Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

[fernadno]

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).

[solipsism]

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. 

[LordGustav]

Same thing here mine has been hard wired for less than 48hrs. -25 here and got a notification that the camera was turned off as it had Zero % battery life. I was perplexed being that it was hard wired it shouldnt even need the battery. I removed the doorbell and tried to charge it inside. Said charging halted due to extreme temperatures. -25C is nice here. Tested the wires thinking my Transformer blew and I'm still getting a steady 22volts at the wires. Guess I should have done some more research before making this purchase. Hard to believe in this day and age these problems existm

[Trooper9520]

Same experience here near Ottawa.  I truly don't understand why this is even an issue when the unit is hardwired.  Oddly I have two, and only  one seems to be having this issue.  The other works perfectly.

[Trooper9520]

Now the second one is down too 😞

[mpb65]

Please post this experience on the Google Nest Facebook Page.  I'm encouraging everyone to do this until we get some positive response from Google.  Make sure to post under the post with the Doorbell.

[Gefremidis]

I have the same issue. I also have 2 Nest battery doorbells. I is rock soild while the other battery drained even when hardwired.

[solipsism]

I'm have been super busy but here is my update.

The doorbell basically is useless and it's been -10C for the last few days.

It dies within 15 minutes after I fully charge it inside then bring it out , connect the hard wire, no matter the features l turn off.

It's the least winter ready product I've ever owned . Guess I'll have to return this inferior product .

[brusekjr77]

Same experience.......it has been essentially useless during cold weather.

[fernadno]

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).

[fernadno]

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.

[Dan_The_Man]

-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.

[fernadno]

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

[Dan_The_Man]

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.

[fernadno]

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

[Dan_The_Man]

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.

[fernadno]

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.

[Brad]

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.

[Dan_The_Man]

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?

[fernadno]

☝️what @Dan_The_Man said, @Brad .

[firmwaredev]

Regular lithium batteries  are great in cold temps.  The problem is this is a rechargeable battery which would either be Lithium Ion, Nickle Cadmium or Nickle Metal Hydride, all of which have poor discharge and charge rates at low temperatures.   Lithium Ion and Lithium are completely different battery chemistries.

[easycompany251]

What would be good from Google is to confirm what is going on in terms of charging during cold weather and whether this is intended behaviour.

1. When temperatures drop to say -10 degrees celsius with a device plugged in, does the device bypass the battery and run solely off AC power?  If this is the intended behavior, why are we seeing the battery deplete despite being plugged in all the time?

[mpb65]

Yes, I think we all want responses to this issue.  What is the point of a hardwired product if it cannot charge via the wires and needs to be removed for charging?  Kind of defeats the purpose of a hard-wired connection.

[Rafadiniz]

Yes. I’m still with the problem… how to solve it? 

[mpb65]

So has this issue been passed up to product development?  I expect either a refund or replacement with a newer version.  Whenver the temperature dips below 0, the doorbell is useless.  Does not work.

[Dan_The_Man]

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.

[Dan_The_Man]

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 🙂

[aelam]

I have the Doorbell (battery) and the Floodlight/Cam.  So far my Doorbell is doing the same thing described here and it's only the start of winter here in Calgary.  

Having said that the Floodlight/cam is actually holding up ok - not seeing anything like the doorbell issues.

[SemiSamosa]

I live in Calgary too and have the exact problem. The doorbell is hardwired, but it still shows battery depletion to 3% when it gets to -15c.  I took it inside to fully recharge it with USB, then hard wired it again. 1 week later it's depleted again. Google should issue a recall and a refund. 

[fernadno]

100% agreed. Especially since this is all happening well within the doorbell's documented temperature thresholds.

[mpb65]

I'm in Toronto.  Whenever it hits -10 to -15c, same.  Rapid depletion, no trickle charge, have to remove it and charge inside via USB.  Not impressed.  Either issue a recall or full refund before everyone here gets together for a class-action suit!!

[Mikeriog]

Agreed. I'm in Montreal and I started getting this issue today. What a letdown.

[2021ltd]

Am in MTL too. The power situation sure is a pain but until we get word from Google, you may want to tweak the settings.

I’ve gotten the battery depletion significantly down by setting up a tighter zone for recognition, lowering video quality, detection, etc. Not ideal of course but so far, it’s limited the drain to 1% a day. Will likely get worse with today’s -19C but much better than the first few days when I let it pick up any kind of movement, including cars far off in the distance, and it was draining in double digits per day.

And for what it’s worth, I do believe it is trickle charging, just not enough to stay afloat in cold weather. Otherwise, the drain would be even more dramatic.

[Mikeriog]

Already on it! It's indoors plugged in and I've turned off the blanket motion sense because it says that's a real battery killer. I had this thing plugged in since August and today was the first day it died. I was shocked when I read all this. I'm very active in another thread also because my Samsung phone has poor talk and listen volume with this product.

I'm so pissed with Brads passive aggressive posts by this point lol.

They better upgrade us to the new doorbell this year. 

[thomaspsk]

Also in Montreal and this issue started for me today as well… winter is just getting started. This isn’t what I thought I paid for. I expected to never have to bring it in to charge with it being connected to power and all. I guess the marketing was wrong 

[MateyMax88]

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)

[fernadno]

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 😐

[MplsCustomer]

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.

[fernadno]

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.

[Brad]

Hey folks,

With most, if not any battery-operated device, colder weather will affect the charging capabilities. This has always been the truth. It shouldn't be draining quickly, but if you live in a particularly cold environment, then you may want to adjust your settings as to save some battery.

In this article, you will see that Temperature affects the battery's ability to charge. The Charging expectations are stated on that article. The battery life will depend on several factors including activity frequency, temperature, and the camera settings you select.

Best Regards,

Brad.