Night Vision Too Dark

[SuperTrollMan]

Hi All,

I've recently installed new Google Nest Cameras.

They had been running perfectly, however I noticed night vision on 1 of the camera's had deteriorated significantly.
I toggled the night vision from auto, to on, to off and back to auto.
Its definitely on when its on auto, but its considerably poorer than a week ago (a lot darker).
The camera's are mounted and wired with the genuine Google cable, so they haven't moved or changed any other factors.

When looking at the 2x 'battery' camera's I have, the other one was working perfectly fine.
I noticed the firmware had changed on the one having issues "nq-user 1.67 OPENMASTER 361459"
Whereas the working camera was running 1.65 of the software.

I started chatting to support about this, they had me restart the camera this afternoon, which didn't change the issue unfortunatley.

I then noticed the working camera started showing the same symptoms, upon checking the Home app, it has now been updated to 1.67 aswell.

The same shot 24 hours apart has significantly poorer night vision and the only common denominator I've been able to come up with is the 1.67 firmware having issues.

Is anyone else seeing this?

[24bics]

Hello Lance,

Cameras are new style Battery Outdoor equipped with the optional power cable. Android - Pixel 7 Pro. Issue  is over WiFi and mobile data. Camera connection is fine. There is no discoloration of the video, live or recorded. There is a flicker or flashing banded at the top and bottom when reviewing footage that mostly presents in night mode, less noticable in daytime. There isn't a glare problem.

I didn't have these issues until more recently. There was a noticeable degradation in picture quality earlier this year but a dramatic change happened that seemed to coincidence with the Home UI update. 

[Lance_L]

Hi everyone,

@24bics, thanks for the clarification. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience. Our teams are aware, and we're working on a fix.

We’ve duplicated your thread with the main one here. You’ll receive all updates on this issue on the main thread, and we recommend updating and checking this thread when needed.

Best,

Lance

[Adj]

It’s been two months since google was made aware of this issue, when is this getting resolved.

[Micha_123]

I think it's not worth to wait for an fix 

I have the doorbell, and had an nest aware subscrbtion, after one month waiting to fix it i had canceled the nest aware.

The reason is i have 7 other cameras around the house, but they are old and the ir leds are broken, so the i planed to replace them with the google ones, but if i see that google needs months and the problem are stil not fixed, and only can say they are aware of the problem. Sorry.  

I wil look for other brand's cameras cloud cameras. And take there an subscription for Cloud Recording. 

[Adj]

Is anyone now having issues with their cameras not recording anything between fought 11pm and 5am? This is a new pattern I am seeing with all 8 of my cameras. Settings are supposed to record people,  vehicles, animals, and motion they used to record at least motion and animals on several of them and now there is nothing between those times. 

[Jpasilla]

Yes I been having this same issue for months now. Google has had me reset the cameras and jump through hoops! Now they saying it’s a night vision issue however they will randomly pick up motion when it’s dark at 10pm-11pm. I also have a lot of glitches on my videos and extremely blurry images. This has been since the last software update. 

[Adj]

I have also experienced those issues with my cameras with the 1.67 software update but it nit recording for that time frame just started Sunday night. 

[Foxwolf6777]

We arr all seeing this and continue seeing in spite of nest "promising" to fix it asap. It's been months now and anyone who has ran an update with their new firmware has suffered from this issue. 

[Poog]

Just to update this very long thread I imagine everyone still has these same issues as my nest doorbell camera still flicks on and off in and out of night vision at dusk, and throughout the night every few seconds. 

I have also noticed a degradation of image quality others are mentioning too, very unfortunate as the camera is great at detection and facial recognition. If this seemingly simple image was fixed I would be getting more for my place.

[Benlau88]

I'm assuming there are still no fixed!! Definitely a big safety concern at night. Can't see anything where you have no light! 

[Jpasilla]

I agree! My issue is happening in a well lit area and porch light is always on! 

[RavenManiac]

The bigger problem is there hasn't been any status update from Google. That in and of itself is very disappointing. 

[Jasonoff]

This is brutal.  I have 8 cameras (2 newer Google Nest Cams) and my ancient DropCam has much better video quality than the 2 Google Nest cams.

[Jpasilla]

Same run around from Google!!! Take my cameras back to the 3rd party vendor! 3rd party vendors will not take their garbage cameras back after 30 days and Google knows this! 

