Nest Doorbell (Gen 2) Not detecting events at night.

[dt1000]

I just upgraded my wired Nest doorbell froma  Gen 1 to Gen2.
It detects events during the day fine...
However, for the last three days, from about 9PM to 6AM it hasn't detect a thing.
My door faces a very busy street, which has people going up and down until about 4AM.
My old Gen 1 doorbell would capture events at this time no problem.
The doorbell is switching to night vision OK...
Is something wrong with my new hardware?

I have Nest Aware... but not Nest Aware Plus... surely I don't need Plus to capture events at night on the new camera?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[ByronP]

Hi dt1000,

Thank you for posting. I'm sorry that you missed the events last night. Help's here.

Here is a great article you can check and Troubleshoot event video history to fix the problem.

Let me know if you need more assistance.

Regards,

Byron

[dt1000]

Thanks for the link, @ByronP - I went through the trouble shooting steps, but none of them apply...

• Camera has power and internet 
• Camera and mic are both on
• Camera can see the area clearly

I tested this out last night by walking past the camera. It didn't detect me at all. It works fine during the day. My guess is that the event detection isn't properly calibrated for low light... or that the night vision/lights on the camera just aren't powerful enough to see more than 6ft from the door. Or maybe there is a bug in the zone set-up causing problems at nigh?  Is there anything that can be done. My old Nest doorbell didn't have this problem.

[ByronP]

Hi t1000,

Thank you for posting. I'm sorry that the previous steps didn't work.

I just want to make sure that your Nest Doorbell is a battery one. If the Nest Doorbell is connected or plugged in, it does not detect events at night because it is running on battery power. Also, you can try the below steps to verify the setting on the Google Home App:

1. Open the Google Home app and tap the affected camera.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Select Events.
4. Verify that the events you want to receive are "on".

If none of the above steps didn't work, please try to do a factory reset of your Nest Doorbell.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Byron

[dt1000]

Hi, @ByronP!
My doorbell is the Nest Doorbell (wired, 2nd Gen), so it gets power 24/7.
I checked that the events I want to receive are on, as you recommend and they are. The camera seems to detect and record them fine during the day.

As an experiment I tried turning off night vision (the camera faces a well-lit street and the view is quite clear at night without it). The camera still didn't record anyone coming past our house between the hours of 9PM and 5AM (again, I live on a very busy street that gets traffic until about 3AM, so this seems unusual).

Could it be that my doorbell things it is wireless for some reason?

I will try and do a factory reset later this week!

[ByronP]

Hi dt1000,

Thank you for posting the details. It seems unusual, but please try to do a factory reset and see if it works.

Please keep me posted.

Regards,

Byron

[dt1000]

Haven't got round to doing this yet - will try at the weekend! 🙂 

[ByronP]

Hi dt1000,

Thank you for posting. That's fine.

Please keep me posted.

Regards,

Byron

[dt1000]

Thanks for your continued help, @ByronP!

OK! Factory reset complete. Let's see how it does over the next few days.

My guess is that this won't do anything, and that the issue is just that this camera's event detection at night is not very good. Weirdly it picked up somebody on the other side of the street at 1am last night... but doesn't pick me up walking right past it. I hope the reset fixes it - I would be extremely happy to be proven wrong on this one! 🙂 

[dt1000]

OK... so the doorbell is actually worse after the factory reset.
It's not logging any events at all - not even bell rings (which it doesn't even broadcast to the other smart devices in the home). 
This is makes it about as "smart" as a normal doorbell.

[dt1000 · Accepted solution]

Hmmm... After reading up on similar problems, I tried a network restart and it seems to have fixed things. Very odd. The camera is now recording events correctly. Let's see how it does tonight!

[dt1000]

Not sure why this has been flagged as an answer - the problem is still there! 😢

[ByronP]

Hi dt1000,

Thank you for posting here in the community. I´m really sorry that the factory reset didn´t solve the issue of capturing the event at night; this is not a good experience, even when this is the main purpose of the camera. Help´s here.

For this concern, we need to dive into this issue and investigate. Please fill out this form, and our specialist will reach out to you for further assistance about this concern.

Let me know once you´re done.

Regards,

Byron

[dt1000]

Thanks once again for your help, @ByronP, but after the factory reset nothing has changed. The camera IS recording between 10PM and 5AM but only people wearing bright white clothing. This morning our milkman came at 4am, wearing hi-viz, walked right up to our door to drop off the milk, and was only detected as he was walking away. My theory is that either there is a hardware malfunction with the camera, or that the person detection is not very good in low light.

I didn't have this issue with the Nest Hello Wired (1st Gen), which recorded everything perfectly.

Unfortunately this level of functionality is unacceptable as I live in a pretty rough area where crime happens regularly. My old doorbell cam caught people stealing from my front yard and trying to break into my car, both of which happened after dark, and these guys were definitely not wearing white. The new doorbell wouldn't detect either of these types of activities, making it pretty much useless as as security device for me.

What can I do to get this sorted? 😞

[dt1000]

Hi. Just to provide an update...
I ran the camera with full motion detection activated last night, to test the theory that it just couldn't recognise people at night. The camera recorded plenty of motion... but it was all passing cars wiht bright headlights. This leads me to suspect that the illumination is so dim that it can't even spot the motion of people walking by 3m from the camera. I did a comparison with the footage from my Gen 1 doorbell and there is a noticable drop in illiumination with the Gen 2 which, according to the specs, has more IR illumination. Maybe the LEDs are malfunctioning? You can find the comparison image here.

[ByronP]

Hi dt1000,

Thank you for posting. I really appreciate the details and image on this issue. I got your form, and our specialist will reach out to you for further assistance on this concern.

Regards,

Byron 

[dt1000]

A little more experimentation, just for thoroughness. I left the night vision off last night and the picture is actually clearer. Even more surprising is that, without nightvision, the camera has no problem detecting people. Pretty sure now that the IR LEDs are either not functioning, or just aren't very good.
Here is the image comparison.