Notifications & Email Alerts

[isd503]

I am having some difficulty with Notifications and Email alerts and need some help.  Let's concentrate on indoor cameras in this thread.

We have two homes in different states; homeA & homeB.  

At homeA we have Nest devices which only work in the Nest app and Google Nest devices which only work in the Google Home app.  All the Nest devices send a notification AND an email alert which we love.  My Google Nest camera only sends a TIME SENSITIVE notification, NO email alert.  This TIME SENSITIVE notification does not include any pictures and only leads back into the Google Home app.  Once it is cleared, I have nothing else to reference the event outside the application.

At homeB all the cameras only work in the Google Nest app.

To complicate matters even more, I use iCloud.com email exclusively.  Any gmail account I have only exists because I HAD to obtain one for specific services so I never go there for email messages.  I want to use the iCloud.com account for ALL emails.

Questions:

1.  Can Google Home send notifications with pics and more importantly, email alerts, like the Nest app does?

2. Can I get notifications from homeB while I am located at homeA and vise-versa?

3. How do these apps know where to send notifications or email alerts?  If you reference a setting within the app please be very specific as to where it is located.

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@isd503 

I'm just another Google Nest customer, with both 1st and 2nd gen Google Nest cameras.

Unfortunately, the Google Home app, where 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells are installed, does NOT have an email option for notifications of camera events.

Push notifications are sent to phones and mobile devices that have the Google Nest app and the Google Home app installed and are connected to the same Google Nest "home/structure" where the cameras are located.  (The owner of each phone should be invited to be a member of the Google Nest "home": https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9155535 and has to have a gmail account.)  The Help topic below includes information on enabling "Push notifications" and, for 1st gen cameras, "Email" notifications from the Google Nest app:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9210305

We get popup notifications on our phones for events on our cameras with a very brief video clip that we can click on without opening the Google Nest app or Google Home app and we get these notifications even if we are away from home. However, sometimes--for reasons unknown to me--the notification popup does NOT include that brief video clip and only shows text for the type of notification and the camera.  Depending on how we press or click on the notification popup, it opens either the Google Nest app or Google Home app (as appropriate).

We don't use email notifications for our 1st gen cameras and doorbells, but the link above says: "Email: Alerts are sent from # to the email address you use to sign into your account in the Nest app. You can get emails whether or not you're signed into the app."

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@isd503 

I'm just another Google Nest customer, with both 1st and 2nd gen Google Nest cameras.

Unfortunately, the Google Home app, where 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells are installed, does NOT have an email option for notifications of camera events.

Push notifications are sent to phones and mobile devices that have the Google Nest app and the Google Home app installed and are connected to the same Google Nest "home/structure" where the cameras are located.  (The owner of each phone should be invited to be a member of the Google Nest "home": https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9155535 and has to have a gmail account.)  The Help topic below includes information on enabling "Push notifications" and, for 1st gen cameras, "Email" notifications from the Google Nest app:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9210305

We get popup notifications on our phones for events on our cameras with a very brief video clip that we can click on without opening the Google Nest app or Google Home app and we get these notifications even if we are away from home. However, sometimes--for reasons unknown to me--the notification popup does NOT include that brief video clip and only shows text for the type of notification and the camera.  Depending on how we press or click on the notification popup, it opens either the Google Nest app or Google Home app (as appropriate).

We don't use email notifications for our 1st gen cameras and doorbells, but the link above says: "Email: Alerts are sent from # to the email address you use to sign into your account in the Nest app. You can get emails whether or not you're signed into the app."

[isd503]

A couple follow on questions...

Does Nest Aware play any role in what kind of notifications you receive?  e.g. with or without pics?

I did discover a separate Nest Aware subscription is required for each Home Structure, so in my case, two separate subscriptions were required.

I think the reason I may not have received the notifications I expected was because my 30-day trial subscription had ended.

[MplsCustomer · Accepted solution]

@isd503 

We've had a Nest Aware Plus subscription since 2020.

If you do NOT have a Nest Aware subscription, 1st gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells only provide still photos of events that occurred in the most recent 3 hours, so the notification can only include a still photo, and you wouldn't be able to click on the notification and go to the Google Nest app to see the photo for events older than 3 hours.

If you do NOT have a Nest Aware subscription, 2nd gen Google Nest cameras and doorbells provide event video history for the most recent 3 hours only, but I believe the notification would include that brief video clip I mentioned earlier. However, if you clicked on it, you would only be able to see the full event in the Google Home app if it had occurred in the most recent 3 hours.

However, as I mentioned, we sometimes do NOT get the video clip in the notification, and I don't know why that happens.  Maybe it's an intermittent bandwidth problem on Google Nest's servers.