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Why can't I connect my new Nest cam with the Nest app?

JohnF
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Disclaimer: This thread was migrated from our previous version of the Google Nest Community. You can continue to receive updates on your thread issue here or simply ask, browse or more in the new Google Nest Community.

 

 Original poster: Stephen 7791 

 

I have the newest Nest cam (outdoor with battery) and the only option to connect is with Google Home, not the Nest app.

1 Recommended Answer

gnom
Community Member

I got a reply from google two days ago

 
Google Nest Support
@googlenesthelp

We know how important it is to be able to view all your Nest devices on one app. If you have the new Nest Cam (wired), it's exclusive to the Home app and we have no news to share about having these devices available on the Nest app. 1/2

Our long term plan is to use the Home app as the one place to control all of your favorite Nest and other smart home devices. We appreciate your feedback as we're looking for ways to improve our products and services. Stay tuned on our social media channels for more news. 2/2

View Recommended Answer in original post

254 REPLIES 254

bingbonga
Community Member

Is there seriously no response to this?!  This is a deal breaker.  I will be retuning all 5 cameras I bought if I can't use them with my existing nest app, home.nest.com and nest aware subscription.

From the research I've done, Google will be dropping Nest App and Nest Aware for good. They are forcing us yo us Google Home App which I really dislike. I plan to keep Nest until it no longer is supported by Google and slowly adding Ring cameras. Therefore, I will have 2 seperate apps. Research any new cameras and subscriptions before buying. This is all very disappointing. 

Im dropping google for good….lame like gsuite. 

Love this approach, me too.

Steve949
Community Member

Let me know if you find out. 

Mikevipsr
Community Member

I just found out that you can't put the new cameras that Google makes in with my seven other cameras on nest app. I'm taking the cameras back today getting my money back and then going online and finding some old cameras.

GuyF
Community Member

Purchase 4 cameras and like many of us, I found it don't work with the Nest app. What a disappointment.

I'm returning them to Google.

earlyretirement
Community Member

The Shame of it all is I really love the cameras. The NEST Google Outdoor Doorbell works fabulous.  I really HATE the Google Home App but the actual camera itself works great.  I installed it myself and super easy to recharge as it's in an area with no electricity.  I just don't understand why they don't allow you to use it in the Nest App.  

 

The mere fact that they are using Nest brand for marketing shows how important the brand is.  

I think that using the name "Nest" for there products is very misleading.

dangal
Community Member

FOREWORD: I DO NOT WORK FOR GOOGLE OR NEST. I SPENT 4 HOURS OF MY TIME ON THIS AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, MOVE ON. 

There is nothing we can do about the transition to Google Home folks. It is a freight train and only has one direction.  However, for all those of you who have been unable to reconnect your cameras after switching wifi and are at your wits end with the cameras not syncing with the app, I have good news. I was able to get all of my Battery Outdoor Google Cams (will not tarnish the Nest name with these) back on my new network with some hokey pokey magic instructions from a Tech at Google. I now have hardwired all 4 of my Cameras, my Doorbell, Display Max, Thermostat, and 2 Google Mini's and they are all working Praise Jesus. I was straight up homicidal thinking I had wasted more than a $1,000 on junk.  If you have not been able to get your devices back up after a network change or some other issue. Please try read my next post and do these things in order. I am just trying to help by sharing how I fixed mine. I have no delusions about these products and my endorsement is likely lower than yours so let's get that straight. I am a good guy and ai don't need to be attacked. If you spent as long as I have trying to make the investment work and have been unable to sync with the Google Home app. I will list the steps to get it all back and yes they are BS. None of that is in dispute. Please don't make me regret trying to help those people that I CAN help. If you have Nest software, I feel your pain and have no solution; nor do I offer any redeeming or contradictory information to argue about. I don't work for any of these companies and think it is a joke to require all these steps to get your devices back. Next post... 

I appreciate you and your time getting your investment to work, along with you taking the time to post.  That said, Googles approach is now, and has been for a long time, too shady to endorse.  They’re lame like Gsuite.  Im moving to a competitor like Ring or Arlo…whom I also dont work for, but believe they will be much less shady. 

dangal
Community Member

This is going to test your patience and sanity but I'm ADHD and if I can do it anyone can. So let's be clear, you can't save your data or your settings if you moved or changed networks. There is NO WAY around this. You have a shiny expensive brick where you money once was, let's move on.

