Outdoor Nest Doorbell (Battery) - Poor live feed footage

[DutchBhoy7]

I've had a nest doorbell for a few years now and the quality of the live feed and recordings via the Home app has always been good.

However, I've noticed recently that the live feed footage in the app has drastically decreased and is very pixelated.  The recordings are still of a high quality so its not showing on there.

My internet is of a decent standard and wasn't an issue before so not down to poor coverage/bandwidth.

I've tried rebooting the camera and changing a few settings but no change.

Any ideas what could be causing this?  I assume its been down to a firmware upgrade to either Home app or the camera.

[kelanfromgoogle · Accepted solution]

Hi folks,

The team has started to roll out a software update that addresses the issue causing some Nest camera and doorbell users to experience lower quality video while live streaming in the Google Home app.

Your devices will be automatically updated and there is no action to take. All Nest cameras and doorbells will receive the update over the next one to two weeks. I’ll hop back into this thread to confirm once the software update has reached all users. 

With the new software update, it is intended that when selecting your camera in the Google Home app, your camera’s live stream might begin at a lower resolution to get your stream started as quickly as possible, and will switch to a higher resolution after a moment. The quality of recorded video history is not affected.

In the meantime, you can check if you’ve received the fix by verifying the build number for your cameras. Do this by tapping the camera in Devices or Favorites > Three dot menu > Settings > Device Information. If you’ve received the fix, the last 6 digits of the build number should be 422270.

We appreciate all of your patience.

Thank you,
Kelan

[Zimster]

UK user here, it's gone live over weekend. still not a fan of the slow ramp up of quality 

[Micha_123]

Im afraid that the next update wil Fix one thing and brake 5 other things.

Science 1.67 is it so, 1.67 poor quality night vision terrible.

1.69 better day quality but still no fix on night vision and sometimes the picture is flikkering (over day) really like an stroboscope.

1.73 picture still flikkering sometimes an give one more bug with the low quality issue on Live feed.

Now waiting for the next update, low quality on life feed seems to be fixed (as i can read reports of other users they have almost the new firmware) but now im really afraid that one thing wil be fixed and other thinks wil be broken.

My hope to the picture quality like 1.65 firmware (specially on night) is almost gone, i dont think anymore (after years  no fix on that) that the video quality at night wil be so good as it in 1.65 was.

[Hrcuk1986]

So I've had the update and every so often it's high quality on life feed immediately but with occasions where it's starts off poor then gets better however I'm still having poor quality  majority of the time for live feed. This is regardless of how long I leave it open for I just wish they'd fix it properly. 

[mercury670]

In Australia. Received the update overnight last night. 100% frustrated that it still takes 5-7 seconds once the app is opened for the quality to ramp up to where it should be to start with.

Do we know if there's a further fix / plans to backdate the firmware to the version 2 updates ago? Considering nothing was actually broken and things were working just fine, it seems ludicrous that they'd even attempt to change anything.....smh

[Ziflin]

Mine installed the update (422270), and I can confirm that the problem is definitely still not fixed yet. It will start off low resolution, then sometimes after only 3-4 seconds it will switch to high resolution video. Other times it will take 30-40 seconds (not acceptable). It will also sometimes randomly bounce between low resolution and high resolution for some reason.

This is over AT&T fiber w/ 360+mbps up & down. Hopefully this will improve, because I'm about ready to go back to my Ring doorbell... I still don't know why was this update not completely rolled back or tested properly?

[Micha_123]

Ok, so dont need to be naïve and hope this wil fix the problems.

Lukly i have only the Doorbell. I don,t care about it anymore.

The doorbel is an battery one but as wel wired (no need to recharge it) and also triggers the old chime. So i use it as an simply Doorbell.. if some one ring it most of the time its also delayed on the nest hubs to ring, and before the video starts on the nest hubs i have already open the door and see who is on the door. 

Have also cameras from other brands at the Place which are Recording. If i seen the good quality on 1.65 firmware was the reason to change old cameras woth nest ones.

Now they are changed for an other brand cameras.

Other brand cams If i open the app it takes no one second to have the live picture on my phone.

Doorbel if i open the home app ot takes about 5 second to see the life feed with an poor quality haha.

