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"Video isn't available yet" and I am really, really frustrated

LilRed
Community Member

I'm so **bleep** frustrated. I've had four Nest Cams going for years... two indoor and two outdoor. My indoor ones are actually so old that they're Dropcams and they're going to stop working next month. (They've worked flawlessly for... I dunno, 10 years?)

I recently had to replace one of the outdoor ones because the coating on the power cable disintegrated. (Side note: One GOOD thing Google did was redesign the camera so the cord can be replaced. Kudos for that.) Because it's a newer camera I have to use the Home app instead of the Nest app. Why is this app so awful? Why doesn't it have the same functionalities as the old app?

The older Nest camera sends me a notification (in the old app because I refuse to migrate it), I tap on it, immediately see the video. THIS IS WHY I HAVE THESE CAMERAS. It's great.

The new one sends a notification, I tap on it, and I get "video unavailable." Seriously, WTF? Easily 75 percent of my video events are "unavailable" when I click on them.

I have two cameras I need to replace and I bought the new outdoor camera as a test because I've found the Home app so cumbersome to use. I wasn't expecting the **bleep** camera not to work as well. (Yes, I have Nest Aware, and yes, I've tried troubleshooting.)

At this point, I'm not feeling at all confident about buying new Nest cameras. Am I allowed to ask in this forum if Nest users have found other cameras that are comparable but actually work as they're supposed to?

2 REPLIES 2

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

@LilRed 

That "Video isn't available yet" error on your battery camera seems odd. We have one battery camera, plugged in with the optional power cable since Sept. 2021, and we very rarely get a "Video isn't available yet" error. We can tap the notification and view the event in the pop-up window on our iPhones, and click on the pop-up window to open the Google Home app and view the event there. (We do encounter the too-common phenomenon where the video playback freezes partway through and we have to drag on the timeline to get the video to continue.)

We have a Nest Aware Plus subscription (I don't know if that makes a difference), and our camera has always been plugged in, so it's "Live" all the time, and Settings | Battery shows "Plugged in" with an infinity symbol.  (Some customers in this forum who added the optional power cable AFTER installing their camera have reported they had to reinstall their camera to get it to function as a plugged-in camera.)  Oh, and we are NOT using the "Public Preview" version of the Google Home app.

We too also disappointed that the Google Home app still lacks many Nest app functions (https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13038234#zippy=%2Cnest-app-only-features), so we have NOT "transferred" any of our 1st gen cameras or doorbells to the "Public Preview" version of the Google Home app.

EmptyNester
Silver Product Expert
Silver Product Expert

Hello, I'm an end user like you.  I also have had the gen 1 nest cameras with the Nest App for many years.  For the reasons you described (and a few others) I ended up returning my newer Gen 2 cameras within the first 30 day for a refund and I purchased a few Gen 1 cameras from Ebay sellers and they are working great for me.  Google is slowly moving the nest app features to the Google Home app but we are now easily 2+ years into the process and they are  still not finished.  For now I'm very happy in the Nest App.