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Nest doorbell not charging

DannyV
Community Member

I have just installed the camera doorbell, everything seems to be working great, I have wired the doorbell up but seems to not be charging, the bell does chime inside to my original chime inside when the button is pressed. Do I need to add the additional part to have the charge happen or does it just charge slowly?

 

Any help will be greatly appreciated, parts that are needed would be great to have as well. 

 

Thank you

2 Recommended AnswerS

Not sure if this helps but, if your wired correctly. I have been using mine for two months now and it still shows the same power level. No issues 

View Recommended Answer in original post

Hello, so I just used the existing wires. I had an issue at first with it making the original equipment indoor chime to ring. I was able to find a YouTube video where a little kid explains how to make the chime work by adjusting the settings on the app. Hopefully that helps. One thing I will say is that if the power goes down below 50% you probably don't have enough voltage going to the device.  Mine has yet to show a charge over 85% but once you adjust the settings the doorbell will show that it is wired now.

View Recommended Answer in original post

17 REPLIES 17

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there, 

 

I apologize for my late response and thank you for all of your patience while waiting for a reply. I can definitely understand how frustrating your situation must be, but I wanted to make sure that your issue was addressed. Do you still need help with this issue? I know that there's been a delay in response since you posted.

 

Please let me know if you need further assistance. 

Best Regards, 

Brad.

NutCase
Community Member

Hi 
I have installed the new Google battery doorbell and wired it into an 18v supply https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Supply-Doorbell-AIEVE-Adapter/dp/B0815SFYP4/ref=asc_df_B0815SFYP4/?ta...
 But its not charging, I read somewhere that the battery will discharge to 75% and remain there to protect the battery. So far my battery is discharged to 54%.

I installed the device in 'Wired' mode and at first looking at the battery charge status in the Google Home App showed the infinity sign and i thought all was good until I noticed the battery discharge past 70% in the HomeKit app.

Anyone have any advice on this please?

 

Many thanks

D

NutCase
Community Member

Edit :: Update

Checked the battery status and it’s now changed back to the infinity symbol with the words ‘plugged in’     No percentage though.

looking at the HomeKit app, the doorbell sensor is showing the battery charge at 52% and NOT charging   

I am using a Starling bridge to present my Nest Protects, thermostat and now doorbell so who knows if the HomeKit app is reporting the correct information??

NutCase
Community Member

Edit :: Update

Battery is still discharging, now in the mid 40's and no sign of charging.  Does anyone have any advice on this please? Perhaps a link to another thread that answers the question one way or another?

I feel I may have a faulty unit here as the battery SOC is continually reducing. Could it be that the the battery reduces to a finite level or just discharges completely? 
If that's the case - when there's a power outage the doorbell goes offline and no backup.

I have the Doorbell set to max res and max record - perhaps I should be using battery saver - but then this defeats the object of having it plugged in?
Is there anyway to check the battery health from within the App  as I  can only see the infinity symbol and no mention of battery status ?
As mentioned before it's the Home App that is reporting the battery percentage - so who knows! 
Hi @Brad / anyone can you shed any light on this 

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

@NutCase

 

It sounds like you do not have the Nest Hello Doorbell (bbattery) installed correctly as a wired unit. I would go through the installation process again, and make sure it was done correctly. The battery should not be lowering if it was installed correctly as a wired device. Checkout the installation guide here.

 

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Best Regards,

Brad. 

NutCase
Community Member

Hi Brad

Update for you, I have re-installed the doorbell in wired mode and I can see the infinity symbol in the battery section of the app as before. 

in the HomeKit app I am see the battery is down to 41% (not sure if this reporting is inaccurate as it does not natively support the doorbell.  

There’s no way to monitor the battery from the Google app - or is there?

can you advise?

NutCase
Community Member

Update

 

the doorbell is working fine although the home app is still reporting the battery percentage reducing and not charging.  

looking at the Google home app this shows the doorbell as plugged in.  

so I guess only time will tell…

mitr
Community Member

I am having the exact same issues as you @NutCase I have mine wired to a 24VAC 40VA transformer which is about as high power transformer as you can get and is supported by this and many doorbells and yet the battery still continues to drain instead of staying steady or charge.  I tried other transformers as well which were slightly lower in power output and they all do the same thing.  I am not sure that it does actually charge over the wire (I was told by support that it only charges via USB-C) but it should at least maintain battery level, which is what it states on their website then again that's sort of contradictory as that would mean it would be technically charging but trickle charging to "maintain" battery level while not enough power to actually charge the battery up.

 

Support is sending me a replacement doorbell but I've come across a few threads here that have the same information that many people are reporting this same issue so i don't suspect my replacement doorbell will fix the issue.

 

I have noticed mine used to have the infinity symbol but then after a while for some reason that goes away, does anyone know why or what metric triggers that?  At first after support told me to reset it it said plugged in, no infinite symbol or battery status under the battery in the devices settings in the google home app but after a few minutes i got the infinite symbol and a few min later that went away and i got battery percentage numbers yet it still says plugged in above that info and yet monitoring it the battery level daily it still decreases. 