Go into your Google Home app and click each device to delete or remove device. Again, you will lose all your data and settings. Have no confusion or doubt about it. Next, take pictures of the bottom of each camera so you have the 6 digit code. If you have the original barcodes even better. I suggest doing one camera at a time as it gets less confusing. Next make sure the **bleep** thing has charged for a while. You should see a strong light white or blue on the front. Unplug it for 10 seconds. Plug it back in. Wait for the stupid chime to tell you it is ready. Press a clip into the tiny hole in the back. Now this is important DO NOT let it go until the light on the front turns orange and the entire chime is done. It is a long one so wait.... Or start over, your choice. Once the song has ended set the camera down, grab your phone and open the Google Home app. On the front page click the plus + sign on the top left. It will scan for a device and likely fail or find some other device you have not set up, in either case you are going to get an option to choose which device you want to set up. Pick your device, it will ask you for the barcode, if you have it great, if you don't click on no barcode button and you will be prompted to enter the 6 digit code on the bottom of the camera. The one you took pics of early, punch that number in and pick the device out of the options (yes it is redundant), it will say looking for device, connecting to device or making out with a device and make you wait, just be patient. If it transitions to looking for network you are on happy street. Punch in your wifi info and click use this for future devices. It will connect and ask you a bunch of **bleep**, show you videos, click on all the blue buttons to move forward and don't look back. When you see all set time to move on. If it does not look for network you are going to get stuck. Repeat the initial process and make sure that your wifi is working, passcode.is right move closer to the router, thermostat or another camera as they will relay the signal to the one you are setting up. It took me several tries sometimes but I now have ally devices back. I lost them when I upgraded to a Mesh network to reduce the latency in my yup you guessed it, security cameras. I hope this helps some of you.

 

Trodder
Community Member

I think you possibly missed the purpose of this thread. Adding cameras to google home is easy. The issue is you only add it to google home which is insane because it is missing a ton of critical functionality. 

leftlung
Community Member

Exactly. It forced connection with the Home app. I want it on the Nest app so when we open the app we can see all of the kids room cameras in one place and with great functionality. My wife pulled Home up once and said this isn’t going to cut it. Now I want to return the camera to Google and buy a first Gen on Ebay. Google is being a pain in the a$$. 

dangal
Community Member

I think you missed the point of my post. I already know the **bleep** show that we are all facing. However for those who just want to use the goddamn things while we figure out where to go, there was a a solution to that problem.  I don't think so missed a **bleep** thing. Read the post next time. I went out of my way to keep comments like yours from being necessary but while we can all piss and moan, I also helped helped a few people along the way. 

egeo
Community Member

THANK YOU!! My issue was with the outdoor battery camera. I had just been using the 5-sec reset to no avail, but using your method solved my problem. As you recommended - I unplugged for 10-seconds, plugged it back in, then held down the reset button until it played a bunch of chimes. When it came back on, the light turned blue. I then used the Google Home app to successfully reconnect the camera to my new Wifi. I did not, however, need to do this for any of my other Nest devices (Doorbell and Nest Hub). The others all reconnected fine and maintained my settings. 

DJmsu15
Community Member

This is preposterous 

Csulli15
Community Member

Same issue

Jd123anon
Community Member

Just drug myself out to the garage, removed the camera from the wall, boxed it up and will be shipping it out first thing Monday morning.  I'm no longer a fan or customer of Google.  Ordering an old Nest cam on eBay and adding to my Nest app.  To hell with Google Home and the company as a whole.  Gotta admit, it feels good to have that camera out of my life. 

GuyF
Community Member

I feel the same. I don't know what Google think. I was about to order older Nest cameras, but I decided not. I won't be surprise if Google stop supporting the actual Nest app.

Jmplobes
Community Member

I agree with almost everyone here. What’s the point of having the Nest app if you can’t add the new Nest cameras or doorbells to it. The functionality is superior to the google home app.  Being able to scroll through the video past to see movement on the phone like the Nest app does now is Very Important and is what people are looking for. Google is going backwards in functionality and not listening to their loyal customers. Pisses me off.  I have these on 5 different properties and will not buy another google product until they start listening to the google community. 

Shorrighs
Community Member

So has anyone found an alternative that allows you to scroll history on videos? I’ve already posted how pissed I am at Google but now we have a whole home to do on a new house and I want to have the ability to look at all of my cameras live and then scroll each ones history to view rabbits walking on my sidewalk or kids destroying toys!? 

what’s the best option??? Alto?

Arlo I meant… 

dangal
Community Member

Honestly, having read all the posts, feeling duped and having wasted so much time and money,  I am going back to the old school, tried and true system. Buying a decent, middle of the road, Network DVR with 4TB of drive, a set of POE 1080+HD, 60 FPS, night vision digital cameras, and powering those and the modem/router using a UPS Backup power supply. If the DVR software is crap, using Ispy to watch whatever, whenever and for however long I want for free.  I have Arlo, Canary and Google Home nest battery wetf these are and they all suck for one reason or another. All the brands being bought today are crap and the mfgs can kiss my ass, munch on the latency, connection and wifi issues they put us through to use their expensive junk.

No more monthly charges, no bogus firmware updates that render the cameras obsolete in 2 years and the pleasure of knowing that I am not spending a dime to support a company that repays loyalty with  indifference. 

@Shorrighs, if you've paid for full "24/7 video history" (not just the free "Event" video history), you can scroll through history, but with some HUGE caveats:

1) If you're using an older Nest Cam, in live mode, you'll see a blue "House" at the top of the screen. That's your link to your Nest App which still allows you to scroll video history in the nice, well-organized Nest app that everyone loves and misses.

2) If you have a newer camera, like the Nest floodlight, you can only view your history within the dumpster fire that is the Google Home app.

