setup hangs trying to find camera

[cpurdum]

Hi.  I recently bought a new Nest Cam with battery.   I've got three others that work fine.   When I try to set up this one in the Google Home app, the setup hangs on the screen that says "Connecting to joining device" and "This could take a minute and never gets farther.  I've tried many times.   Today, I checked my xfinity wifi devices list, and I see that there are only 3 Nest Cams listed, so I suspect this one may be having trouble connecting, but a restart doesn't seem to help.

[EmptyNester]

This happens to people a lot.    Way back when Nest created this system when adding a new device, rather than just letting you choose the WIFI Network it first looks to see if there are other NEST devices on the system and if there is it attempts to connect to them (via blue tooth) to the neighboring device and gets the WIFI name and password  that way.  

So more than likely your new camera and phone are not close enough to any neighboring NEST device.  And if that device happens to be a NEST smoke detector you have to hit the button (just once) to wake up the smoke detector so that it does the handshake.  If you don't have a Nest smoke detector then just get within about 6-10 feet of another camera.  

Let me know if that works.

[cpurdum]

No luck.  I tried plugging it in on the floor near the camera we've got mounted high up, but it would be within 10 feet, and it still hangs up the same way.  I also tried pulling down the other camera and doing it with both on my desk.

[EmptyNester]

Hmmm,  I'm going to escalate this and lets try and see if an actual Google tech can help on this...

Looking forward to hearing back on how they resolve this.  Maybe it needs replacing?

[cpurdum]

I suppose it could be a dud but it's brand new.

[AxelD]

Hi cpurdum,

Thanks for posting in the community! Sorry to hear that you're not being able to finish the setup of your Nest Camera. No worries, help is here! I'd like to ask you some questions about your device:

1. Are you getting an error code during the setup?
2. What’s the color of the LED status light?

Let's try some basic troubleshooting steps that might help to fix it:

1. Perform a Factory Reset 
2. During the setup select entry key and enter it manually
3. Create a new home structure in the app, then add the Nest device to that home.

Let me know how it goes.

Regards,

Axel.