Let's Discuss! - The latest updates from Google Home and Nest

[GoogleNestTeam]

Hey everyone!

If you haven't, check out the latest blog for new details about all things Google Home and Nest, including new automations and starters, Thermostat updates, home panel on Android 14 and so much more!

Let us know what you think in the comments below - what are you excited for the most, how will these changes make your home more helpful, any great ideas for routines and automations? We'd love to hear it!

Thanks,

The Google Nest Team 

[Durango807]

I'm not seeing the AI scripting assistant. I'm in Canada, is this a US only thing for now?

[OpethNJ]

I would be surprised if it is actually live yet. 

" Available later this year in Public Preview, “help me script” gives you a starting point for coding more personalized automations."  

Taken from this article on Oct 3:  https://blog.google/products/google-nest/google-home-custom-routines-ai/

[Durango807]

Ahh I see. Thanks for the info.

[Durango807]

Also, glad to see things improving especially with more starters. I'd really like to see NFC tags as a starter option. It's much more convenient than talking with google assistant for frequent routines.

Also I haven't played with the scripting yet but having conditions like set the lights to 40% brightness (IF they are higher than 40%) would be great.

[ViciousNarwhal]

So, will the Nest Camera script run before I let someone into the house?  Someday I'd really like to be able to see the person that rang my Nest Doorbell on my Nest Hub Max in a reasonable amount of time.  If I wait for it, then the person will likely be gone.  Note that I have GB symmetrical fiber Internet and great ping times to Google, so bandwidth should not be an issue.

[OpethNJ]

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@ViciousNarwhal wrote:

So, will the Nest Camera script run before I let someone into the house?  Someday I'd really like to be able to see the person that rang my Nest Doorbell on my Nest Hub Max in a reasonable amount of time.  If I wait for it, then the person will likely be gone.  Note that I have GB symmetrical fiber Internet and great ping times to Google, so bandwidth should not be an issue.

---

That sucks you are having that experience but that is not indicative of the whole product line I am sure. Assuming you have ethernet in that topology somewhere I am not saying you arent having some layers 2-7 issues since I am sure you have already eliminated layer 1. 

I on the other hand have something to totally different with the Nest Battery so Nest to Home via 802.11. 
Within 3 seconds , most , of someone ringing the doorbell I have the video stream presented on my 3 Nest Hub v2 displays and notification on my phone. 

[ViciousNarwhal]

I have a Nest Doorbell, Nest Outdoor Cam (non-battery), and a Nest Outdoor Cam battery.  I have issues with the entire line.  The battery cam is the worst as I've tried the solar panels, and currently even have it plugged in, and still it runs out of charge every month.

I've really tried to make these work well, but I never get an image on my Nest Hubs in a reasonable amount of time.  All cams have excellent connectivity to my Unifi wifi network.  They always seem to be sluggish and under-powered.  Not to mention lack of configurability compared to competitors. 

Bad zone notifications like a car drives by that generates a shadow in a zone, so it alerts to motion.  Or a light turns on/off, and it senses that as motion.  So many false alarms that it becomes useless.

Face detection is a complete waste.  I've tried curtailing the images of my family and it misidentifies people more often than correct.

Then there's the UI that is all over the place with promises from Google to fix for years.  Do I manage something in the Nest app or Home app.  What can or can't I do/manage over the web?  Give me one app and website where I can manage ALL of my Google/Nest settings and capabilities, but I have no hope that this will ever happen.  Google is just waiting to be able to EOL the old devices and then they'll shut down support for them.

I really used to be a Google fan, but they've really lost the enthusiast/techie capabilities they used to build.

[Bradafountain]

Yea they pulled a good one, I have been on and off discussion boards for almost 2 years and still haven’t received any replacement cameras or promos to replace my house that I fully integrated into nest starting off with 3 drop cams then 4 nest cam outdoor and 3 nest cam outdoor IQ’s, it looks like my house is very secure. To bad I’ve been using cheap home depot Wyze cams until google decides to make good on their promise.   My 3 nest outdoor iq’s were built to last. Just waiting on the company that took advantage of a couple thousand dollars from me to just decide hmm maybe since they had finally mastered the cameras none were breaking so it was time for re design ???

