Nest Hello Doorbell cuts out when button is pressed

[DarkGhost18]

I've had my Nest Hello Doorbell since 2018, it worked perfectly and without issue until recently. Now everytime someone presses the button, it cuts out mid ring in the device, and loses power. The camera stops working until maybe 30 seconds later. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to resolve this issue?

[Jason88]

This is starting to sound more and more like a sh!tty software issue

My problem definitely started way before the xmas chime for sure, don't recall when I started noticing it (if before or after the Halloween tones)

[axlahn]

It's not the firmware.  If you're having the exact same issue as most everyone on this thread, it's 100% the LiPo battery going bad.  

[axlahn]

Not a software issue...it's the battery.  100%.  No amount of firmware updates will change the fact that LiPo batteries are physically limited to roughly a 2 year lifespan.  I don't know how much of this thread you've read, but I did change my battery.  It's working perfectly now on the most recent firmware.

[Tim780]

Can you remind us again on the battery type, and the how-to change it. 

[axlahn]

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/board-id/Cameras/message-id/12894/...

[mmarkm315]

How are people buying brand new cameras and having issues with the battery then? And everyone all of a sudden? 

[axlahn]

Nobody with a new doorbell is having this issue. The one guy who did actually had an issue with his Indoor chime. He replaced the chime and all is fine. 

[Jason88]

If that's the case sounds like a sh!tty investment. They don't expect us to replace the battery (and certainly didn't make it easy), so $200 for a doorbell camera for 2 years

Curious if other brands have this issue or at least make their batteries last longer and easily replaceable

[axlahn]

As of now, all wired doorbells that work with an indoor mechanical chime will have this issue eventually.  These include:

- Nest Doorbell (Wired) - no wireless indoor chime option
- Ring Pro  - can bypass issue with their wireless indoor chime
- Ring Pro 2 - can bypass issue with their wireless indoor chime
- Arlo Chime (Wired) - can bypass issue with their wireless indoor chime

The first three of these can also bypass the issue by using a Google Mini or other Google Smart Speaker in the case of a Nest Doorbell or with an Amazon Echo device with the Ring Pro's.  I'm not too sure if you can setup the Arlo as a doorbell in Google Home or Amazon Alexa.  If it's possible, then you can use a smart speaker as a chime.  If not, you need to get Arlo's wireless chime.

Ring's other doorbells are not hardwired to an indoor chime but do come with replaceable rechargeable batteries.

Blink Doorbell can be hardwired to a chime and it uses replaceable but disposable lithium batteries.  Sadly, it's a crappy doorbell but the price supports it's limited feature set.  Among one of the weakest features is the limited vertical FOV.  You can't see packages left too close to the doorbell which is something I love about the Nest Doorbell and the Ring Pro 2.

I'm not too familiar with other brands like Eufy and Wyze but I think one of the Eufy doorbells has a replaceable rechargeable battery that supposedly works with an indoor chime and/or a wireless chime that they sell.  But integration with Google Home or Alexa / Echo could be poor.  Also the Eufy uses local storage which maybe a good thing or could also be a bigger headache.

[Jason88]

This problem has nothing to do with the chime.

I have nest hello with no chime. Alerts use phone app and google home minis

The fact some people were able to "fix" their issue by removing their chime makes it more suspicious to be a software bug. Could still be battery, but I have the problem and have never had a chime, and I checked out my transformer with a multimeter

[axlahn]

It sounds like your situation is different from what most people in this thread are describing.  You need to read through the thread to understand what's going on and why turning off the indoor chime  keeps the doorbell running.  In the Nest App, is the "Indoor Chime" setting in the OFF position?  If it's in the ON position and you're not running a hard wired chime, you'll run into the same issue everyone else is having where the doorbell reboots itself (bad battery).  If that setting is in the OFF position and your doorbell is rebooting and/or you're not getting alerts on your phone, then you have a different issue from what's being discussed in this thread.  

Again, it's 100% the battery if you're having the issues that are being discussed in this thread.

[Jason88]

mmm...will dbl check the app settings. I didn't think it would have made a diff if the app setting was on/off since I have nothing connected so didn't bother to verify that part

[Joshwabrett]

We have the issue with ours wired. After turning the indoor chime off it works fine. I’m no longer convinced it’s the battery because I went through the trouble of purchasing a brand new one and set it up, and the same issue happened with it. Toggled indoor chime off and it worked fine. So I boxed it back up and returned it. Some batteries may be weak or degraded, replacing them may help some, but I don’t think it’s fixing the issue entirely.  

