Magnetic mount charging disabled by Nest Cam Dev Team

[adzify106]

I am struggling to believe I have to write this.. I am an avid Google home user, I have a Pixel 8 Pro, I have used Google Docs for 19 years, I have Google One subscription and a Nest Aware subscription.

I bought x4 Nest Cam Battery devices in 2023.  I had an Arlo and was not happy with it, did heaps of research and landed on the Nest Cams.  They were AMAZING, I was really happy with them, the app and the reliability - kudos Google.

However in late 2023, early 2024 I started to notice some issues when charging.  The cams were not charging, the status on the app showed nothing except an infinity symbol and the cam would normally beep and LED would pulse when connected to a charger.  All x4 of them started showing this behavior suddenly, they had never done this before.  I went to the forums and Reddit and couldn't find anything obvious.  I checked all the cables, chargers, none of that was causing the issue.

One day I happened to pop the camera off the magnetic mount to check something and BAM, it started charging instantly, the app showed the charged percentage and everything started to work as it should!  I checked this with all x4 cameras and they all did the same behavior.  If I connect the camera up to charge while it was on the magnetic mount, they do nothing, disconnect it they start charging instantly.

I checked the manuals, the app setup everything I could find and NOWHERE does it state that a camera will NOT charge while it is connected to the magnetic mount.  The reason I like the Google Cam Battery and Magnet Mount:

1. I'm a renter, in Australia its not easy to get permission to drill holes and run cables to mount cameras so battery is 100% perfect. 
2. The house I'm in is double story with a metal and brick facade and nowhere to run power anyway.
3. The entrance is south facing and in shadow all day, so solar mount is not possible.
4. Its a fairly high traffic area so activity zones are a MUST.
5. Magnetic mount is perfect as I was easily able to hop up and snap it onto the metal facade section.
6. All I needed to do was when the battery needed a top up every 8 weeks or so was run an extension lead out for a few hours and give it a quick charge, so simple.

So when this issue started to appear I needed to get it resolved ASAP.

I opened a case with Google support, I followed their steps and factory reset all of them and they kept doing it, they said "no that's strange behavior they should definitely charge whilst they are on the magnetic mount".  They RMA'd all x4 of them.

x4 New cameras arrived and straight out of the box they continue to exhibit the same behavior.

This time I recorded the setup process and the bug: 

Intro & Setup:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HhlNn-q39c&t=0s

Charging Fault:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HhlNn-q39c&t=255s 

I go back to the Google support team and provide the video to them, this time I get a different answer and I'm paraphrasing below but from what I could gather was:

"The product engineering team have changed the charging behavior for magnetic mounts.  Customers that wish to have their devices plugged-in whilst mounted full time, found their battery became degraded.  Therefore the decision was made to stop charging devices while on the mount.  The only way to overcome this is to hardwire your device or remove the device from the magnetic mount to charge."

I was really disappointed, I asked three questions:

1. What about battery users that have activity zones setup?  Removing a camera to charge it every time will stuff the activity zone up.
2. The Home app directs camera users (during the setup) to position and angle the camera correctly to (A) get the best detection area possible and (B) prevent false notifications.  Every time you remove it to charge the battery you will never get it back in the same spot each time?
3. Why were users not notified of this and why has all the documentation been failed to update this?

I pointed out that simply attaching the charging cable to top up the battery, without disturbing the view and the activity zone was the best option to comply with their own setup directions.  The agent said nothing they could do but he would escalate the case through to a higher level of support.

So basically the Google Nest Camera development team have prioritised the use of hardwire camera users and completely neglected to consider any of the Nest Cam Battery users.  Not to mention, there was no notification to users to let them know this was changing, their website and app still do not mention it anywhere and they've just left us all hanging in the dark.  I don't understand why during the device setup it doesn't ask you whether you are going to hardwire it or run it on battery?  If you select "run it on battery" then disable this so-called "hardwire feature".  I was sure the Home app used to ask something like "How are you going to use this device?" and gave you the option to choose and would setup and configure it accordingly.  They appear to have removed this step and now just treat all users as hardwire.

I'm posting this in case any other poor soul out there starts bashing their head against a brick wall wondering what on earth has happened like I was..

