Doorbell notifications on Nest Hub

[JCintheville]

I have a Google Nest Hub and a Google Nest Battery Doorbell.  I had no previous wired in doorbell so cannot use another chime.  Everything I’ve read or seen tells me that I can receive notifications on the Hub when someone rings the bell.  I have both devices in the same home in the Google Home app.  I can view the live camera feed on the Hub so I know it’s connected. 

I can NOT however get the “Visitor Announcements” option on the Doorbell settings menu as Google help says I should. (I did choose Visitor Announcements during the doorbell set up but apparently it should also be on the settings menu.  I have turned all other notifications on, Quiet Time is not turned on.  Please help.  At the moment I have $400 worth of “doorbell” that doesn’t even chime! 🤦🏼‍♀️

[MplsCustomer]

@JCintheville 

On the battery doorbell, "Visitor announcements" should be under Settings | Doorbell:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7672451?hl=en&sjid=571780493526550127-NA#zippy=%2Cturn-...

[JCintheville]

Thanks I’ve read all of that.  Visitor announcements there is already turned on and has been since day one.  It does not work.  I have seen a video on the internet and also seen on my neighbour’s Google Home App, that there is a Visitors Announcements option at the ‘Doorbell’ level (ie in the Home App, select the Doorbell device, then Settings and it’s right there, you don’t have to select Doorbell again).  He is getting the notifications on his display unit. I have also seen other people posting this same issue but so far have not seen an answer. 😔

[MplsCustomer]

@JCintheville 

I thought you said you could not get to the "Visitor announcements" option in the Google Home app.

For the older Google Nest Hello Doorbells (like the 3 we have), the "Visitor announcements" option is on the main Settings menu for the doorbell.

However, for the newer doorbells like the battery doorbell, the "Visitor announcements" option is under the Doorbell option on the main Settings menu for the doorbell.

Both the doorbell and the Nest Hub must be in the same Google Nest "home/structure" on the same Wi-Fi network on the same Google Account.

If all of this is true and you're still not getting "visitor anouncements" on your Nest Hub, perhaps there is some sort of Wi-Fi problem or some other anomaly.  I've seen a few posts like this where the customer gets a notification on their phone but not on their Nest Hub.  You could try rebooting your Nest Hub by unplugging it for a minute.

[JCintheville]

Ah, thank you for explaining the different menus on different age devices! That was doing my head in 🤯

Thank you for the rest of your explanation also, your use of the term ‘home/structure’ made me wonder and I have just worked out that the devices must not only be in the same ‘home’ but also in the same ‘room’!!! Everything else just said in the same Home, which they were. Why can’t instructions be a bit more precise? 

Anyhoo, I owned the Doorbell first and it was in ‘Front Door’.  When I added the Nest Hub it wouldn’t let me choose Front Door, it only offered Back Door, Kitchen and Garden so I chose Back Door.  I was able, under Device Information for the Hub in Google Home, to move it to Front Door and now it’s making the notifications. 
Thanks again for the clarifications, they made all the difference!

[MplsCustomer]

@JCintheville 

I'm glad you got it working.

They don't have to be in the same "room", but there are oddities about "Names" and "Rooms" that don't make complete sense to me.

We entered or selected names for all all of our older cameras and doorbells in the "Where" field in the Google Nest app, and Google Nest's documentation refers to this field as the "location" or "location name" or "room name". But in the Google Home app for these older cameras and doorbells, these names (which we entered in the "Where" field) are called "Names", and they are assigned to "Rooms".

For cameras and doorbells installed in the Google Home app, we've entered a name in the "Name" field (aka "Device name") and assigned a room in the "Room" field.

For Nest Hubs and Nest Minis installed in the Google Home app, we've entered a name in the "Name" field (aka "Device name") and assigned a room in the "Placement" field (aka Room").

In addition, Google Nest is fussy about certain names. For example, we couldn't get Google Assistant to stream our "Back Yard" camera until we renamed it "Backyard".

I haven't found a definitive guide to how this is supposed to work. Each customer seems to figure out what works for them.

What worked for us was to put all the cameras in a room called "Cameras", all our doorbells in a room called "Doorbells, and all our Nest Hubs and Nest Minis in a room called "Hubs, but we had to put our Nest Hub Max in a room called "Kitchen", or Google Assistant would not stream the camera in the Nest Hub Max with any name that included "kitchen". That's because Google Nest knows the camera in the Nest Hub Max by its "Room" name, whereas it knows all other cameras by their "Name" ("Where", "Device name") name. It's odd, and confusing.

[janthadeus]

Hi folks,

Perfect, we’re glad to hear that! We appreciate your time in providing the Community the steps that connect your doorbell to your Nest Hub — it's a big help! As we got our resolution here, I'm going to mark this thread as complete. I'll be locking this thread if we won't hear back from you again in 24 hours. Should that happen, feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future. 

Thanks for your help here, MplsCustomer! We hear you — I'd suggest you send feedback about this using the Google Home app. Here's how.

Cheers,

JT