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Nest Cam auto on/off options not working, missing, or wrong. How do I get this working?

Andrew351737
Community Member

Hi all,

Having zero luck getting anywhere with having my camera turn on / off when I'm away / home.

All the information in the Google guides is simple wrong, or missing.

During the setup of the camera, it asks for location permissions to use presence sensing to turn the camera on/off, then this does not work. The camera stays on while I'm here.

Articles suggest going Home app > settings > presence sensing to change/set this up.

'presence sensing' is not an option in settings in the home app.

Others articles say add the device to routines to turn off when you leave or come home. In routines my camera is not an available device.

All my nest speakers and screens are, but not my camera.

The camera works. I can connect to it, turn it off/on manually no problem. My Nest Hub screen will play the camera feed no problem.

But every option around automatic on/off as I am away or home is missing or doesn't.

So how do I do this?

This seems critical to achieving any sort of battery life from the camera. After a few hours at home with it constantly recording my moving around I'm down 13% battery. This won't last  2 days at this rate, let alone the 1.5-7 month battery life advertised. It seems basically useless as it is, to be honest 

Looking forward to having this resolved.

4 REPLIES 4

EmersonB
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hello Andrew351737,

 

Thanks for reaching out here in the Community. You may follow the steps below to learn how to manage your presence sensing.

 

Change which devices start a Home or Away Routine

  1. Open the Google Home app Google Home app.
  2. Tap Settings and then Presence sensing.
  3. Select the devices that you want to use for presence sensing. These devices help determine if everyone's away or someone's home.

Enable or disable phone location for presence sensing

When you allow your home to use phone location, home members can choose to let their phones help with presence sensing.

  1. Open the Google Home app Google Home app.
  2. Tap Settings and then Presence sensing.
  3. Turn Allow this home to use phone locations on or off.

To learn more, you may visit our public article about “Change Home and Away routine settings”.

 

I appreciate the help, MplsCustomer.

  

Regards,

Emerson

Andrew351737
Community Member

Hi Emerson,

As I explained in my original post the instructions you've pasted (the same ones which are repeated in the article you have linked) are not accurate.

I said:

"Articles suggest going Home app > settings > presence sensing to change/set this up.

'presence sensing' is not an option in settings in the home app."

You can see in the screenshot here, there is no 'presence sensing' option: https://ibb.co/mFCS3qx


The same applies for the articles instructions on setting up the device in Automations. The instructions in the article are:

  1. Open the Google Home app Google Home app.
  2. Tap Automations .
  3. Under "Household Routines," select Home or Away.
  4. Tap Add action .
  5. Available devices will appear...

This also doesn't work, as I explained:

"Others articles say add the device to routines to turn off when you leave or come home. In routines my camera is not an available device."

You can see here, the device is not available in the list when setting up a routine: https://ibb.co/pjWYfJ8

 

The camera is setup , and works fine. you can see it in my devices list here: https://ibb.co/NjL6GBP

It is part of my Home network, I can connect to it, view the video steam etc. all fine.

It is the presence sensing and routines to turn the camera on and off explained in the articles are missing/wrong.

 

Kindly read my original post again. I explained the online instructions were not accurate, this is the problem, and you've repeated the same instructions to me.


So we're no closer to resolving the issue.

How do I get my camera to automatically turn on/off as I come and go, as the online instructions are incorrect.

Andrew351737
Community Member

So, no actual support other than pasting links to instructions which are incorrect.

Silence when this is called out.

I guess we just conceed now the advertised features don't work, and the support documents are wrong.

I returned my Nest cam for a refund. Terrible.

Bought a competitor brand which did everything it promised out if the box.

0/10 for Nest.

EmersonB
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi Andrew351737,


We're sad to see you go. We'll definitely take this as feedback — we'll ensure to learn from it to be able to deliver a better experience in the future.

 

Best,

Emerson