[Mr_Doh]

Hmmm...just noticed this, crap night time video quality. I was deciding on what camera to get to replace this one when I finally found that Google has known about this problem for over two months now. So the floodlight cam that I paid about $400 for, including professional mounting, is now useless. And you can add in the "Nest Aware" cost to that. This is making me think hard about dumping this hardware, if Google's going to be releasing firmware that disables their products. One look at the night time feed with a face in it tells you that it's worthless.

I'm really left speechless by this, trusting Google has become a stupid thing to do...

[Bob223]

I was stuck with a few extra unopened cameras (flood, battery and wired) that I couldn't return.

Installed them today, and unfortunately the image quality is complete rubbish.

Compared to my 5 year old budget TP Link cameras, the image is blurry and flickery and not acceptable.

Google, DON'T BE EVIL.

[RoanYonks]

2 months later and still and issue.

[Mr_Doh]

Yep, moved on to eufy doorbell cam and floodlight cam (local storage, 2K video). 3 months broken (until quarterly update in September) is unacceptable to me. If Google had fixed the floodlight cam when it knew it was broken, I'd be okay with that.

[Jpasilla]

Well this a great article! I’m glad this is being shared on all platforms! Just maybe people will stop by this garbage from Google! https://9to5google.com/2023/08/18/google-nest-camera-software-two-years/

[Jpasilla]

 My cameras are almost completely dormant! This camera hasn’t recorded any events since 1:43 pm yesterday. It’s not recording in daylight or night now! So frustrating!!! This live is from 11:20 am today. 

[BoomBoomBrucey]

I have only just purchased a Doorbell (battery) last Thursday and out of the box I've been having issues like stuttering recordings, playback pausing and white flashes of the entire image during a recorded event. 

The live feed however, perfect. And from what I can tell, the night vision recordings are all fine too. I have just spoken to support and they said it was caused by the 1.67 firmware and engineers are working on a fix. 

As a new Doorbell user this is very disappointing, I paid £140 to stay in the Google ecosystem, but I could have gotten a 2nd Gen Ring for £45... kinda wishing I had right now. I hope we all get this fix soon, I'm already annoyed after only a few days so I feel for you guys that had a perfectly working product only to have it bork up in the latest update.

[RavenManiac]

I hear you. Unfortunately, we're all in the same boat. When Google released its new line of cameras a few years ago, I jumped all in so I have 5 exterior cameras that are affected. It's been reported that new firmware will be available in September. Hopefully, that'll happen.

[Mbrad1471-]

This problem just happened to me. Very frustrating because it allowed us to monitor our little ones up until recently. 
Based on what I’m reading here and how Google has clearly just stopped responding to the increasingly frustrated users, I’m thinking the best solution is just to throw out these cameras and buy replacements. 
any recommendations on alternatives?

[Mr_Doh]

Liking the eufy dual 2K cam battery operated doorbell with the Homebase 3, and the eufy floodlight cam 2K (not the Pro). Good cameras, and local storage options. There's lots of other products out there, but these are working well for me.

[NetManinTN]

Careful with Eufy. I just tried out a set of s330s and the motion detection is atrocious with numerous instances where I could walk all the way up to the camera and it never detected me and this happened with multiple cameras. Their app for iOS is also kind of bad from a video Playback standpoint with constant video and audio pauses and cut outs. Very annoying and does not happen on the android app. But again the most concerning thing here is the security issue with motion detection

[Mr_Doh]

Thanks for the warning, sounds like the S330's could be a problem. No problems here with the floodlight cam 2K (E221), or the battery-operated doorbell dual cam 2K or the Homebase 3. No problems with motion detection, no problems with the iOS app or playback on my iPhone. Sorry that you're having problems, though. These things can happen with any vendor for sure. Don't want to push eufy, like I said, lots of products to select from out there.

[Jpasilla]

I reported my issue 4+ months ago and Google could careless! They stopped responding and no further updates anywhere! 

[Gogzy79]

My cameras have developed the same issues and was on here hoping to find a solution but looks like google aren’t interested. 
One camera has started flicking between night vision and daytime vision every few seconds during the night. Nothing has changed outside to reflect more light etc, and the camera has not been moved. The other 2 cameras are so dark on night vision compared to how they used to be they are pretty much useless. 
Hooefully google will fix this issue soon or I’ll be claiming a refund. 

