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Nest Cam Battery - Night Vision

rvalkenburg
Community Member

After having every Nest cam from the beginning and upgrading along the way, I upgraded and added my outside IQ cams with the new Battery cam, which I thought was awesome because I do not have external power on a few sides of our home.

Installation was easy, sensing and notifications works great and cosmetically I like the look. Day time camera quality is great. Streaming is very good, battery life is decent not as advertised but OK.

The bad is the Night vision, it looks like it's always foggy out and is not detecting People or movement in or out of the zones I have created. The Night vision is worse than the Gen 1 cameras that I have and is basically useless, Google needs to fix this as these are "Security Cameras" and if they are not detecting a presence or movement at night, what is the point of the product.

I really do not want to return these, I have 4, I am hoping this can be changed with a code modification ASAP but not sure if it is just a hardware limitation due to being a battery based unit.

1 Recommended Answer

rvalkenburg
Community Member

Well figured it out.... All 4 of my Battery Nest cameras I installed with the Wasserstein Anti-Theft mount which Google says to use if camera installation is over 6.5" high. So I took of the mount and crystal clear, the shield on the top of the mount must be interfering with the night vision sensors. I cut off the overhang on the mount and works perfect, still clear and can still secure the cameras. I have not seen anywhere people complaining about these anti-theft mounts, but that was the problem.

View Recommended Answer in original post

13 REPLIES 13

EmptyNester
Gold Product Expert
Gold Product Expert

You said it!  The new cams are not as good as the old ones.  AND your stuck using the Google Home app which lacks A LOT of features AND you can't view the new cams on a computer.   Given all that I returned my new cams and purchased the older gen cams from Ebay.  I don't think Google can do anything quickly.  You may want to consider doing the same.   I  will revisit this in a year and see what progress Google has made.   This situation is such a shame and could have been avoided had they just let the  new cams work with the NEST app...as their name implies.

I dont mind the Google Home App, sure a pain to bounce between the 2 apps but... I also use a Chromebook, so I can install the Google Home app and use my laptop which is fine with me. My only issue is the Night Vision is basically useless.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there, 

 

I apologize for my late response and thank you for all of your patience while waiting for a reply. I can definitely understand how frustrating your situation must be, but I wanted to make sure that your issue was addressed. Do you still need help with this issue? I know that if you have the camera facing out of a window at night, there is a glare on the glass. But in general, the Night Vision is automatic, and will adjust to its surroundings. Are you in an area with heavy light pollution?

 

Please let me know if you need further assistance. 

Best Regards, 

Brad.

rvalkenburg
Community Member

I have 4 outdoor battery cameras around my property, none are viewing through a window. Not much lighting at night as I do not live in a busy city, All 4 are in different parts of my property so the lighting is not the same for each either, driveway may have a street light but backyard there is nothing. All cameras auto switch to night vision, no problem, but the video is very dim, cloudy, washed out and almost impossible to see a person, 1000 times worse than the older IQ outdoor cameras. I would have assumed a bit less quality due to battery consumption but not this bad.

rvalkenburg
Community Member

Here is a clip from me walking by the camera last night 10pm EST

Screenshot 2021-12-01 7.31.06 AM.png

EmptyNester
Gold Product Expert
Gold Product Expert

Hello Rvalkenburg, I'm just another user here but I have a lot of experience with these cams. That is definitely not how the image from the camera should look.  It should be much more clear.  There is a chance that the IR LEDS are catching some kind of  reflection from a surface (like the eves on the building) that is making that happen.  Humor me and take the camera down from where it is mounted and watch the image on your phone at the same time. Move the camera around pointing it in different  directions and see if the image gets clear.

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

This is very similar to the quality we get on a dark night with little light both from our older Nest Hello doorbell and from our new Google Nest Battery Camera. On the other sides or when there is more light, we get better quality--but not as good as daytime footage--from our existing Google Nest cameras.

Hi MplsCustomer,  I have both the old and new cameras and the picture quality I'm getting is a lot better than the example rvalkenburg is showing (above). To me ,what I'm seeing is not useable and I would return that camera in a heart beat. (Just my opinion).

rvalkenburg
Community Member

Well figured it out.... All 4 of my Battery Nest cameras I installed with the Wasserstein Anti-Theft mount which Google says to use if camera installation is over 6.5" high. So I took of the mount and crystal clear, the shield on the top of the mount must be interfering with the night vision sensors. I cut off the overhang on the mount and works perfect, still clear and can still secure the cameras. I have not seen anywhere people complaining about these anti-theft mounts, but that was the problem.

rvalkenburg
Community Member

Screenshot_20211201-185454.png

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Folks.

 

At this time, I'll go ahead and lock this thread. If you're still experiencing problems, feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.

 

Best Regards,

Brad.

EmptyNester
Gold Product Expert
Gold Product Expert

Hi Rvalkenburg,  I'm so glad you were able to figure this out.  That image is much much better.  I recall about 2 months ago there was a thread (I think posted on this forum) of people reporting that exact same issue with the Wasserstein mount.   I think the fix the problem with a pair of scissors and simply clipped that little bit that hang's over the top of the camera that the IR Led light was reflecting off of. 

Glad to hear it is not a design issue with the camera.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks,

 

Glad to hear that it is fixed for some of you! Try the suggest fixes, and please report any further issues you may be having. Please let me know if you need further assistance.

 

Best Regards,

Brad.