If alexa wil be available in dutch Language, i wil change the doorbel for an ring again and buy the Echo schow, 

Seen in working in germany, if someone rings the ring bel, it dont take an sekond to have the chime on echo schow, arround an  second later you have the live feed on the echo schow in HD. 

Nest Doorbell takes about 3 second to chime another 5 seconds "connecting" and then the life feed on the nest hub2.

Now i dont wait anymore for an google update, they cant fix anything siemce 1.67 firmware, and mostly 2 years later still the same problems. I wait for amazon to introduce alexa in netherland (in dutch Language) and then bye google. 

If google cant fix problems within arround ,2 years (science 1.67 firmware) then they dont fix it anymore. 

Cameras are dont nest, they are other brands with an NVR and Cloud.

Two Nest hubs and 4 mini speakers, wil be saled after switching to alexa and ring. The doorbel goes to the trash, dont sell it, because with that poor quality and bugs im afraid that the buyer wil say that i sold an broken device. 

[bpcs]

Also, the face recognition feature is really bad... its amazing how often it gets obviously male faces mixed up with female faces... so many heavily bearded women out there lol!

[LeeroyJ]

Mine have Updated to the new software but the quality is unchanged.

[Micha_123]

Now i see mine is also updated to the newest firmware.

Here is an demo how long it takes to get an video if i start the camera from home app.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ay7Y8fE7-5E?si=qtn694ZDEU_ZHg8R

Its not an internet issue (1Gbit up and down fiber glas) draytek 2927 router, TP ling mesh APs where the mean AP is arround one meter from Doorbell.)

Life feed seems ok. First 5 seconds low quality and then it switches to high quality. That wil be ok.

Takes as wel long time after opening Home app and open camera to see the stream (arround 5 until 10 seconds, but that was always so)

Wil check how fast it rings the nest Hubs if someone push the Bell. 

And now wil see if the terrible quality at night wil be better.

Maybe last chance on me for Google devices on my site if the are no new bugs.

Will see if nothing other is broken.

On the other site is it really crazy that of there is an bug, that the users need to life with it almost 2 years (bad night quality) but wil see tonight if the picture Quality is back like in 1.65 firmware it was.

[Deatrickwill43]

How do you reboot the camera 

[rickytenzer]

I legitimately cannot believe that no one from Google has chimed in yet about this failure of a fix... What a fall from grace...

[Selah]

I am facing the same issue with one of my Nest Cameras. They are all on the same firmware, 1.73 OPENMASTER 422270 however there's one of my cameras in particular that appears very fuzzy and like there's a glare when night vision is on. It's almost like there's a bright light that's next to the camera making it hard to see but there are actually no lights on.. the quality is just terrible.

[satyrica]

Ditto this.  One camera in particular (Nest Cam, Wired, Indoor) is fuzzy/low-resolution, and night-vision is almost un-watchable.  Motion-blur, ghosting, and no detail - there is no way I could read a license plate or get detail on a face if more than 5 feet away.

[Kbish13]

This is piss poor from Google. "Updated" 422270 firmware is still terrible especially in night vision. They have enough dev resources and money to throw at something which should be an easy fix. Don't worry about new "ai features" I just want a clear camera.

Can someone from Google please respond to this post and everyone else waiting for an answer...

[Micha_123]

Forget it, sience 1.67 its broken, its almost more than an year ago amd its stil not fixed (night Vision).

 Seems like google dont give about it that it is almost more than one year broken and they kant/ wont fix it. It was even more worst with the updates above 1.67 there where only new bugs coming to it(Before with 1.65 Firmware it has an perfect quality at night) 

One Year no fix on it after more than one year and you really think it wil be ever fixed? Hahahaha.

Simply i know ita hard to make an choice (if you have more google/nest cameras)

But for now the only options are.

Live with it (dont believe anymore that it wil be ever fixed like in 1.65 firmware)

Or if you want a really good Quality especially at Night, buy other cameras.

How long you wil wait for an fix that in my opinion never be come

[rickytenzer]

@kelanfromgoogle please provide an update, this situation is incredibly frustrating.

[DavidG20]

On the latest firmware (gq-user 1.73 OPENMASTER 422270) and my video quality is still trash.

[bpcs]

It's better than 1.72 was, but still nowhere near how good it used to be. For a premium product, it's not good enough.