My parents do not have theirs wired. Their indoor chime setting was set to on and they had the issue. Turned it off and it’s working fine now. 

I really believe it’s a simple software issue and HOPE that google is working in the background to come up with a solution. 

[axlahn]

Don't hold your breath.  If this was really a firmware issue, we'd see more than the 2-300 posts that are here so far.  Google Nest also would have issued a statement since that's problem they can remedy easily.  Someone else here also purchased a new doorbell and had the same issues.  But then he changed out his indoor chime and things worked fine.  There could a few other culprits in your situation...BUT, if you have a doorbell that's 1.5+ years old and having these cutout reboot issues, you're battery is going bad. No question.  It's physics.

It'd be nice if Google would just officially acknowledge the issue.  Ring for their part, did provide their users with their wireless chime for a while, but I think they stopped doing that.

[EricO88]

Any tech bloggers on here? Let's get some tech news coverage over this issue. Imagine the amount of people not researching this issue and going out to buy new google doorbell cameras. 

[pjniez]

Here's one article reporting this issue:
https://piunikaweb.com/2021/12/09/nest-hello-doorbell-reboots-or-goes-offline-when-button-is-pressed...

[pjniez]

We recently noticed having this problem with the Nest Hello doorbell that was purchased in late November 2019 and installed in December 2019.  Every time the doorbell is rung with the chimes turned on in the Nest app, the video shuts off for about 30 seconds.  This problem defeats the primary purpose of this video doorbell of seeing who's at the door before answering it!  Turning off the chime in the Nest app does seem to be a workaround for this issue.  But this is not a long term solution and this needs to be addressed by Google/Nest!

[Seabass]

Same issue here as of today. Same software as mentioned above. I gave the more powerful transformer as well. I think it’s a software issue

[Seabass]

Also it won’t send a notification when someone rings the doorbell. I turn off the chime in the app and it sends the notification and we can only hear it through the Google homes. Another odd thing is that when I have the chime on in the app and you ring the doorbell it rings the chime very weak Inside, no ring sound outside, and loses connection. When I turn off the chime it plays the theme we selected outside and inside and sends the notification. I have an entire home with multiple nest products and I am very dissatisfied with this issue 

[DougHeffernin]

Same issue! Extremely frustrating that it has a secret internal battery no one told us about and isn’t even mentioned anywhere…since any idiot knows that rechargeable batteries will eventually go bad guaranteed! Nest needs to be issuing a recall and this is a major oversight to not explain this. These are expensive and being hardwired are expected to last virtually forever…not just a couple years or so. Good thing my buddy is a high profile lawyer and he will resolve this since message boards won’t! Major payday here.

[HLGBellyHop94]

Don't forget about me Doug  when that payday comes in lol.

Im very frustrated about that too! That is the reason I got it was because it's hardwired with no battery. Hand no idea it had an internal battery because it wasn't listed in the specs. 

[sockpuppetsami]

Definitely seems like solid grounds for a class action lawsuit.

[axlahn]

I read on a reddit post somewhere where some users of the Ring Pro doorbells had the same thought.  Someone pointed out that the terms of use that you agree to when installing the doorbell states arbitration.  I wouldn't be surprised if all of us agreed to something similar with the Nest Doorbell.  I'm not sure how that would affect class action suits, but just thought I'd toss in that bit of info.  

[Jason88]

Classic evil mega corp move. By you using our product, you agree we own your soul and you can't seek any meaningful remediation to any problem that may arise from our evil schemes

P.S. this before you installed or been given any reasonable chance to inspect or review what you are getting yourself into

SMFH

[Cekemmis]

I agree. I bought the wired version to forego any of the issues I might experience from batteries. Now I know what to expect of my doorbells. 😑

Let’s hope those of us with thermostats don’t start having issues with those too. 

[GoogleRuinsNest]

I knew this day was coming when Google bought Nest and started getting their grubby little hands on an otherwise mostly functional app. I have refused to migrate my account to Google and continue to use the Nest legacy app. It appears that Google now has a "new generation" of devices that is attempting to phase out any old nest products. They now also require you to use Google Home for these devices, which is a terrible app I might add. The legacy Nest app is far better. I have a feeling that product support for any and all Nest products, including legacy app users and subscribers, will be coming to a complete end soon. We already see it now with the "support" we are getting here.  

