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?

[Rhoovervc93001]

Same exact thing just started. Night video is now awful no matter the lighting. 😞 

[Micha_123]

And after months stil no Fix. WTF? 

I have the idea then google wil fix it maybe in next 5 years. Or the fix wil never come.

Who Cares, the are enough cameras with Perfect quality. Bought the doorbell, it was perfect, now MONTHS with the crappy video issue,  removed the nest aware subscrbtion (with that crappy video it has no sense) so the doorbell is used as an Simple doorbell. And thats the first and last camera from Google. If they are not able to fix an problem with in months on the cameras/doorbell thats crazy. Im happy that i not brought more google cameras that was the idea first if i seen the good quality of the doorbel with 1.65 firmware, to replace alle my old cameras with google ones. But then comes the 1.67 firmware with that crappy video issue, and after moths it is still not fixed. Even when the fix wil come one time (maybe next year, i lost my hope that it wil be fixed) if t wil be fixed, Nobody can give you a guarantee that in the future updates it wil be not broken again. (No problem if one update has an bug, everyone does mistakes) but to fix an video issue (what is the main task of an camera) needs months, and google even is not able to stop the broken update on new cameras. New cams wil also get the to frmware. If they knows there is an issue on 1.67 firmware why is the update not stoppen, to prevent updating other devices? Its crazy.

But im happy that i only have the doorbell and not bought the cameras to replace my old ones. Te old cameras have all better video quality then now google / nest have with the 1.67 firmware. And the cameras i have now are 10 years old. But google is still updating good working devices to the crappy firmware 1.67.l really crazy. 

[39crosley]

Its funny... this is a Google Nest Community forum and no one from Google chimes in to let us know if they will ever send a software fix.  We paid for the cameras, paid for a service and its not working as described. And, it looks like they don't care.

[freb]

That's for sure. I need to call them to keep their feet to the fire. But when I know that they are already aware of the issue, it's hard to waste my time.

[Jasonoff]

Nest makes up a fraction of Google's revenue model.  Fixing garbage camera firmware isn't much of a priority.

People in this thread threatening to leave literally means nothing.  They can delete Nest all together and write it off as an "oh well"....

[NetManinTN]

I just got 1.69. I am away from home at the moment, but the first thing that I’m noticing is night mode seems to be more aggressive. I have a number of lamps on in my living room and open kitchen area yet night mode was enabled when I connected to the camera to check, it. I had to force night mode off. With that said, and the minimal light, it’s a little hard to tell what’s been improved in terms of contrast and clarity, but it does seem to be a bit more clear right now with less noise. Daytime tomorrow will really tell the tale

[NetManinTN]

These are with some floodlights I normally turn on with motion outside. With all of the other cameras, that I have tested, they switch to regular mode when those floodlights come on, and the infrared are turned off. With the same lights on nest cam with 1.69 switches on night mode, even with the floodlights on. Forcing the night mode off I get color but the picture is absolutely horrendous. What a poop show. All this time to fix and this is what they come up with. With that said, this may very well look better in the day time and the night vision with IR isn’t bad?

Night mode off with floods on

 

[Adj]

Your cameras are now operating with new software 1.69?  Mine are still running on 1.67 and the updates are supposed to be automatic. I didn't update my cameras from the 1.65 to 1.67 software which is still showing as the current software.

[NetManinTN]

nq-user 1.69 OPENMASTER 376297

[RavenManiac]

Yeah, same here. What a load of crap. It’s time to start firing some developers. Or, just sell the Nest division to Apple and let them show you how to build great software.

[RobbyFlayF1]

Wow, finally an update. We have a few wired Nest indoor cams and one we use as a baby monitor so at night it's completely useless and pitch dark. Hopefully they push the update out quickly. Wish there was a way to force the update.

[39crosley]

Top photo is the old Nest cam. Bottom my wonderful new Google  cam. Both mounted in the same location. You can't identify a person at night with the new cam.

[RavenManiac]

You would think executives at Google would be embarrassed by all of this and would push their team to fix this disaster ASAP. If I was in charge of Google Nest Products there's no way in the world I would let this stand, especially for 2 months. 

[Micha_123]

Mine is also on 1.67 wil hope the 1.69 update wil fix the issue like it was in 1.65

[NetManinTN]

Color is more natural now, but the issue with Night mode is pretty bad. NestCam battery is going into Night mode on an overcast day (no rain and plenty of light) on a porch pointed out towards the open sky. 

[RavenManiac]

I agree. I’m seeing the same with my Nest Battery Cams.

[RavenManiac]

Some of my Nest Battery Cams just upgraded to firmware v1.69. I didn’t think it was possible, but Google managed to screw up this firmware update as well. Night vision is now horrible.

[NetManinTN]

Yep, and it’s not just that it’s cutting on too soon. Even when you force it off, the picture quality is really, really bad with decent light. 

[fwdlink]

So chiming in, two of my camera's updated a couple of days ago to the 1.69 and the night vision which for me was the best it had ever been on 1.67 is now absolutely atrocious, very blurred and grainy, you can't make out objects etc. An example, with 1.65 it was similar grainy but you couldn't make out car number plates but could tell there were numbers/letters, with 1.67 you could make out a number plate perfectly and overall picture quality was decent (in my case), now with 1.69 you can't even tell there are any numbers/letters, just a glowing blur and the quality is so grainy it's unreal.

