I just just bought a wired Nest camera with Floodlight that I cannot properly setup. The problem is exactly what Community Member Spiaggia reported on 3-9-2022 (see below) It appears to be clear there is significant bug in Google Home iOS app. Has this problem still not been fixed? Is there another work around than using Bluestacks as an Android emulator?
See previous thread in the community forum on the problem below
On 3-9-2022 Spiaggia wrote
Just installed 2 new "Nest Cam with Floodlights. Added both to Google Home app. Both floodlights work fine - can turn them both on & off using the Google Home app. Both cameras are recording events, and even sending notifications to phone & watch. BUT - when I select either camera in the Google Home app - it puts me in a "settings" dialogue that gives me 2 options: "Remove device" or "Finish setup". I select "Finish setup" ... 1 or 2 seconds later the app falls back to the screen for the main home. If I again select the camera - same thing - asks me to Remove or Finish Setup. Note that I can select the floodlights, and turn them off & on, and adjust brightness. But if I select the camera - I get stuck in the "Finish Setup" infinite loop.
Interestingly - I can see footage from both cameras if I go to the Home app's main "history" page. But I cannot select a camera (to see live footage) without entering the dreaded "finish setup" loop.
Have re-installed Home App, have restarted phone. Installed Home app on iPad - got same exact behavior. Tried pushing the factory reset button on the back of one of the cameras - held for 10 seconds. Didn't seem to do anything at all. LED on the front the of both cameras is steady green. Any ideas or help?
On 3-14-2022 Spiaggia added
I solved this problem. Thanks to a suggestion from Supert3d, I was able to complete the setup using an android phone. Since I don't own an android phone, I downloaded & installed (for free) Bluestacks (android emulator) on my MacBook Pro. Ran Bluestacks, logged in using the same gmail login I use for my Google Home app on my iPhone. Installed Google Home inside of Bluestacks - so now I could run Google Home on an android platform. Ran Google Home inside of Bluestacks, logging in using the same gmail as I use for Google Home on my iPhone. It showed my entire home setup, and allowed me to "finish setup" on both cameras.
After completing the "finish setup" inside of Google Home running inside of Bluestacks on my MBP, I then went back to my iPhone and ran Google Home there. And all was working - yay! I can see live footage on both cameras, history from both cameras, etc. It now all works on iOS.
What didn't work was camera setup using Google Home on iOS. Which is - of course - a bug in Google Home for iOS (are you listening Google? - you have a fatal bug in your iOS app).
Using Bluestacks meant jumping through a lot of hoops to solve the problem - but it worked without me having to buy an android phone, or waiting (perhaps forever) for Google to fix their iOS-app bug.
Hope this helps others of you with this problem.
On 10-18-2022 Spiaggia replied to another member, edgeofuniverse, who was experiencing the same problem SEVEN MONTHS LATER!
Hi - I shared your frustration back in March (see my "solution" post above). I concluded that all the rebooting of routers and modems and phones and cameras was useless. The problem is the iOS version of the Google Home app. It has a fatal bug in it that seems to cause this problem. I didn't own any android devices, and didn't want to buy one just to solve this problem ... so I found the free Bluestacks Android emulator, installed it on my MacBook laptop, and then ran the Android version of Google Home inside that emulation. The Android version of Google Home running inside Bluestacks worked just fine - it completed setup without a hiccup, and everything then functioned as expected. The happy-ending part of this story is that after completing the setup using the Android emulator (Bluestacks), everything worked just fine on my iPhone using the iOS version of Google Home. The bug is just that dreaded "can't complete setup" problem. If you get past that problem, then Google Home on iPhone works fine. Yes - it's a royal pain to have to resort to the Bluestacks solution. Yes - it is completely unreasonable to expect the average consumer to be willing to go to that length to work around the obvious bug in Google's iOS app. Yes - I do think that Google is probably losing LOTS of sales due this problem. Yes - if you're not willing to either buy an android device, or use an emulated solution like Bluestacks, then I think your only choice is to return the product. Another lost sale due to Google ignoring the fact they have a bug in their iOS app. Are you listening Google. Good luck edgeofuniverse.
On 10-19-2022 when edgeofuniverse responded that the Bluestacks workaround did not work for him Spiaggia responded
Hmm. Sorry to hear you're having trouble with that - I'm not a Bluestacks expert ... I've only used it for just this one instance of solving the dreaded can't-complete-setup problem. I just tried it again on my MacBook (2016 model, running macOS Monterey 12.6) - and it still works just fine. I followed these instructions to get it all setup .... maybe this will help (??): https://www.bluestacks.com/apps/lifestyle/google-home-on-pc.html
Yes - that link talks about windows/PC - but the instructions are identical for running on a Mac (intel processor - bluestacks apparently does not run on M1 or M2 Apple Silicon)
BTW - If I run the Google Play Store app inside of blue stacks - it can't even find Google Home. Can't explain that. The search that finds it - and allows me to download and install it - is the search in the upper right corner of the Bluestacks window itself (as described in the instructions in that link above).
Hope that helps ... I don't have any other suggestions for you other than borrowing an actual android device and using that to complete setup.
Edit: One more piece of info: In my instance of Bluestacks, I have it configured to be emulating a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Configured in BlueStacks->Preferences->Advanced->Choose a predefined profile. Maybe that would solve your unsupported device problem.
Lotta headache just to workaround Google's BUG! in their iOS version of Google Home, huh?
Has this problem been addressed by Google Home? For me the neither the Bluestacks workaround or using a different iPhone have worked to complete the camera setup. I have multiple google nest devices in two homes and want to add this device. HELP!