 

I also have mine linked in a starling home hub which is integrated into homekit and also show no for charging status in the apple home app, again as above i don't think its actively charging, or it doesn't appear to be anyway as the battery continues to drain, at the same time i don't know if technically google would support any types of questions relating to homekit and the starling home hub as i don't think that is technically supported, its essentially homebridge which is a way to get non native homekit devices working in homekit (which is sort of hacky but it does work relatively well but i wouldnt count on support for that kind of thing) , but never the less the issues are presented the same in the google home app or the apple home app as not charging and the battery does indeed continue to drain.

 

i will update this once i get my replacement and see if it maintains a charge or at least maintains 75% battery as its stated it would do on the support site for the doorbell (battery) when plugged in.  I suspect it will not and i haven't come across anyone who's had an answer or success with having the doorbell (battery) charge while wired.  Not sure what to do if all fails other than potentially turning down settings to essentially save battery (even though its wired). Which IMO defeats the purpose, why even have a wired option on the battery version of the doorbell then if it wont charge over a wire or just barely draws enough power to trickle charge it to maintain battery level, which in a way would make sense, if your usage is heavy that would use more power than is being received to maintain battery level at trickle which would decrease the battery.  Kind of like using an ipad with a 5w charger instead of a 12w which comes with it and playing a game vs just sitting at the homescreen.  At the homescreen you arent using much power so that ipad might be able to hold a charge but the minute you do more intensive work it drains the battery and the incoming power isnt enough to maintain power so it drains, this is my theory on what's happening here with the google doorbell (battery) but i don't have any confirmation and if this is the case then this should be stated and IMO if true would be a terrible design flaw by google.

Max87
Community Member

Same issue here, please keep us posted!

mitr
Community Member

Update:

I took the doorbell off to charge it Friday night and low and behold it does say charging in the apple home app when you have it plugged in via USB C to charge so we know for a fact it is not charging via the house doorbell wire.  (mines connected to a 24VAC 40VA transformer) I charged it to 100% (took about 4-5hrs on a high power USB-C charger) reinstalled the doorbell and i once again have the infinite symbol. It seems the infinite symbol is just shown when your battery is above 75%.  As i couldn't check battery level when i had the infinite symbol i decided to go into the apple home app, here it did state its battery level and that it was not charging and indeed its battery level was dropping throughout the day, not a huge amount but enough that i know the battery wouldn't last another week at the discharge rate I'm seeing.

Monday morning as I'm writing this i decide to go into the google home app again to check the battery level,  to my surprise no more infinite symbol and now i have a battery percentage (4 Days, 66 percent, still says plugged in).  This is clearly not good news.

 

So what I've gathered is wiring this doorbell does not charge the battery, the doorbell runs off the battery power regardless, i think the only thing the wire does is trickle charge the battery to keep the battery at a high enough charge that you need to recharge it (at least my observations so far) However having said that if your doorbell is busy enough it will draw more power than is being provided by the wire so it will drain. My next theory is HomeKit,  there's a reason there aren't many "battery" powered HomeKit cameras directly without a hub on the market and its because of how HomeKit works and the amount of times it has the device check in for its status.  My theory is since my doorbell is integrated into HomeKit via the starling home hub that HomeKit is poling the camera fairly often and this is causing higher than normal usage, which comes back around to the above theory that the doorbell runs off battery normally and that the wire is just for trickle charging.  I have activity zones set and don't have that much of an active doorbell so the battery percentage shouldn't be dropping as fast as it seems to be so clearly that must be HomeKit .  I have not done any testing with the doorbell not linked to HomeKit .

 

One google support member did state that even if the battery runs out that the camera should still work with it wired regardless. Well i did test this theory last week and when it gets down to such low percentages like 4% the camera wont turn on, in my opinion its like the wire isn't doing jack.

 

I will update again once i have my replacement but i am in serious doubts that anything will be any different.  So far the wired option on this doorbell is absolutely worthless.  Anyone considering this doorbell that either has heavy traffic or wants to link it up to homekit via the starling home hub should seriously consider other options at this point unless we can get a solution to this problem.

 

Anyone from google support out there, what can we do about this? 

I am having exactly the same isssuee… very frustrating to see that this is a very common problem. Let us know how things go with the replacement. I bought it from a private person I might not have the option to get it replaced 

Not sure if this helps but, if your wired correctly. I have been using mine for two months now and it still shows the same power level. No issues 

Did you use any specific transformer? Or just connected to the existing wires. 

Hello, so I just used the existing wires. I had an issue at first with it making the original equipment indoor chime to ring. I was able to find a YouTube video where a little kid explains how to make the chime work by adjusting the settings on the app. Hopefully that helps. One thing I will say is that if the power goes down below 50% you probably don't have enough voltage going to the device.  Mine has yet to show a charge over 85% but once you adjust the settings the doorbell will show that it is wired now.

mitr
Community Member

I'm not so sure its a matter of being wired correctly, there's no positive and negative side of the power wires per say, they can be connected in any order.  The only thing that really matters is, is your power transformer from the house supplying the correct voltage and amperage that is required for the device to maintain a charge.  Since I am using the highest power transformer you can buy a 24VAC 40VA (~40 watts) this shouldn't be an issue and yet it is.  I did get my replacement today so ill connect it up and see what happens and let you all know of my updates.  In my opinion this issue is still not resolved.

CaraD
Community Member

I am expericing very similar issue and my post is here https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/Doorbell-not-charging-with-18v-power-su...

Curious if anyone has found a fix.

 

vansunday
Community Member

Same issue here, my doorbell does not charge via the doorbell wire.