Cannot add Nest Cam Battery

[ModemJunki]

For the life of me I cannot add my new Nest Cam Battery to my Home.

I've tried making sure it was next to a Min, next to my Hub, pressing the reset button, holding down the reset button, rebooting the Hub, rebooting my phone, switching WLAN on my phone (my router has 3 wireless networks).

I've been at this for an hour now. I was able to add the Doorbell (battery) without issue last week. And I'm 30+ years in IT supporting all sorts of hardware, I'm not a noob at any of this. This is a bad experience, I imagine this is why a lot of these get returned.

I have to wait to reset the router as our work depends on the connection. What else can I try?

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@ModemJunki 

Are you by any chance getting the "can't find assisting device" error message?  If you search this forum for "assisting device", you'll find many other posts on this issue.

On this thread: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/Nest-cam-battery-asks-for-assisting-dev..., Google Nest Support said yesterday (12/29/21):  "We are still looking into this issue at this time" and suggested looking at this thread, which has over 100 replies, "for some workarounds that have worked for some customers."  It seems that's all Google is able to provide at this point: workarounds offered by other customers.

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/quot-Can-t-connect-to-assisting-device-...

[Brad]

Hi there, 

I apologize for my late response and thank you for all of your patience while waiting for a reply. I definitely understand how frustrating your situation must be, and I wanted to make sure that your concern was acknowledged. Do you still need help with this issue? 

Best Regards, 

Brad.

[ModemJunki]

@MplsCustomer- Thanks for the tip, but that is not the issue I am seeing.

It simply states to "Try moving closer to another Nest device".

So I've tried making sure the devices (Hub and Minis) are all on the same WLAN (they were not, but they are now) and to make sure the phone connects to the same WLAN, which is an "AC4000 MU-MIMO Tri-Band WiFi Router" (TP-Link Archer A20). It has had no issues adding other devices to my Home, the aforementioned Minis were able to be re-added no problem when I moved them to the same WLAN. I've moved the camera near to the Hub and near to one of the Minis but to no avail.

[ModemJunki]

Well now - it seems that even though the error message was different, the solution was the same.

Removed the doorbell cam, added the new cam, then re-added the doorbell cam.

That was unnecessarily obtuse.

[Brad]

Hey Folks.

At this time, I'll go ahead and lock this thread. If you're still experiencing problems, feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.

Best Regards,

Brad.