[mercury670]

@kelanfromgoogle

We need an update and a fix, promptly. Our unit has been updated a couple of weeks ago. It still takes 10-15 seconds for the video feed to clear up. It quite often flickers as though it can't get the right brightness balance (and no, it's not in any direct light). Further, it's draining the battery quite a lot faster - this time around it's taken 4 weeks off the typical battery life.

Let us know ASAP what us being done and when it will be resolved. Very much on the verge of returning it and buying a Ring cam instead.

You're Google. It's not like you don't have the staff or resources to fix thiso  properly - hell, just revert to the previous firmware before it caused the issues in the first place. Hundreds of thousands of users and no one there seems to give a rats. Very disappointing. 

[treys1]

@kelanfromgoogle Is never coming back and we are all f*cked out of our hundreds (or thousands) of dollars that we spent on these cameras. I'm just glad I didnt add the 3 more I wanted which would have cost another $600ish bucks. Guess it's time to find a different solution, see if I can claim these as defective with Amex extended warranty and cancel my annual subscription.... Lame

[satyrica]

That is a *fantastic* idea.  I'm pretty sure I put these on Amex as well.  I'll pull that up and give it a shot!

[Super_paulie]

sometimes it "corrects" and goes to a half-decent resolution in around 5 seconds. Other times it just doesnt change at all and its like watching a videotape from 1993. Not the "HD camera" i purchased is it Google?

[TheOneOnline]

I’m experiencing the same issue with six Doorbell Battery devices, all running firmware version 422270.

My network is 1GB fiber, and all devices are connected via 5GHz with nearly full signal strength (75+ Mbps). I also have ten Google Cam Battery devices and four Google Hub Max Display devices, all of which are working perfectly, including recording and live streaming at 1080p resolution.

Is there any update on when this issue will be addressed?

[AnonymousRed]

Went on vacation for a week. Cameras still a joke when having to check anything. For the thousandth time, please refer to firmware release 1.65 that you used to provide. That firmware version would be a great starting point. 

I still truly feel you are trying to limit bandwidth to keep costs down which is a joke. Did upper management not factor that in at all? Google partners with ADT and everything goes to trash. If you are onboarding new cameras through ADT, that shouldn’t affect us as customers! 

You’ve all totally nerfed these cameras. Finally admit there is an issue just about a year later after gaslighting all customers.Support literally told people it was their cameras and to return them because it was hardware issue, that wasn’t true. So all those cameras that were returned where do those go? In the trash? Really think about that. Support walks users through the entire “reboot your camera” experience etc. You can see where this really looks bad, yes?

It’s time to get a bigger site to pick this up. I think for myself I’ll be reaching out to some larger sites to see if someone will report on this. All the evidence required is available. I feel it’s the only way to pressure anyone at Google to finally correct this once and for all. 

[Spartannl]

Google, please halt paying dividends for a while and invest some of that pile of cash on resolving this issue that you have created for all those CUSTOMERS worldwide, for whom the provided solution hasn’t worked out, partly or in full.

An update from my end: The live feed of both my camera’s (Nest Doorbell wired 2nd gen and Nest Cam (battery)) has improved, but also only after the initially really very poor image quality since the update to v1.73 OPENMASTER 422270. Sadly I can’t compare to v1.65 as I got both camera’s with v1.72… 

In the meantime I also have tested my Nest Cam battery health, with the Battery usage setting fixed on ‘Balanced’ and with the Automatic battery saver activated. With on average about 6 events per day, a stable and wide network connection, pretty much stable and relatively warm weather conditions (I’m living in NL), the Nest cam’s battery lasted from August 29th to only September 22nd! So just for a meager 25 days, circa 4 weeks! That is way, WAY less than I was promised by Google when I purchased this camera….On top of that, the battery remaining power alerts were far from accurate as well… 🫤

In sum there’s still a lot still to improve here by Google. And it also has shown to me that Google apparently isn’t caring at all about the clearly justified and continued complaints from their worldwide customers base, not even after the ‘solution’/software upgrade, Moreover, as it’s totally quiet for far too long from their end, I’m certainly not hopeful that Google will ever be willing to mend this debacle.

[kelanfromgoogle · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

We understand some folks on this thread are still having issues with camera live stream quality. As reported on 07/09/2024, we resolved the specific issue that was causing live stream quality to be stuck in low resolution. The fix was released as part of a firmware update.

