Google Nest doorbell not ringing on Google Home speakers

[owenfroberts]

I have two wired Nest doorbells, and two Google Home speakers.  The doorbells work, and when pressed they send a "Doorbell" alert to my iPhone, watch, etc.  However, they only play a doorbell announcement on the speakers maybe 10% of the time -- which is even stranger than if they never played one at all!  Just this morning, I tested each doorbell, ringing them from outside twice each, and I got all four notifications from the Home app on my phone, but the inside speakers only chimed once.

I've changed every setting I can think of -- turning Visitor Announcements on and off, turning "Ring indoor chime" on and off, making sure Notifications are "On" for both speakers and "Do not disturb" mode is "Off" for both speakers. All of the devices are on the same wifi network and part of the same Home.  And, again, the speakers sometimes play the doorbell sound -- but only rarely.

Any help or advice on how to get the speakers to consistently play the doorbell sound when a doorbell is rung will be much appreciated! 

[EmptyNester]

Hmmmmm the fact that it is intermittent is very odd.  The only thing i can think of is make sure you are on the newest version of the Google Home app.  Mine shows 3.10.103 when I look on the iPhone App store.   

In the mean time I'm going to try and escelate this and see if we can get some help from the folks at Google.

If you find the answer pleaser return here and let us know what the problem was. 

[Lance_L]

Hey everyone,

@owenfroberts, thanks for reaching out to the Community and for sharing all the steps you’ve tried to fix the issue. Let’s check it out.

Please try the troubleshooting steps below and let me know how it goes:

1. Restart the WiFi router. Unplug the power cable from your WiFi device. Wait 10-20 seconds for it to fully power off. Plug the power cable back into your Wifi device. Wait 1 to 2 minutes for it to fully power on.
2. Reboot the Google Home speaker. There are two ways to reboot the device.
   1. From the Google Home app
   2. Make sure your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your speaker or display.
   3. Open the Google Home app .
   4. Tap and hold your device's tile.
   5. At the top right, tap Settings More Reboot.
   6. Or, unplug the power cord from your speaker or display.
   7. Leave it unplugged for ~1 minute.
   8. Plug the power cord back in.
3. Turn Do Not Disturb on, then off. (Start with "Ok Google" or "Hey Google") 
   1. Enable Do not disturb:  “Turn on Do not disturb.” 
   2. Disable Do not disturb: “Turn off Do not disturb.”
4. Check if the visitor announcements are now working.

I appreciate the help, EmptyNester.

Best,

Lance

[owenfroberts]

Thank you both, I will take these steps and report back! 

[Lance_L]

Hi folks,

@owenfroberts, sounds like a plan! We’ll be waiting for your update.

Regards,

Lance

[owenfroberts]

Hi all -- I took these steps to reset the router and then reboot each of the speakers ... and it sadly didn't seem to work.  However!  What seems to have worked was going into the app for my wifi network, and binding the doorbells to the closest wifi node, rather than allowing them to choose the node that they think is giving them the best signal (which was sometimes multiple stories away).

All in all, still kind of confused (if it was a wifi issue, why were the doorbells able to send notifications to my phone but not to the speakers?) but happy that there seems to have been some resolution.  Leaving this answer in case anyone in the future is dealing with a similar thing.

[EmptyNester]

Thanks for the update.  Wow,,,that is strange behavoir for sure.  I'm at a loss to explain why that fixed it.

I do have a question for you.  You said you were able to 'bind' the doorbells to a wifi node.  What brand of Wifi router are you using?   I'm using Eero Mesh and I don't see such an option to do that.

[owenfroberts]

I have an Asus router, and on the app that comes with that router you can see what devices are attached to each node at any particular moment, and can "bind" particular devices to particular nodes.

[EmptyNester]

That is a great feature.  I looked and I don't see that feature on my Eero routers.  There is another feature I wish I had which is to lock a device to the 2.4Ghz network as some of my devices don't play well with 5Ghz.  But I don't know of any MEST system that offers that.