So after several years of using the Google nest wired doorbell, (Purchased around 2018), a product I was fairly happy with, along with two google nest outdoor cameras, which I was also happy with, the internal battery of my nest doorbell died, (To be honest since it was wired I didn't even know there was a battery that could be run down).
So, I figured it was time to upgrade, and went out and got the new Google "Nest" doorbell, and was immediately struck by a few facts.
1: Despite it being marketed as a "Nest" product, the "google "Nest" doorbell is NOT in fact compatible with google nest. It will only work with Google Home. False advertising much?
2: Google home has a fairly horrible user interface, especially for someone like me, who leaves a tablet on at all times to keep an eye on my porch (Bad neighborhood) as the "Home" app only shows a video feed in portrait orientation, (tall as opposed to wide) effectively reducing visible screen area by about 50%
3: Video quality is HORRIBLE. Especially in low light, (I have a motion sensing porch light, and with the old Doorbell, the video quality was consistent in both low light, and when the light was triggered. This "New" battery powered doorbell, looks like a psychedelic light show in low light.
I have several tablets, and in both iPad, and Android tablets, after a few minutes all of them go black with a message "Live view is unavailable. "Camera may be unreachable" which is strange because I can be looking at the doorbell camera on my Pixel and see live video, while this message is shown on most of my other devices.
I have tried removing, re-installing, and restarting both my app, and the doorbell itself, rebooting my home wifi, (Fiber optic gigabit connection with a tested wifi download speed of close to 500 MB per second on a slow day), and just about everything else I could think of, but ultimately I have decided that this "Nest" (Yeah, right) doorbell is the winner of the ultimate garbage 2025 award, for lack of quality, dishonest marketing, and unreliable tech.
All in all, I just wanted to add this new "Nest" doorbell to my good old reliable nest account, but nooooooooo.
I'll be looking elsewhere for another camera and doorbell system, and also doing to same for the apartments I manage, which amount to around 45 cameras, and 4 doorbells.
If anyone has any suggestions of a better, more high quality system, that behaves like the old nest products did, let me know. I'm in the market. Meanwhile, Caveat Emptor.
(Update: In a last act of defiance, I am purchasing a used older doorbell model, the same model I was using before, and I'll try to recapture the magic of how my old system worked, and see what happens. Who knows?)
