Hub not announcing familiar faces - UK

[Super_paulie]

Hi guys. Is my Nest Doorbell (battery) supposed to announce the name of the visitor? It's all seemingly enabled, nest aware is active and they are in the library. The notification and the history on my phone suggests it recognises the person, (Dave it's at the door) but the Nest Hub or any of my Google speakers just say "someone is at the door".

This can't be right surely? If so then what's the point of nest aware. I literally pay the money for this sole feature which is annoying enough, but am I missing something above to get the announcements working?

Like if I'm in the bath I don't want to run downstairs for an unrecognised visitor, but I will if it's my grandmother for example.

Cheers

[Lance_L]

Hello Super_paulie,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community. I’m sorry to hear that you’re having issues with this. Don’t worry; I’m here to help.

If familiar face detection is already switched on for your camera, here are some tips to help your camera detect faces better:

• Position your camera so that it can see faces easily. Familiar face detection works best when the subject is directly approaching the camera.
  • Place your camera roughly 1.8–2.4 m (6–8 ft) above ground level, and place your doorbell about 1.2 m (4 ft) above ground level.
  • Place the camera where people would naturally walk towards it, such as facing a path or down a driveway.
  • For best results, the camera should be placed within 3 meters of where people will walk towards it.
• Check the lighting around your camera. Check your camera’s view at different times during the day to make sure that there’s no glare from the sun or other light sources.
• Review your familiar face library on a regular basis during the first few weeks, especially after you add a new person. Promptly fix any face recognition mistakes.

You can check out this handy guide to help you troubleshoot familiar face detection.

Keep me posted.

Best,

Lance

[Super_paulie]

Hi Lance. Sorry I didn't mean to click that as the answer, can you remove that please.

The WiFi router is around 5m from the camera.

The notification I get on my phone tells me the person is recognised, for example Dave is at the door. However the Hub and speakers don't say the name, they just say "someone is at the door".

[Lance_L]

Hi Super_paulie,

Thanks for the follow-up information. Let’s turn on personal results for your speaker or display. Note: If you have a display, select Always show proactively. Follow the steps below:
 

1. Make sure that your doorbell is in the same home as your speaker or display. If it’s not, you won’t get visitor announcements.
2. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Home app .
3. At the bottom, tap Home > Settings .
4. Under “Features”, tap Google Assistant > Personal results.
5. Edit the settings for the devices in your home.
6. Tap the name of your speaker or display.
7. To turn on personal results, check the box next to the device name.

Let me know how it goes.

Regards,

Lance

[Super_paulie]

Hi Lance. I've turned that on. But how will "personal results" make my speakers announce the name of the familiar face? We have a household and doing really want to use a personal results feature. We just need the speakers to announce the name associated with the familiar face. It obviously recognises the faces as it shows their name on the notification bar on my phone, so why doesn't the speaker announce the name?

Cheers

[Super_paulie]

@Lance_L  any thoughts Lance?

[TrunStrat]

I have also been having the same problem. I’ve had my speakers and nest display for a while now but only recently got the doorbell. It all worked well at first. It would announce names of all the people that I’d saved to it. But for some reason I can’t work out as I haven’t changed anything it’s stopped working. Some times it will say a name but most of the time it just says someone. I’ve been back and forth with Google support and have got a few reasons from them. At first they told me that due to EU regulation this feature doesn’t work in the U.K. So I asked them why the option to have this feature is still in the settings? And why if it’s not available here they still advertise the function in their website.  Then they said that it will say only my name as I am the account holder. In between this conversation I had tech support contact me and got me to send them a load of info on my whole home setup. I’m still waiting in a reply. Personally I think there’s some sort of software problem but they don’t know what it is. 

[Super_paulie]

Thanks for the info. I've never once had it say a name that I've saved to it, I'm also UK. It was pretty much the only reason I signed up to nest aware as it was a nice cool feature (should have been standard, but I digress). 

So yeah, responses to this have gone quiet from "support" so I agree that they don't know how to fix this.

@Lance_L  any thoughts?

[rid1]

@Lance_L any update to the above. I'm also having the same issue with familiar face alerts not being announced on my Nest Hub or Nest Mini

[Super_paulie]

@Lance_L  any chance of a reply? This is still a thing for me and others.

[Super_paulie]

So absolutely no progress on this then? @Lance_L 

[Lance_L]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your patience. We’re sorry for the delayed response here. We’ve checked further on this, and we know this isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but familiar face detection isn’t available in the UK.

However, you can still get doorbell visitor announcements on a speaker or display.

Reach out if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

Lance

[Super_paulie]

yeah i will reach out @Lance_L , it is available as i have the familular faces saved in the library and i get notifications in the history to confirm that it has identified people.

This is the only reason i got the google doorbell as it was a feature i thought would be nice. Miss-sold or what? 

Also @Lance_L  how come i get a notification to my phone and the history on the camera that identifies the person in accordance to the face library? I get a phone notification saying "John is at the door" so it quite obviously identifies the person, the issue is that it doesnt say the name on the speaker it just says "someone is at the door". So which is it, unavailable, half-available or available?

[Lance_L]

Hello everyone,

@Super_paulie, I know how it feels when something isn’t working the way you expect it to, but familiar face detection isn’t a feature available for Nest cameras and doorbells in the UK. To check which Google Nest cameras and doorbells are available for familiar face detection, check Features and Alerts by device on the Google Store.

Our team is working hard to deliver the best experience possible to our users. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us. I'd suggest sharing your feedback about Google Nest.

Keep an eye out for any updates on the Google Nest Community page.

Best,

Lance

[Super_paulie]

your team needs to work harder... the quality is garbage now and the feature i bought it for has now been stricken from the records.

[rid1]

@Lance_L 

I’m not sure you’re grasping the situation we are enquiring about so I’ll simplify. 

1. We all have a nest doorbell which has the familiar face feature enabled

2. The familiar face feature works for us in the sense that we get notifications on our phones of who is at the door (including names of people saved in our familiar face library)

3. We are based in the UK. 

4. The aspect we cannot get to work (and have been asking about repeatedly) is how do we get these notification of familiar faces announced on our Google Nest Mini/Hub/Hub Max devices. For example if John (who is saved as John in my familiar face library) rings my doorbell, I want my Google Nest Hub to announce on the speaker the John is at the door or John has rung the doorbell. 

[Super_paulie]

Too late, @Lance_L has spoken, marked the question as answered and left. So we have the recognition working in words on our phones but not in the spoken voice. I guess...? But it doesnt work in the UK though, even though it does. 

[Super_paulie]

Sorry but @Lance_L  has spoken and closed it, end of. Cheers Google 👍