Full support transcript available here:  https://imgur.com/la63RCW

Hopefully Google restores this quickly, otherwise its just misleading advertising to call these "Battery" cameras anymore.

[MplsCustomer]

@adzify106 

As you say, the rational solution would be to provide a user setting in the Google Home app indicating whether the battery camera is "plugged-in" or "running on battery". There does seem to have been a HIDDEN setting for this--at least initially--because there have been posts from customers who purchased the optional power cable AFTER installing their camera, and then found they had to remove their camera, perform a factory reset, and reinstall their camera to prevent their camera from shutting down due to a depleted battery even though it was now plugged in all the time.

It does seem that the explanation Google Nest Support gave you does not tell the whole story.

We've had a battery camera since Sept. 2021--plugged in from the very beginning with the optional 10-meter power cable; it's been "Live" and online ever since, and we've never had to charge the battery. So clearly the software or firmware is somehow keeping our battery charged while it is plugged in AND mounted.

When our camera is plugged in, Settings | Battery only shows "Plugged in" with an infinity symbol, so we have to unplug the camera to see the battery level. Whenever we've done that a few times over the last 3 years to check, it's always been between 77% and 100%. I checked this morning, and it was at 80%. An hour later I unpluged it and checked again,and it was at 96%. Does unplugging it trigger something to top off the battery? Who knows.

Google Nest needs to address this.

[Guarcax]

Hi folks!

@MplsCustomer thanks for your comments.

@adzify106 thanks for posting in the community and sharing your experience with us. I understand your concern about how the battery in your Nest Cam Battery works when it's connected and mounted. If the camera is connected to a continuous power source and it’s also mounted, then you will see the “Plugged in” message and the infinite icon on the battery settings. It means that the level of the battery will be constantly charging depending on the usage and the weather. To help prolong the life of your camera’s battery, it will only charge to 80%. If you want to have your camera fully charged, then you will need to unmount it; the camera will detect that it is no longer recording video and will automatically fully charge.

Feel free to keep posting if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Daniel.

[adzify106]

Hi Daniel (Guarcax),

Thankyou for your response and apologies for the long post but I want to be clear about the issues. 

FIRSTLY..

One glaring issue is that what both you and support have mentioned, is NOT communicated anywhere in any manuals or documentation.  There is also NO mention that the way you mount the device will alter and change the behaviour of the Battery Cam - as it is evidently doing in the video.  The reason this is not mentioned anywhere, is because this is NOT the way the device used to behave and has been altered by Google.

SECONDLY..

I'm not sure if you watched the video I posted or maybe only watched part of it, but specifically one significant issue which reveals the change in behaviour for battery users is this part:  https://youtu.be/8HhlNn-q39c?si=rv6MfO66xZyszNMJ&t=285

1. Plug in with no mount - You can see Chime noise and LED starts pulsing straight away.

   • As a Battery Cam user you need some sort of feedback/indication that the cable and power supply is good - so you get the chime noise and the light pulsing. This totally makes sense and matches user guide.

2. Plug in while magnet mounted - No chime noise, no LED pulsing

   • Tell me how this is useful for anyone trying to charge their battery?  The way the Battery Cam is or isn't mounted is totally irrelevant and should still chime and illuminate regardless of how I have mounted the Battery Cam... this is not mentioned in the user guide at all.

3. Plug in with no mount - Home app shows ETA to full charge and shows lightning icon and %.

   • You need to be able to monitor the percentage it's charged up to, so you can disconnect the charger when it is charged up enough whether that be 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100%.  Again the % should be irrelevant unless you want to hardwire it, but the type of mount DOES NOT dictate whether someone is a hardwired or battery user.

4. Plug in while magnet mounted - Home app shows nothing and does not display %.

   • Self-explanatory, having an infinity symbol is totally fine..... if you are a hardwire user..... but for a battery user, having no charging data is absolutely useless and again I'll repeat, the way it is mounted cannot be an assumption of a hardwire user vs a battery user.

The devs implemented the infinity icon and slow charge/80% feature for hardwire users... that is when #1 & #3 stopped working for battery users.  Whether it was deliberate or an accident it's undeniable that this bug is clearly specific to the mount.

