Nest Doorbell wired Gen 2 Home Away Assist iOs app

[tahyde]

Is there home/away assist in the iOS google home app? I can’t set up a routine to have my Nest Doorbell wired Gen 2 to automatically turn on it’s camera when I leave the house. I have other Nest products (thermostats and cameras) that utilize the Nest app and will automatically turn on when the Nest app detects my phone’s location is away. However, since the Nest Doorbell wired Gen 2 isn’t compatible with the Nest app and therefore must use the Google Home app, I would like to set up a routine for Google Home to turn on my doorbell’s camera when it detects my phone is away. The Nest app also uses both my and my wife’s phones to detect home/away but the Presence Sensing in the google home app seems to only allow one phone. If this is true, the Nest app is superior in that regard.

I don’t see the home/away assist routine option on the iOS google home app. Every article I read seems to indicate it may only be on the android app. I can set up specific time routines but that’s about it. I also wish the google home app would have full functionality for my “grandfathered” nest products so I didn’t have to use two apps for the family of products. 

ideally I could tell Google Home to use my and my wife’s phone location to determine home/away and then I could set up a routine to tell all my products to turn on etc when that status is away. Is that not possible currently?

[Brad]

Hi there, 

Sorry to hear you're experiencing this, as I can imagine it has been an inconvenience. I would love to look into this further for you. I am afraid that routines do not work with the Google Home app. You can look into the Schedule feature, but It does not quite work the way routines did in the Nest app. 

Best regards, 
Brad

[EmersonB]

Hi everyone,

@tahyde I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

I appreciate the help, Brad.

Best,
Emerson

[tahyde]

Hi Emerson - thanks for the reply. Yeah unless you have any other info on setting up a routine to turn on the doorbell camera whenever my status goes to away, I think the only thing I can do is wait and hope it’s a feature in a future update to the Google Home app. Thanks!

[janthadeus]

Hi there,

Oops! My bad. I’m sorry for the confusion. You can definitely set up Home & Away Routines in the Google Home app whenever you’re away keeping your doorbell on.

Here’s how:

1. Open the Google Home app > tap Set up Home & Away Routines.
2. Tap Home or Away.
3. Select the devices and settings you want the Routines to adjust.
4. (Optional) Select the devices you want to use to determine if someone's home.
5. (Optional) Set up your phone's location to be used for presence sensing.
   • You'll need to enter your home address and confirm it by placing a pin on a map.

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,

JT

[tahyde]

Hi the problem that I was originally having is that I don’t see any option for “set up home & away routines” in the iOS version of the google home app. When I open the app I don’t have that option anywhere. Am I just not seeing it?

[tahyde · Accepted solution]

Ok I did some digging and I found the answer. The option to set up home and away routines was missing because I already had a another household routine setup. By deleting all of my household routines and closing out of the app and opening it again, the option for setting up home away routines popped up. The answer is described here: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Apps-Account/Home-and-Away-routines-missing/m-p/311014

to quote:

I have solved this due to what I believe is a bug in their system. I had a household routine already before setting up my device which had home/away functionality. This must have blocked it from recognising that I need to set it up, or maybe it considers any amount of household routines to assume that home/away is already set up. 

By deleting all of my household routines, I then got the prompt to set up Home/Away. Hope this helps someone.

[janthadeus]

Hey there,

Happy to hear that! I appreciate the gesture. It looks like we can consider this one complete, so I will be locking this in 24 hours if we won't hear back from you again. Feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.

Best,

JT

[janthadeus]

Hey tahyde,

Just checking in to make sure that you've seen our responses. Please let me know if you have other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours if I won't hear back from you again. Feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.
 

Thanks for the help, Brad and Emerson.

Best,

JT

[tahyde]

Hi yes it sounds like this feature doesn’t exist yet for the doorbell. Hopefully in the future the google home app will provide an option to set up an auto home/away so that I don’t have to manually turn the camera on every time I leave the house (yes I know I could leave the camera on 24/7 but I’d rather it only be on when I’m away and overnight. I was able to set up an over of it routine to have the camera come on, so that’s good. I just wish the home/away scenario was an option).