As there are many factors that can affect live stream quality, we recommend that you confirm your cameras and app are updated to the latest version. If you’re still experiencing trouble, you can check out the additional troubleshooting steps in this help center article. If you’re unable to resolve your issue from there, please contact our support team to take a deeper look.

Thank you for your understanding.

[rickytenzer]

Joke of an answer, typical with recent customer support from Google. NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON OUR ENDS. Overnight, cameras that are connected to high speed and powered started having serious degradation in the first seconds of streaming, sometimes up to 10 seconds, and Google takes zero ownership of this issue. 

What a POS company recently...

[kelanfromgoogle]

Hey @rickytenzer,

I understand that you're frustrated, but we ask you to please be respectful and follow our Community Guidelines to keep our Google Help Communities a safe and collaborative space.

As mentioned before on 7/9/24 - with the new software update, it is intended that when selecting your camera in the Google Home app, your camera’s live stream might begin at a lower resolution to get your stream started as quickly as possible, and will switch to a higher resolution after a moment. The quality of recorded video history is not affected.

If you believe that there is an issue with your cameras, I encourage you to contact our support team so they can take a deeper look. You can do so at the following page: https://support.google.com/googlenest/gethelp?hl=en 

Thank you,
Kelan

[rickytenzer]

Kelan,

This is a change from Google's side to a system that was working perfectly, ESPECIALLY for hardwired cameras. You took an ecosystem that was working flawlessly, and ruined it to add a feature that no one asked for. We all paid HUNDREDS (or even THOUSANDS) on this ecosystem. You can understand the frustration.

I stand by my statement, regardless of community rules. Google's customer service has dropped drastically over the past few years. And it doesn't help when you come in to provide unhelpful case-closing comments and mark your "solution" as the certified solution, effectively washing your hands clean of the problem. 

Be and do better. 

[Kilgoretrout79]

Nothing has changed on my end, and I am not the only person dealing with this. This is a Google issue. Issue refunds. 

[Zimster]

Not a solution. It takes 10 seconds for my feed to upscale. It didn't use to. Latest firmware.

[DavidG20]

It looks like you haven't actually been reading the replies here. There are several reports that the users are on the latest firmware and are still having the same low resolution issues. The issue is that your supposed fix did not actually fix the problem.

[jamsterdm]

Still not as good as it was. My Chinese camera put out a better picture than this 😞 

[Super_paulie]

usual AI generated response that is no help at all. The doorbell camera quality can be described as "pathetic" at best. Fix your stuff Google, you're embarrassing yourself.

[satyrica]

"Some folks"? I do not see anyone reporting an improvement...  I have 6 Nest Cameras that all are experiencing a *decrease* in quality since the latest firmware "fix".  Please address our collective concerns, we are not reporting things that do not exist - video quality has been reduced.  

[Super_paulie]

my doorbell, with perfect high speed connection, is borderline totally useless. Even as a doorbell, never mind a camera. What use is the feed finally showing after 30 seconds of "cannot view at this time" when the delivery driver has been stood so long all you can see is him driving off. Pathetic Google, a total waste of money.

[Zimster]

Get your money back:

1) Complain to Google, citing consumer rights act of 2015. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/template-letters/letters/consumer-template-letters/letter.... 

2) Initiate a Section 75 with your credit card provider. Make sure you have evidence, e.g. email exchanges with Google. 

Source: Citizens Advice, who agree this is scummy behaviour. 

[Super_paulie]

ive had the doorbell over a year so im not going to do that. Just put it down to a bad purchase due to misleading advertising and incorrect assumption that Google was a decent brand.

[Zimster]

Section 75 is valid for 6 years. and, google 'broke' the device through firmware updates well after you purchased it, which further justifies your claim. 

[Micha_123]

Same here, but dont care anymore, have an second camera there.

If the Doorbel detects movement, its not possible to see directly the stream "cannot view at this time"

If the movement is not detected anymore then the stream wil work again after around 20 seconds. 

Science 1.67 firmware only problems,

Poor quality especially at night

Big delay if someone rings it (lukely connected the chime also to the doorbel so it works directly)

If movement is detected, not possible to get live stream 

Without the connected chime its totally useless.  With the chime its working linke an simply Doorbel, then i open the door, and if i opened the door the nest hub2 notificate thats someone is standing by the door.  Wooooow