Nest Cams not showing in Nest App – Only in Home App

[SeanRiddolls]

I just purchased 3 Nest Cams, and 1 Nest Doorbell – to join my existing infrastructure of Nest Protects and Nest Thermostat. 

To my surprise, the new cameras and doorbell do not populate in the Nest App – or the web portal at home.nest.com.   They only populate in Google's poorly implemented Home App on my phone.

I have tried adding them directly via the Nest App, but it kicks me back into the Home App during installation.

What is the process for propagating the Nest Cams and Nest Doorbells in the Nest App?

[MplsCustomer]

@SeanRiddolls 

You can't.  The 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells released starting in Sept. 2021 work only in the Google Home app and NOT in the Google Nest app.  We discovered the same thing when we bought a battery camera that month, and have been using 2 apps ever since.

You CAN request joining the beta "Public Preview" version of the Google Home app (https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/Expanded-support-rolling-out-all-Nest-Cams-can-transfer-...) and then individually "transfer" your 1st gen cameras and doorbells to that "Preview Version" (which has been in "Preview" status since Nov. 2022).

We have not done so because the Google Home app still lacks many Nest app functions:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13038234#zippy=%2Cnest-app-only-features

[EricPlesner]

This means that I cannot use my NestAware subscription for my cameras. The are in Google Home. How strange that I am nuged into a subscription where I think I can store a longer camera event history and it turns out to be impossible.  

[MplsCustomer]

@EricPlesner 

If you have a 2nd gen Nest Aware subscription or a Nest Aware Plus subscription (which we've had since 2020), they apply to all 1st and 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells in the same Google Nest "home/structure". 

[EricPlesner]

Nest app is 5.80.0.8 with last update 5th dec. 2024.

Cameras bought in 2019-2021

They work fine in Google Home but not in Nest .  "Add product " in Nest refers to Google Home for product registration (they are already there) and thereafter Nest terminates without any message or explanation.

[MplsCustomer]

@EricPlesner 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You simply cannot add Google Nest's 2nd gen cameras and doorbells (those available starting in Sept. 2021) to the Google Nest app; they only work in the Google Home app.

We have had a 2nd gen Nest Aware Plus subscription since 2020. It applies to ALL of our cameras and doorbells. However:

- We view history for our 1st gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells in the Google Nest app.

- We view history for our two 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells in the Google Home app.

If you have the older 1st gen Nest Aware subscription, that older subscription apples to specific 1st gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells only. Google Nest has been asking customers to move to the 2nd gen subscriptions since 2019.

This Help topic lists what you get with each subscription:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9681538

This is Google Nest's price list for the various subscriptions:

https://store.google.com/product/nest_aware?hl=en-US&modal=upgrade-pricing

[SeanRiddolls]

Note – I am not impressed with Google's Home App.   The user interface is a hot mess of poorly designed disorganized, unintuitive links, across multiple unrelated devices. 

I need to share this with my wife and children, so I'd prefer to use the Nest UI which is well-designed, simple, and intuitive.