To do that, in your live feed, you'll see a "History" option in the lower-left. If you click it, you'll NOT see your recent history. Instead, you'll get transported, against your will, to the most recent EVENT that the camera recorded. From there, you'll have to scroll until you catch up to the "live" view. But not quite the "live" view. There is always a gap, anywhere from a few minutes (if you're lucky) or up to 13 hours (if Google hates you).

For reasons known only to the misanthropes at Google, there is *always* a delay between your live view and your live history. No such gaps exist in the Nest app, by the way.

Hope this helps.

Lazur
Community Member

Adding my name to the list of people frustrated by this. I purchased a NEST doorbell (battery) only to find that it doesn’t work in the Nest app? Why would they brand this as a Nest product if it isn’t compatible with the app of the same name? The Google Home app is far inferior, as many others have already noted. I’d much prefer to use the Nest app to handle all of my Nest-branded products, but now I have to use two apps? What a joke. How many times can we all say “Nest” before Google actually does something to address this glaring issue?

kw3
Community Member

The only reason I bought another Google Nest Camera is so I can add it to the Nest App, Share it, and be able to view it from a web browser like my other Nest Cameras. I had no idea that Google would screw us, never thought I should look into whether it would work with the existing app. This is shameful. They should at least have a disclaimer that it won't work with the Nest app. Do I bother sending it back?

kw3
Community Member

Also found out that you can't stream to a smart TV, Chromecast or Android TV. Come on Google, you should be adding functionality not taking it away. So frustrating.

mathieulemonnie
Community Member

Some frustrating!!!!

I have 4 nest cameras, it works really well. I buy 3 new ones so I can get more, it doesn't work together. What a night mare!!!! I can't believed they went into that direction, it is so amateur! I'm a big mac user, for the cam, I have decided to go with Google Nest, what an error!

 

  

leftlung
Community Member

I'm trying to return my Nest 2nd gen camera because it does not work with the Nest App. I'm 1 day out of the return window and they will not may an exception. Anyone have any ideas on how to escalate? This is so infuriating!

tmjones801
Community Member

It's completely ridiculous that you can't pull a video clip through the home app as you can with nest using exact time frames.  The Home app only allows you to download a clip that it "Thinks" is the end-to-end event.  I needed to pull a clip to provide to police and the "Event" missed half of what I needed.  I ended up using the screen record on my phone to capture the additional footage required.  Google, listen up...  You need to remedy this problem, STAT.... 

scoyok
Community Member

Figured I would jump on this train as well, same complaints as above. Bought two wired, nest motion light cams.....you guessed it doesnt show up in the nest app and now I cant get ANY of my video history from the older wired nest cams on the home app. Real solid manipulative revenue driven move Google....because you know, you dont make enough money already.

ffejeroni
Community Member

I'm fine with them switching to the home app, as long as I can do the exact same functions on a computer, which I currently cannot (natively). Hey Google, what gives?

 

Also, I have a Nest aware subscription through the Nest app, why can't I back up my other "Nest" video through the same subscription? 

You have to do what's right and give us back control of our security. When you start to fragment things and force people to use an app that continues to have many issues, you drive away your customers. It's a simple fix, make it happen.

Claudegreiner
Community Member

They just can’t leave it alone. Someone always has to try to improve it, or it wouldn’t look like they are doing their job. 

Seriously considering returning this camera if I can’t see it in my nest app

Nordic
Community Member

I just bought a lot of stuff from Google to have all included in my smart home. To my surprise i encountered the same issue, my indoor outdoor cam won't come up in my nest app therefore I cannot add it to my nest protect to record if a fire starts. Even tho it's the same brand? Come on Google you have to fix this. We are buying you're products for a lot of money,  we expect nest prodicts to work together ...

Nnaiman
Community Member

Come on Google software engineers fix this camera problem, I tried to add the camera manually in nest app and still no luck , another customer that really likes using the nest app, 

On 25 February 2022, we’ll be making some changes to our Terms of Service. These changes won’t affect the way you use Nest devices and services, but they’ll make it easier for you to understand what to expect from Google as you use Nest devices and services.

You can review the new terms here. At a glance, here’s what this update means for you:

  • More clarity on what you can expect from Google. We’re providing more transparency about how we develop, improve, and update our devices and services – including more detail about the reasons we make changes and legally required updates.
  • Improved readability. While our terms remain a legal document, we’ve done our best to make them easier to understand, including reorganising some topics so that they’re easier to find.

Thank you for using Google Nest products!

The Google Nest Team

 

© 2022 Google Commerce Ltd., Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland

RDG
Community Member

It seems as if Google is purposely making it difficult to return these items.  I've been trying FOR DAYS!!

I'm constantly told that I will receive a return label in my email within an hour or within 24 hours and Google never sends it.  This has happened time and time again.  It is absolutely infuriating. 

Customers purchasing Pixel devices seem to be having the same issues with their returns.....no return label provided AND Google doesn't provide a return address on their website for refunds/exchanges/returns.  This seems like a dubious business practice.

leftlung
Community Member

Be sure to document your return attempts with date and time. Google is inflexible with their short 15 day return windows. I won’t ever buy an item directly from Google again.