Lost power during storm - when restored - Wired Nest Doorbell no longer functions

[Malygos]

"Streaming Issues" - doorbell is dead - which is why I selected that label 😉

This morning, there was an ice storm and power was knocked out on our street.

When power was restored, our Wired Nest doorbell stayed offline.

The WLAN it is normally on came back up - but the doorbell never joined.

I went out and pressed the button - and nothing - the normal doorbell annunciator is silent.  (It's always worked with the nest before)

Looking closely at the doorbell, I see that there is no light.

I checked the transformer attached to our breaker box and it's putting out roughly 29v AC.

I popped the cover off the doorbell annunciator box and verified the 29v AC is present there.

Finally, I went outside, removed the nest doorbell - and verified 29v at the wires there.

I held the wires to the screw terminals - nothing - no light.

I brought the nest doorbell inside and grabbed a spare USB cable and powered the doorbell up with that - and it fired up just fine and started taking pictures.

Took it back outside, held the wires up against the screw terminals - nothing.

As far as I can tell via my research - the doorbell transformer's output is within the acceptable limit of the nest doorbell.  I had to upgrade the transformer when I installed the nest doorbell in 2018, since it was too low voltage for the nest.

Any suggestions?  It's long out of warranty.

I do have another brand new nest doorbell I'm going to be installing at a different house - and I'm a bit leery of testing it in place of the "faulty" one on the off chance that 29v is too high and might trash my new one.

Jim

[firmwaredev]

That is quite strange.  You've looked at all the things I would have looked at, and it should be working.  Given it is working ok via USB, my guess would be that when the power shut off some sort of transient voltage situation at the time might have damaged the doorbell.  That circuitry to handle the A/C - D/C conversion might have been damaged, and not the D/C side, which would explain why it works ok via USB.   The 29V A/C voltage should be fine.   I also think it's unlikely that the transformer could be damage in a way that would limit how much current it could put out, but that might be remotely possible.   One way to semi-verify that would be to hook up a regular doorbell switch if you have one laying around, and see if can operate the chime solenoid.  If it can then the transformer is still putting out plenty of current.    In that case, I think the doorbell probably has been damaged, sorry to say.  Not much else to do from there, other than replace, given age.

One thing - if you plan to replace it with the new Battery doorbell, see the various threads on that model so you understand its limitations vs the Nest Hello, not the least of which is that the new doorbell only works (and will only ever work) in the Google Home app. It is also a battery-only device, with just trickle charging via the doorbell wires, if wired.   It can run out of juice even while wired.

[MplsCustomer]

Just to piggy-back on @firmwaredev  's comment, you can also semi-test your transformer by just touching your two doorbell wires together (with the doorbell disconnected) to see whether this triggers your indoor chime.

[Malygos]

I tried a brand new Nest Doorbell that I'm planning on installing at another house - and it worked just fine in place of the one I originally posted about.

So - it now appears that my original Nest Hello is now a USB powered only device.

Oh well, such is electronics nowadays.

[aatienza]

Hey folks,

Thanks for visiting the Community. 

Since this thread hasn't had activity in a while, we're going to close it to keep content fresh. Feel free to submit another post, and provide as many details as possible so that others can lend a hand.

Thanks,

Archie