So I have to ask, those features (#1 & #3) were implemented and rolled out to help battery users at some point, but they no longer work when mounted on the magnet...why?  Again this change is confirmed by the lack of documentation surrounding it on the website, setup and manual.

If the devs are attempting to identify whether someone is a hardwire user or a battery user just by their choice of mount, that is absolutely insane...  Why not ask at setup 'How are you going to use this device?' and allow the user to select - Hardwire/Solar/Battery and configure the device at setup.

THIRDLY...

---

@Guarcax wrote:

If the camera is connected to a continuous power source and it’s also mounted, then you will see the “Plugged in” message and the infinite icon on the battery settings

---

You addressed users who are 'Plugged in' but you never mention or discuss users who are not continuously powered.  The only reference you made was in regards to 'Plugged in' users who want to charge higher than 80% and you mention they would need to remove the device from the mount to do this.   

What about general battery users that are not connected to power continuously?  You never mentioned how they should charge the device or just top them up?  I keep getting this feeling from support that nobody cares about Battery Cam users, they only talk and ask questions as if everyone is a hardwire user even though these are Nest Battery Cams...  Is the suggestion for battery users to do the same as hardwire users and remove them from the magnet to charge too?  As mentioned in my OP this introduces a third problem which you never addressed:

The instructions during the camera setup in the Home app are very specific about setting the camera angle up correctly and creating 'Activity Zones'.  This means I can't get the Battery Cam features like #1 & #3 working as they should unless I remove it from the magnet, but removing it from the magnet would contradict the setup instructions as it would alter the camera view and thus break the 'Activity Zones'.  This would happen every single time it gets removed for charging, I challenge anyone to remount the device and get it back to the exact same position, I can get it close but never the same.  This means every 6-8 weeks when I need to top up my cameras I have to spend 10 mins fixing the 'Activity Zone' so for the x4 battery cameras I have and waste 40 mins.. this is frustrating as I never had to waste time doing this in the past.  I used to just top up the battery charge whilst it was mounted, when I was happy with the % I would simply unplug it and the 'Activity Zones' and camera view were all unchanged as the camera was never physically disturbed.

I hope you can see the absurdity in this, not to mention it completely contradicts the device setup instructions?  If this is the case and it needs to be removed from the magnet to charge, advertising them as a 'Battery Cam' is really reaching... or you need to remove 'Activity Zones' from the website feature list for the Battery Cam.. which would be really, really stupid.. as the 'Activity Zones' reduce unwanted notifications and conserve the battery life and the Nest Cams have really great Activity Zones compared to other camera manufacturers.  

The most straightforward efficient fix for all of this, would be to simply ask the user if they are a solar, battery or hardwire user during setup and configure the device accordingly.  That way the device is configured for the appropriate functions/features (ie Infinity icon/80%/battery preservation/no chime/no LED for Hardwire users vs Lightning icon/charge ETA/LED/Charging chime for battery users) and the way the device is mounted wouldn't matter at all.

It's really disappointing and could be a genuine mistake/oversight by the dev team... OR...... it's just really lazy assumptions and throwing solar, battery and hardwire users all into one boat just based on the way the device is mounted which is simply resulting in a terrible UX.

[MplsCustomer]

@adzify106 

Well-said. Google Nest Support: please listen.

One note: since installing our plugged-in battery camera in Sept. 2021 using the 10-meter optional power cable, I've unplugged it very briefly perhaps a dozen times to check the battery level. A few times it's been at around 80%, but most of the time it's been at or around 100%. So who knows how it really works.

[adzify106]

Thankyou, it's really disappointing, they are really good cameras compared to other systems in a lot of ways and with a Google Home/ecosystem they are fantastic.  I would love to know whether any of the devs ever tested or considered any of the above.. anyway I'm going to keep commenting in the hopes someone from Support reaches out or acknowledges this and to keep this thread alive.  I posted this over on Reddit too and other people have commented that they've noticed this weird behaviour as well, so we're not the only ones.  A quick search shows other battery users have asked this in the past as well but have mostly been ignored.  The fact that it is on video with a brand new device means they can't hide from it anymore..