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Nest doorbell battery late recording

Jelmer_
Community Member

The google nest battery start recording very late.

My sensitivity on events/video is set on High, I'm able to test with or without wire (it doesn't matter).

 

When I view the video in the history, the person is seen while he or she is walking back the same way. Meanwhile all I got is a recording of their back. I have 1 big zone.
And to be fair, sometimes it does do a right job recording the person upfront., but the failure rate is way to high right now.

24 REPLIES 24

mdr2
Community Member

I have the exact same problem.  For the life of me I don't understand why a brand new design in 2021 doesn't have a 2-3 second look-ahead buffer where it always has 2-3 seconds of video before the 'trigger' event.  Another very popular competitor to nest has this feature.  

Kroezer95
Community Member

Agreed…I always seem to see the person walking away.  Disappointing…

russellg99
Community Member

I've had several phone calls and email exchanges with support about this exact issue, and finally got a useful response from a support agent yesterday:

"I received feedback from our Engineering team that there are many Battery Cameras that are experiencing this issue and we are currently working on the fix. They also provided additional troubleshooting steps that may or may not work while fixing this. Here are the troubleshooting steps that you may try:"

  1. Open the Google Home app.
  2. On the home screen, select the camera that you want to change the settings.
  3. At the top right, tap Settings.
  4. Select Video
  5. Select Wake-up sensitivity and change to High (Default - Medium).

Changing the sensitivity seems to have helped a bit, but I'm still seeing some recordings start when the person is right at my door, other recordings start when they're approaching from about 10 feet away, and very occasionally, a perfect recording that starts about five seconds before they enter the video frame out on the sidewalk. Changing the angle of the camera and removing objects in the foreground doesn't seem to have made a difference. I don't have any activity zones setup.

I believe this is an issue with the camera itself, NOT something related to the mobile app or the WiFi connection, as some agents told me, because:

  1. When I test it by walking up to the door, the light around the button doesn't start to flash (indicating that it's recording) until I'm almost standing at the door. When it works correctly, the light starts flashing when I'm far away.
  2. The point at which it starts recording changes even when nothing else is changing related to the camera angle, the stationary objects in the video, the lighting, or the camera settings. Repeated tests only a minute or two apart produce completely different results.
  3. The camera is capable of recording even when the WiFi connection is not working, and certainly it doesn't matter what version of the mobile app you have installed on your phone, or if it's installed at all.

The battery doorbell updates itself automatically - there is no manual update option - so hopefully we'll see a fix soon. If you go to Settings / Device Information, you can make note of the current version, which I'm seeing as 1.57.

Russell

mdr2
Community Member

This is still a big problem for me. I changed the sensitivity and it had minimal effect on fixing the problem.  Big big flaw for a product out of the starting gate in my opinion.  This needs to be addressed quickly.  (IE not 2022). 

gt34
Community Member

I have the same issue. Only seeing the second half of a person detection (person walking away from door after delivering a package. Sensitivity setting doesn't seem to help.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there, 

 

Wondering if you still needed assistance with this issue? Please let me know!

 

Best Regards,

Brad.

mdr2
Community Member

Hi Brad,  yes, hoping for  more assistance on this topic.  Has it been reported to the appropriate people that have the power to fix this?  Do they agree it is a problem and needs to be addressed quickly?

ARLO cams addressed this by introducing what they call "Foresight".  Here is how it works....

https://kb.arlo.com/000055572/Why-does-my-Arlo-camera-start-recording-video-before-the-trigger-event...

russellg99
Community Member

@mdr2 wrote:

ARLO cams addressed this by introducing what they call "Foresight".


Actually, the Nest Doorbell battery camera has that as well, and I've seen it on the rare occasion that the recording works correctly. When it does, I see the video start about 5 seconds before the person triggering the event even enters the frame.

Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

Russell

russellg99
Community Member

@Brad wrote:

Wondering if you still needed assistance with this issue? Please let me know!


Yes, this is an open case and engineering is supposedly aware of it. See my long post above, and please let us know if you have any additional info.

Thanks,
Russell

gt34
Community Member

I had someone come to my door this morning and I only got a recording of him ~4 feet from my door, placing an advertisement, and then leaving. Ideally, the recording would have started at the beginning of the walkway which is 30ft away and in direct line of site of the camera.

My doorbell is wired with wake-up sensitivity set to high.

russellg99
Community Member

@gt34 wrote:

My doorbell is wired with wake-up sensitivity set to high.


Interesting that yours is wired, because I thought this was an issue unique to the new battery doorbell. Or are you saying you have the battery doorbell but it's actually installed with wires?

mdr2
Community Member

Mine is wired and I have this problem.  I think the problem starts with the idea that the new wired doorbell (if it is in fact wired) does not get the 24/7 recording like the previous version.  However for the life of me I don't understand why Google has taken this feature away.

gt34
Community Member

I have the new battery Nest Doorbell, but I connected it to my existing wiring.

Kroezer95
Community Member

mine is hard-wired and I have the same issue

But is it the battery version of the doorbell, which can also be wired, or the previous one that requires a wired connection?

mdr2
Community Member

Hi Russellg99, we are talking about the new "battery" doorbell.    The older doorbell (which I have switched back to) has 24/7 recording with the Nest Aware subscription so this is not a problem.   

russellg99
Community Member

Right - I just wasn't sure which one Kroezer95 was using when he mentioned above that his was hard-wired.

Sorry, I have the new battery version as well

Jelmer_
Community Member

I'm wondering if this is the right place to report about these quirks, maybe the google issuetracker is a better place?

It appears that it's not intended for this type of bug report:

"Issue Tracker is a tool used internally at Google to track bugs and feature requests during product development."

"You cannot use this tool as a general place to submit feedback on Google products. Please refer to the documentation for individual products for instructions on providing feedback."

https://developers.google.com/issue-tracker

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks,

 

I see that this is an ever-growing issue. I do not have any updates to offer other than to thank you all for sharing your story, and feedback. Restart your devices, make sure the connection is strong, and please wait for an update on the issue. I will of course, collect all of this feedback and send it forward. Hopefully that will help get some answers on the matter.

 

Best Regards,

Brad. 

Jelmer_
Community Member

Thanks for forwarding it Brad.

Restarting the doorbell is not possible without resetting it to factory default, you have to physically remove the device to hold the reset button. If you want to change Wi-Fi network settings, same procedure, for a google device, that's disapointing. With for example a chromecast, you can do whatever you want from google home, restart, reset, change network settings, a chromecast costs 40 dollar. A google doorbell battery costs you 200 dollar, and to get 30d history of the half recordings, you have to pay an extra monthly fee. The implementation of this doorbell in Google home is far from finished, let's hope that google recognizes this.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, Jelmer_.

 

You should be able to remove the Doorbell off of the backplate and that should be good enough to get it factory reset. But when it comes to the delayed recording, it could be due to wifi issues that may not have to deal with the device. But if you can restart and factory reset to start over, that would be a good option.

 

Best Regards,

Brad

Jelmer_
Community Member

Hi Brad, it is a battery version we are talking about here, it can easily record without wifi due to local storage and even power. Not unending ofcourse, but what you say does not apply to this battery operated model.

 

When your battery-powered camera or doorbell reconnects

  • Locally stored video is uploaded to the cloud and removed from your camera’s internal memory.
  • The app will send a push notification when your camera’s back online.
  • Recorded events that you missed will appear in the Home app’s Feed.

source:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9242083?hl=en