.

[MplsCustomer]

@ZSCH 

I'm just another Google Nest customer, and don't know why you would receive notifications for an event where notifications are turned off. Do you have the latest version of the Google Home app? You could try deleting and reinstalling the Google Home app; sometimes that fixes odd glitches.

[ZSCH]

Ah got you thanks for your help.  Yes I have the latest version. Is there any way at all to get support from Google?  Reinstalling would be the nuclear option, I have too many things set up.

[janthadeus]

Hi folks,

I’m sorry for the delay. I appreciate your efforts here. Let’s sort this out. When did the issue start? Are there overlapping Activity Zones where you don’t want to receive camera notifications?  
 

Here are some troubleshooting steps you can try:
 

1. Ensure your Activity Zones don’t overlap with one another. Remove and create new Activity Zones.
2. Open the Home app .
3. Touch and hold your device's tile.
4. Tap Settings > tap Events > Seen events.
5. Under “Activity Zones,” tap Add a zone to mark the area you don’t want to receive alerts about. To save, tap Confirm .
6. After you set up a zone, go back to your camera’s settings> tap Notifications.
7. Choose the zone you just created.
8. Make sure that notifications for any enabled events for the zone are turned off.
9. Go back to Seen events > tap Outside of zone.
10. Turn on the events and notifications that you want to get.

Let me know how it goes.

I appreciate the help, MplsCustomer.

Thanks,

JT

[ZSCH]

I was able to find a workaround for this. If I turn off all the event histories for the zone (people, animals etc) then I don't get any notifications for the zone. If I turn on history for people events, even with notifications turned off then I get notifications. So there's a bug because I should be able to have event history without notifications but at least I have a work around.

[MplsCustomer]

@janthadeusand @ZSCH 

There must be a bug. We have history turned on for People events in one zone on our Google Nest Camera (Battery) with Nest Aware Plus, and we regularly turn notifications for People on and off as needed, and it works reliably.

[janthadeus]

Hey ZSCH,

Cool! Thanks for sharing the work around that manages your camera notifications. We hear you — rest assured that we'll take note of it. We'll ensure that we'll learn from your experience as we continually improve our products and services. Please let me know if you have other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours. Feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help. 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, MplsCustomer. 

Cheers, 

JT

[ZSCH]

JT thanks do you actually work for Google/Nest?  Yes would be good to report this bug but also any tips how we get Nest's attention for this other major bug which is badly effecting many dozens of users please https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Apps-Account/Google-Home-not-recognising-multi-way-switches-a...

[janthadeus]

Hi there,

Yep — I'm part of the Google team. We hear you. Our team is working hard to deliver the best experience for our users — we'll take this as feedback. Keep an eye on the Google Nest Community page https://goo.gle/2JvnMRy for any updates. Please let me know if you have other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours if I won't hear back from you again. Feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.

Check out this link on how to file feedback.
 

Best,

JT

[ZSCH]

Is there any way to get actual support from Google.  In that other thread dozens of people report the same problem as me and I assume thousands of people have the problem but no one from google commented.  I appreciate that here you actually responded on behalf of google.  I have other serious bugs with presence sensing and which I have given up reporting in the community after I saw no one cares about that other thread.  Is there any way to get paid support to actually track a bug report.

[janthadeus]

Hello ZSCH,

Thanks for your patience. Understood — could you fill out this form and let me know once you’re done?

Looking forward to your response.

Best,

JT

[ZSCH]

Done thanks hope that does the trick!

[Brad]

@ZSCH

Thank you for filling out the form. You should be hearing back from support very soon, and they will continue to assist you further with this. We'll go ahead and keep this thread open for another 24 hours for any follow-up questions or concerns, but support will be assisting you moving forward with this inquiry. 

Best regards,

Brad