After reading through this thread, it seems obvious that a firmware update broke the Nest Hello, since users are experiencing this problem with varying device purchase dates, yet this issue just now began. This is likely yet another step in Google's plan of planned obsolescence. If this is the case, I will not be buying any more Google products, period. It will be Ubiquiti from me from that point forward.  I just have to pray that they don't get bought out by yet another giant mega corporation like Nest did. Shame on the owners of Nest for selling out to google.

[rydordi]

Totally agree with this one. If they don't fix it in next firmware update, then this is planned to get us to get the new battery version of the doorbell. 

[RobertNathan]

A doorbell without a door chime is simply not a doorbell IMHO. So I broke down and bought a battery operated google doorbell (newest version) just to try out and eliminate the theory of getting a new transformer. Hook it up, attached the existing doorbell wires to it and boom the doorbell and chime works like a charm. SO definitely something with the old internal battery with the NEST doorbell. Hopefully this clarifies certain things and it was good timing that the battery operated google doorbell was on sale. Thought of going to a new platform but too much ecosystem invested in this **bleep** thing!

[yukoncornelius]

Want to sell your old one?

[Matthjx]

I have invested a lot of money as well but the poor performance of the doorbell and the non-working home/away assist due to poor integration of Google and Nest means they will never get another penny from me.  Arlo all the way but just hope it is more reliable than Google’s garbage products and poor service. 

[ASUDevil]

I have also had mine since 2018, and suddenly mine is doing exactly what you described. I pulled it off the wall and did a factory reset (held the front button and the reset on the back for more than 10 seconds) and, after a dozen tries, was able to get it reconnected to the wifi. However, even after the reset, it is still doing the same thing - cuts out and loses power anytime someone presses the button. Has anyone figured out a real solution? I'm not sure I'm patient enough to wait for magic.

[GoogleRuinsNest]

I'll give it a while with the chime turned off, but I'll eventually replace the battery I guess. Doesn't look too hard to do. 

[JimBob]

Replaced my unit with a new one (from my wife).  (Unplugged the old, added the new). No issues with the new one, confirming nothing wrong with the house side.  This is definitely a problem with the unit, and likely the battery.  Such a disappointment and I will now 

be shopping for another solution for when the new unit battery dies.  It will not be Google.

[Mdice11]

I spent 2 hours chatting with tech support (front line and a senior director) doing various troubleshooting steps. In the end they acknowledged that their hardware is faulty. However my warranty has expired so their only resolution was to recommend me purchase a new unit. They would not acknowledge this thread, nor the widespread nature of this. They would not acknowledge that the battery could be the source of the problem. Extremely frustrating. Using the Google smart speakers for announcements is a work around but the messaging is obnoxious I'd you are working from home!

[axlahn]

I went through the same long process initially.  I did, however, get the tech to acknowledge that the battery could be the culprit, but she wouldn't give me a 100% confirmation.  Changing the battery worked for me so hopefully I'll get another 2-3 years out of the doorbell, at which point I'd be okay with considering it EOL.  But they really should have designed the doorbell with an easily replaceable battery.

[Jaweeks]

Sounds like this all started happening in the later months of 2021 whether people installed their nest in 2018, 2019 or later. That tells me this issue is due to an update Google sent out that messed up our doorbells. You guys need to fix it with a patch. This is ridiculous. Wish I could say Google was a responsible company but that's laughable. Wyze doorbell is about to join my growing list of Wyze home products.  

[axlahn]

Again, I keep repeating this....it's not the firmware.  It's the battery.  No amount of software updates will make a weakening battery better.  LiPo batteries last 2-3 years on average.  It's either bad product design or bad intention = planned obsolescence.  

[tkjcommunity]

You may both be right. I think it is software or firmware because I am having a similar issue with a brand new nest doorbell battery. The difference is that the doorbell doesn't actually turn off (but it doesn't switch to battery for a long period of time for no reason, so it needlessly runs the battery down).

[axlahn]

Your issue sounds unrelated to the main problem being described here.  What do you mean 
"it doesn't switch to battery for a long time"?  Do you mean it doesn't go back to wired power?  How do  you know it's running on wired vs battery?  Let me know the exact scenario and maybe I can help.

[tkjcommunity]

Normally when I look at the doorbell battery settings in the Home app, it shows the same as my wired floodlight cameras: an infinity symbol.

 When the doorbell is pressed, the Infinity symbol is replaced by a battery with a question mark and then moments later with the time left on the rechargable battery. The doorbell will continue to run off of the battery instead of the wired power until I manually use the app to look through the camera. After looking through the camera, the doorbell will shortly switch back to "infinite" power (but not before draining the rechargable battery considerably!)