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Nest Doorbell (Battery) draining while hard wired to electricity source

EgyptianTuga
Community Member

I have 2 of the new Google Nest Doorbell (Battery) and both are hard-wired to an electricity source. Each one is also connected to it's own8 to 24 V AC Transformer. Yet, they doorbell's battery drains within 48Hrs!

This doorbell's bbattery is supposed to last a month if powered on battery alone! I just don't understand how the batery drains while it's connected to a power source and drains this quickly!?

Just to elemenate this point too, the tempreture here does not get below 5°C, so that thing about cold weather does not apply either. And this is happening to BOTH doorbells! Now I keep charging one while the other is mounted in case it suddenly decides to drain out in less than a day and I keep changing them.

Any idea what is going on and how can I fix this??

1 Recommended Answer

There really isn't one, outside of reducing detected events.   Use zones to limit detection to the areas you're most concerned about.  Now, if that's not a fit for your situation (for instance, you want to see all activity in view, no matter how far from your door(s)), then this doorbell is probably not going to work for you.  I'd recommend returning it, and getting something like the Nest Hello.  That lacks the local AI features that this model has, but it does run completely off of the doorbell wires (although I think that model does require installation of a chime adapter).  

 

One other thing to keep in mind.  This doorbell uses motion detection to know it should wake up, look at the scene, and make a determination on whether an event is occurring or not.   So, even if you have your zones trimmed down pretty well.  Lots of activity in front of the camera is going to lead to more battery use, as it is constantly being woken up to analyze for events.  If you're on a busy road, or if you have a flag hanging that moves in the wind that is visible within your zones, it's going to be waking up a lot to analyze and that is going to use a lot of battery.  Given yours is draining very quickly, you probably have something like that going on.  I'd look at that first to see what you can do about reducing events.   If those things don't work, you should get a different doorbell (or plan on charging it a lot).

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8 REPLIES 8

firmwaredev
Bronze
Bronze

The Nest Doorbell (battery) is fundamentally a battery doorbell.   The current available for charging from the doorbell wires is very limited, due to being in series with the chime.  As such, it's possible at any temperature for power usage to exceed the charging rate.     Cold temperatures make this worse (even as warm as 40F in my experience), but the balance of use/charge can go negative at any temperature.

Google recently updated their support pages to speak to this topic (link below).  The primary focus of the page is performance in cold weather, but as you can see there, it states that this camera is fundamentally battery, with trickle charging only. It can't run off of the  incoming doorbell power alone.

The device works under the assumption that the duty cycle (how much the camera is on and recording vs asleep ) is low.  And thus, the battery will stay charged enough in the long term to not deplete completely.  Cold weather can break this balance, and more so if it's seeing a lot of events or movement.

 

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/11830989

Thank you for your feedback. I have to admit that I'm very surprised about this battery concept, especially when you give a wiring option! The app shows it as Wired when it's first mounted and then unexpectedly starts draining so fast!

Regarding the weather, as I mentioned, I don't have this extreme cold situations that are being referenced. I live in Portugal and you can check, but it's neither that cold not that hot!!

I simply cannot keep swapping the doorbells every 2/3 days as this is seriously impractical! What is the solution? I bought this Doorbell because it can be hard-wired so I don't have to worry about recharging it all the time!

There really isn't one, outside of reducing detected events.   Use zones to limit detection to the areas you're most concerned about.  Now, if that's not a fit for your situation (for instance, you want to see all activity in view, no matter how far from your door(s)), then this doorbell is probably not going to work for you.  I'd recommend returning it, and getting something like the Nest Hello.  That lacks the local AI features that this model has, but it does run completely off of the doorbell wires (although I think that model does require installation of a chime adapter).  

 

One other thing to keep in mind.  This doorbell uses motion detection to know it should wake up, look at the scene, and make a determination on whether an event is occurring or not.   So, even if you have your zones trimmed down pretty well.  Lots of activity in front of the camera is going to lead to more battery use, as it is constantly being woken up to analyze for events.  If you're on a busy road, or if you have a flag hanging that moves in the wind that is visible within your zones, it's going to be waking up a lot to analyze and that is going to use a lot of battery.  Given yours is draining very quickly, you probably have something like that going on.  I'd look at that first to see what you can do about reducing events.   If those things don't work, you should get a different doorbell (or plan on charging it a lot).

Oh, and one other thing to keep in mind (and this is in the documentation).  While wired, the battery will be only maintained at around 75% charge.  This is intentional to increase long term battery life (keeping Li-Ion batteries  at 100% has a detrimental effect on battery longevity).   As such, you will see it start to drop down to that level immediately. Then it will stay at that level, as long as power usage isn't greater than the charging rate.

Also, just to be clear, I do not represent google.  I'm just a guy on the forum that has experience with this doorbell.

Your theory was correct! The Doorbell now is a bit stable after I switched off all additional features and changed the power setup to (More Battery Life)!

I still find this very disappointing because it means that you can't use all these additional features unless you're welling to recharge it every few days even if it's hardwired!!

Very disappointing indeed. And it’s worse in the winter. ☹️

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

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.

 

We hope you were able to get the help you need, but if you're still having trouble, please feel free to submit another post, and provide as many details as possible so that others can lend a hand. Hope this helps!

 

Best regards,

Brad

SdeGat
Community Member

I’m in a similar situation as @EgyptianTuga with my battery doorbell. I guess Google should not be selling it north of Virginia. 💁‍ I wonder if I can get a refund or something. 🤔 I would never have bought it if I had known all that you said @firmwaredev.