Nest Hello (1st Gen) crashing/turning off when bell is pressed

[Chris_Cope]

Hi, my Nest Hello has always been a bit unreliable (3 years old now) and to be fair that may be down to the logistics at my house. It is on a gatepost at the bottom of the drive (gated property) which is roughly 12m away from the nearest Google Wifi puck. I have a mains power outlet at the gate which I have upgraded to be a Wifi Extender power outlet, and this seems to have sorted the Wifi range issues (now it's a very strong connection at the gate, min 70MB/s according to speedtest.net. The other challenge is that the indoor chime is also inside the house, and there is a long run of doorbell cable between the gate and the chime. I originally had the power and chime "trigger" thing at the chime, as recommended in the instructions, but I had endless problems with this, and decided to move the power and trigger out to the gatepost (inside the power outlet box), with a short run to the doorbell but now a long run to the chime.

This worked for a while, maybe 6 months, but it recently started dying if someone rang the bell. The power supply is a BG 8AV putting out a fairly steady 14V. When someone rings the bell, I get the initial notification on the phone and the "ding-dong" chime goes "ding" but not "dong", and begins to buzz. The stream then cuts and it will show the doorbell as being offline until I bring it into the house and power it up using the USB connection (at least, I haven't been able to revive it any other way so far), and then I can re-install it and it will work fine as a camera until the next ring. When I power-down initially (throw the breaker for the gate), I get the missing "dong" from the chime.

Does this sound like a problem with the Nest Hello, the chime trigger or maybe a problem of having long wiring runs?

Thanks

[MplsCustomer]

@Chris_Cope 

The internal battery on your Google Nest Hello Doorbell may have failed, as it has for so many of us after a year or two. The chief symptom is that the doorbell goes offline for a minute whenever the doorbell is pressed.

There is a workaround. If you turn off the "Indoor chime" option, your indoor doorbell chime no longer rings, but your doorbell stays online. You can turn on the "Visitor announcements" option (https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7672451) and rely instead on visitor announcements on your Nest Hub or Nest Mini or other Nest speaker. That's what we've done on all three of our Nest Hellos, because Google Nest says they "cannot" replace such doorbells if they're past the 1-year warranty.

This locked thread on the subject has over 1,000 posts:

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/Nest-Hello-Doorbell-cuts-out-when-butto...

Another possibility is that you may need to upgrade to a 16V 30VA transformer, like so many of us have done.

[Chris_Cope]

Thank you for the response. You may well be right there. I'll try a 30AV transformer but if that still doesn't work then I guess I'll be replacing the doorbell at my own cost.

[Lance_L]

Hi Chris_Cope,

Thanks for posting in our Community. I’m sorry to hear your Nest Hello isn’t working properly. Let’s check it out.

I’d like to dig deeper into this; can you take clear photos of the following?
 

• A photo of the wiring of the chime
• A photo of the wiring of the transformer, if it’s easily accessible
• A photo of the wiring of the chime connector

Let’s try the steps below:

• Make sure that you use the chime connector that came with your doorbell.
• Confirm that there aren’t any loose or exposed wires that could touch another wire or the doorbell wall plate.
• Verify that all wire connections are tight, secure, and free from corrosion or paint.
• Since you have a mechanical chime, ensure the Chime Duration is OFF.
• If the issue persists, reseat all wires and ensure the connections are tight and secure.

Keep me posted.

I appreciate your help, MplsCustomer.

Best,

Lance

[Lance_L]

Hello Chris_Cope,

I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Have you had the chance to try the suggestion above? If yes, how is it?

Regards,

Lance