I now also have the night vision flipping back and forth but only at dawn and each camera is recording it as a motion event.

The daytime quality seems to have improved a bit, for me again 1.67 wasn't too much an issue though it was regularly getting the familiar faces wrong and most captures looked like people were badly sunburnt.  So far on 1.69 it's not alerting and showing people as motion events which is really bad, yet the person is so clearly visible. I wandered around in front of the cams a few minutes and still says I'm motion. The cams on 1.67 show me as a person straight away. 

So clearly 1.69 has broken more rather than fix, significant sigh considering the cost of Nest aware is increasing to £120! Not pleased 

[Adj]

All my cameras are showing the software has been updated to 1.69. It’s still early morning here so as far as I can tell, the night live viewing is worse with regards to clarity than the 1.67 software version. Still blurry/fuzzy images.  

[fwdlink]

Same, now a few nights in and taking before and after the update it's clearly much worse in my case with 1.69.  My remaining cameras updated overnight and now my indoor cam is really bad, it was never great but wow it's a washed out blur now in IR mode.

[Micha_123]

I still on 1.67 but if i read the comments here, i wil take a look, the best video quality in my case was 1.65. 

Now with 1.67 the video quality is horrible at Night. 

[Xofttam14]

Hi all,

I noticed today one of my 3 cameras was looking better, contrast / colour wise. So had a look if it had been updated and it is now showing version 1.69 my other 2 cameras as still on 1.67 though. Wondered if anyone else has had the update yet and their thoughts? 

[CaliforniaLove]

My nest battery cameras FINALLY, after 3 months received this magical v1.69 firmware, and its WAY WAY WORSE than before. Daytime quality looks decent, but nighttime quality is 110% AWFUL. I have lights near my cameras at night so no need for night vision and ITS SO BLURRY, it looks like a $5 camera now. ITS SO AWFUL. So, let me get this straight, we patiently wait for a firmware fix and this is what they give us after 3 months of waiting? The night vision is SO SO SO BAD. Google should be ashamed of themselves over this. What they need to is revert back to Firmware 1.65 which was PERFECT!! and call this a day. Stop trying to improve things, your making it 100x worse. JUST REVERT BACK to 1.65 and problems are solved.

[CaliforniaLove]

Does Google even bother testing these new firmware updates before they release them? OBVIOUSLY NOT. We, the customers, are the BETA TESTERS. Such an awful company.

[Jpasilla]

I 100% agree!! Google doesn’t care at all! They have completely stopped responding! At this point I don’t think there’s even a fix in the works! 

[RavenManiac]

I totally agree. This is total nonsense. Time to fire a few developers or the Nest leadership.

[NetManinTN]

You know, you would think anything software broke can be fixed via software and/or rolled back.  I've never seen an issue handled like this, especially by a company with their resources. Google, for the most part, is a no-thrills, it just works kind of org. Why do I have this feeling they've bricked something at the hardware level that software can't address? is that possible? It just doesn't make sense that they are dragging this out the way they are....

[RavenManiac]

That would definitely explain their actions. Or, perhaps they're trying to reduce image quality to roll back the amount of data being streamed to the cloud. There's clearly something else going on here. I wish a former Google Nest employee would chime in. 

[Adj]

I think you hit the nail on the head, this has to be a storage issue for them. 

[Zach7]

Day time footage appears to better and not blown out anymore. Night time footage is now worse than 1.67 firmware with it being extremely blurry. It’s like someone rubbed Vaseline on the lens.

[ErinZ]

Same with my cameras. Better daytime image but night vision is worse. 

[PbPretzels2]

Ditto. Nightvision is TRASH. I can barely even make out what my own car is sitting in the driveway because it just looks like a big blob on the screen

[Blurrycamgirl]

Yup. They need to fix or I go to RING ASAP

[CaliforniaLove]

I can't believe a huge company like Google is willing to put their name on such crap. Obviously this Google Camera department is outsourced and Google is just slapping their name on the devices. There was ZERO Quality Assurance done on the last firmware update 1.69. We have all waited 3 months for Google to fix the problems on these machines that THEY created. Firmware 1.65 was the best and now its ruined. Night vision is so blurry that this camera is now useless at night. It looks like someone smeared Vaseline all over the lens. Honestly, I think that there are Google employees just reading this thread and laughing at us thinking its super funny. We'll see when the lawsuits fly in what's funny. Last I checked, Google was laying off in the masses. Not doing that great, hotshots.

[Jpasilla]

This is last night’s video!!! Absolutely unacceptable!! 

 

[CookieSnooper]

I walked out in the middle of the night to clean the lens because I thought rain splashed some dirt on it 🤣

Turned on the floodlight, cleaned the lens, looked at the app...looks good. Get back inside, floodlight turned itself off I look at the app again...yeah, looks like someone smeared Vaseline all over it 🤨

[ErinZ]

I did the same thing when they updated to 1.67, I cleaned all the lenses thinking they had gotten dirty. I don't understand why they don't just roll back to 1.65, unless as others have suggested it's an intentional lowering of resolution to save on storage or something like that. It's really disappointing because the main reason I bought the Google cams is because they were advertised as high resolution (and they used to be on 1.65).

[Jasonoff]

From the product site.  "See clearly" lololololololololol

[RavenManiac]

Yeah, we can add False Advertising to the class-action lawsuit.