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Nest doorbell & camera won’t link to wifi

Jordan02
Community Member

Good afternoon, 

 

I’ve recently switched from BT broadband to Virgin Media, and my Google nest thermostat, google nest mini and google nest hub all connected to the new broadband absolutely fine. My nest doorbell and nest outdoor/indoor cam just will not connect. 

I’ve scoured virgin media forums and spoken to technical support, split broadband frequencies so the 2.4ghz and 5ghz are separate, but they still won’t connect. 

I go through the full setup process and when it gets to the “connecting to a joining device” part, it then says “there was a problem”. 

I just cannot figure out any solution, and I’m obviously very unhappy having spent a lot of money on these devices! any help would be appreciated.

1 REPLY 1

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

@Jordan02 

I'm not sure why you split your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies into separate SSIDs; a Google Nest "home/structure" needs to be on the same SSID. We have a single SSID for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, and our mix of old and new cameras, doorbells, Nest Hubs, and Nest Mini are assigned to either frequency and all work fine.

The problem connecting to an "assisting device" or "joining device" is a long-standing Google Nest defect. It seems that when installing a new Google Nest device, Google Nest tries to get the SSID and password from an already-installed Google Nest device, supposedly to save you the trouble of having to enter them. The problem is that the process of connecting to the "joining device" or "assisting device" sometimes fails, for reasons not obvious.  It's often unclear which of your already-installed devices is considered the "joining device" or "assisting device". On one post recently, a Google Nest Community Specialist said the "assisting device" is the first Google Nest device you added to the Google Nest app or Google Home app (https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/Nest-Wired-Video-Doorbell-without-other...). Other customers theorize that a Nest thermostat is often the "assisting device".

Some customers have had success just turning off some or all of their already-installed Google Nest devices, so that the install process does not error out.

Others have tried creating a second temporary Google Nest "home/structure", installing their new devices there, then removed them from that temporary "home" and adding them to their regular "home" and deleting the temporary "home".