[Jpasilla]

Unfortunately Google doesn’t care!!

[Micha_123]

It's crazy, that an issue like this take months to fix it. Every one with that issue had asked to roll back the 1.67 FW to 1.65 until it's fixed. But no, let the people's simply months long with that broken video Quality without possibility rolling back the FW. How crazy is that?

[gogzy1979]

Yeah, I agree. After talking with google technical help for several days all they have done is say it’s my fault as it’s infrared interference. The camera was fine before the upgrade and nothing in the street has changed such as lighting or the position of the camera. 12 months hassle free u til the upgrade and now that’s my fault according to google. All cameras now being returned as faulty to the store they were purchased from and I’ve not got the hassle of setting up alternatives but don’t see the point in having security cameras that don’t work or when the manufacturer isn’t interested in helping its customers. 

[diggyphil]

I just purchased an entire Arlo system (security and cameras).  I'm not gaining any functionality by doing so, but I'm going to a system that hopefully won't causes as many issues as Google/Nest has over the years - not to mention the abominable support provided for the Home devices.  Due to this particular issue, the blatant lack of care/consideration for what consumers have experienced as a result of this (for 3+ months so far), that Nest Secure is going away next April, and that they just raised the price on the Nest Aware subscription, I'm removing everything Nest in my house outside of the hubs/speakers (because Siri sucks).  I'm now even on the fence about switching away from my Pixel phone to maybe a Sony Xperia smaller phone.  I'm no longer giving my vote of confidence to Google, and I'm no longer blindly giving them anymore money.  I urge more people to follow suit.  They get away with everything they've done because they think they're too large to fail and don't really give two **bleep**s about the consumer.

[diggyphil]

Also, this is what I have in my house:

• Nest Outdoor Gen1
• Nest Battery Outdoor Gen2
• Nest Hello Doorbell
• 2 x Nest Indoor Gen1
• Nest Secure w/6 sensors
• Nest/Yale X Deadbolt
• 3 x Nest Hubs
• 2 x Nest Mini Speakers
• Nest Gen3 Thermostat w/5 sensors (to be determined if this is removed also)

[Gantx]

Yes, I am having the same problem with backyard camera.

[RavenManiac]

We need to set up a pool to guess when Google will release its next firmware upgrade to resolve the problems with the botched v1.67 iteration.

In all seriousness, and not to be mean, but somebody should have been fired over this debacle. I sure hope Google's marketing department is watching as an unvetted firmware upgrade is slowing and systematically destroying Google's already tarnished reputation. I know its competitors are watching. All of us have paid way too much money for our Google devices and subscriptions to endure this kind of nonsense. 

Today, I spoke with a friend who chose the Amazon Ring platform and he loves it. He doesn't have any of these issues and when there is a problem, it's resolved quickly. I'm kind of feeling like that guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the knight informs Indiana Jones, "He chose poorly." Ridiculous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7J0KkanzM

[39crosley]

I've had the old Nest (Ver. 1 ) cameras for years. I just added 5 Google Nest (Ver. 2) wired cameras since they say the old Nest Cams won't be supported in the future. The video quality on the new cameras compared to the original Nest cameras is HORRIBLE. The lighting during the day is washed out. The quality of the video both day and night is pretty bad. No way could I identify someone walking past my window (but I still can with my original Nest Cams).  At night the person walking by looks like a ghost.

The new cameras have software version: spencer-user 1.67.

VERY disappointed at $99 each!

[Lisa12]

Earlier this year after Google upgraded the software on the Nest Cameras the image quality was greatly diminished. While my Battery Google Nest Doorbell issue was fixed sometime later, the Hardwired Floodlight Camera was not resulting in extremelly poor video quality and blurry facial images to such an extent that I can't recognise facial features, rendering it almost useless. When will these issues be addressed?

[SaraNest_User]

I have the same quality issue with mine as well. The firmware update is 1.67. I reset the night vision from off to Auto. It hasnt changed the quality. 

[SaraNest_User]

 

 

[PbPretzels2]

Add my name to the list.. Nest Hello Doorbell wired, Nest Outdoor Battery, Nest Indoor Wired. All on 1.67. All garbage. It's weird, too, because the indoor cam is the newest (about 2 weeks). When I set it up it looked perfect. 15 minutes into being online, it switched to being washed out and noisy/grainy.