Google Nest Cameras all OFFLINE after wifi upgrade

[jdanham]

This is just ridiculous. I have over 30 wireless/IoT and other devices on my network and ONLY Google Nest cameras have ALL decided they need to be factory reset! I replaced my system using the exact SSIDs and passwords and all devices refreshed properly and as expected. Not so with Google Nest Doorbell (2nd Gen) and 3 Google Nest outdoor (Battery) cameras! All are 80% charged.

Plus you cannot just restart the camera in-place; you have to take it inside and connect to power and press the reset button for 5 seconds. After repeating this process 3 times, the result was a steady white light pulsing (status light) for over 5 minutes. So, after finding nothing useful here or anywhere else I did a factory reset and readded the device.

Oh and yes all the network gear was rebooted long before I took this last step. I really am not happy with how blatantly lacking in these products not being able to reconnect as they should have and forced a subscriber/owner to doing the very last possible step of deleting and adding the device.

Again, no other devices on my network needed this level of troubleshooting and effort on my part. It really gives me pause to reconsider this investment and look for some smarter devices!

[jdanham]

Update to my previous post - now I am looking at one of the Google Nest Outdoor (battery) cameras and it is showing steady GREEN as well as the Google Nest Doorbell (2nd Gen wired). I had powered off the circuit to the doorbell earlier, but the outdoor has not been restarted yet. Still these all show up OFFLINE on the app, which I updated earlier also. To me this is highly frustrating and for the price we pay for them there should be much higher quality instead of this issue that is ONLY happening to the Google products!

[MplsCustomer]

@jdanham 

If you only press for 5 seconds, you are only triggering a restart, not a factory reset.

You have to press for at least 12 seconds; see the Factory Reset instructions farther down on this page (past the Restart instructions):

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9252162

And yes, it is a pain to have to do a factory reset in order to update Wi-Fi settings.

[jdanham]

Thanks for the reply. I saw this information early on in my troubleshooting and was deliberately only expecting to have to reboot the cameras. I had assumed that the Google Nest products being so good that that would be all I need to do - even though as I said that I was annoyed ONLY these items did not return to the network since the SSID and password was exactly the same.

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@jdanham 

When we got a new router/modem last year, we set the SSID and password to the same values on our old router/modem, and did not have to do anything at all to our Google Nest devices.

Perhaps in your case there are some other settings (security, maybe?) that prevent it from working.

Google Nest's Help page (https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9223711) does say "The simplest fix for most Nest products is to update your home network so that the network name (SSID) and password are the same as before. This will usually work even if you've purchased a new Wi-Fi router as long as the manufacturer settings are the same."

It's too bad we can't just go in and update our Wi-Fi settings the way it used to be possible for older cameras (in the Google Nest app, by going to Settings | Home info | Home Wi-Fi help), rather than having to resort to a factory reset, which is a rather primitive way to update Wi-Fi settings.

LOTS of customers in this forum post about this issue.

[jdanham]

Thanks for providing some additional context. It really is crazy that an owner/subscriber cannot manage their own devices using the `app'. Did someone think that this would make them more secure? Primitive is a good characterization; and it is a classic example of how an acquisition of a technology company by another often leads to major pains for the customers. Thank you also for answering my other question that I was going to ask about modifying the wireless configuration in the app. Really really poor customer respect if many have demanded changes only to fall on deaf ears.

[EmersonB]

Hello everyone,

@jdanham, thanks for reaching out here in the Community. We hear you and we understand what you're referring to. As of the moment, we don't have any news to share about when we can update the Wi-Fi information through the Google Home app. I'd suggest you send yours with our Send Feedback form to let the Google Engineering team know about your concern. While they won't respond directly back to you, this is the best way to let them know about this. 

I appreciate the help, MplsCustomer.

Regards,

Emerson