[NOLANest504]

Updates are always great, however is anyone at Google paying attention to all the unhappy Philips Hue lighting users suddenly losing their lighting scenes in Google Home Automations? According to personal troubleshooting and following several threads, no one has found a resolution or workaround. Moving automation setup out of Assistant and over to Google Home took some time to figure out also. Can anyone spare us the time and frustration and be more up front about significant changes that might affect users daily automations and their beloved “works with” home items? 

[MR-QPR1991]

Great to see updates and new features but can we get more news on support for your older products.

Cameras

Smoke alarms

Thermostat

Also will you be fixing the issue with the sound on the camera preview. Internet is littered with this problem and not being fixed. Tech support just ignoring you when it's brought up.

When viewing your nest cameras in the Google home app the volume control believes that your in a phone call. And the sound is coming out the earpiece. 

[DuckPaint]

When are you going to support Latin American countries? I want to take full advantage of my nest, but I can’t from Argentina. 

[PhilB8]

Same from Brazil. Was hopnig to test 'help me script' but no luck.

[7006808200]

I'm unable to connect WiFi with Google home

[AbedO]

I see Help Me Script is available for some already, with blogs even having reviewed the feature, but it does not appear to be available to me in the US. Is there a timeline for roll out? Would love to give this a try.

[S0ulmusic]

Hey, I would like to be able to control the heat link that came with the Nest Thermostat separately to the temperature that it shows. That is, I want to be able to use the heating link to tell the boiler to turn ON/OFF based on the input of other devices. Is that something that it likely to come along ?

[Bradafountain]

I’m sure it will, but by the time it hits the market support will be gone 

[remmiz]

Can we please at least get feature parity with the old Nest app and website? It's been years and we are all sick of having to switch between them.

[AbedO]

Looks like Help Me Script is available to me as of today, looking forward to trying it!

[wordsdk]

Looking forward to give it a try when it's becomes available in Denmark  

[TweetyWasHere]

I've got the help me function. Nice to generate some simple examples, but it's not that good that it can make complex automations.

[Parin]

Ever since this update dropped, I can no longer being able to broadcast my own voice to my Nest speakers. Was this change intentional? I have seen multiple threads regarding this issue.

[7006808200]

I'm unable to connect Google nest with phone wifi

[jgernaat1987]

Where can i submit ideas/feedback? I'd like a feature to set automations based on weather (don't enable AC-unit automation when outside temperature is <x> degrees celcius for example)

[dontdiekid0013]

Not sure if this is the right place to post suggestions for features to be added into the google home scripting, if someone else knows where to post, please let me know.

I am currently pleased that google is taking this new direction on a long-needed feature for google home users, but it still lacks what I need specifically for my automations.

Currently I have a smart IR blaster that controls some old devices in my room, including a speaker, a tv, and a projector. My current issue is that automations for IR control of the speaker are ridiculously complicated as the IR cannot read the 'current volume' and other such aspects from the speaker. The way I have tried to come up with to solve this is by having some sort of automation service store a variable of what the current volume is, and manipulate it depending on which commands are said, so for example: The volume is a value from 0 to 60 and when the command 'Ok Google, Speaker volume down 10' is run then the variable would be manipulated accordingly. Then I could use other commands like: 'Ok Google, what's my speaker volume at right now?' and it would tell me the value of the variable. This comes even more into play with the IR control of the speaker input, as it has one scene that will cycle through 6 different inputs, in which I would need a variable to know what the current input is on. I only use 3 of the inputs and would not like to be doing math in my head every time to figure out how many times I have to run the scene to get to the desired input. Currently the input scheme in google home scripting is very limited, I am not able to use the variables basically anywhere and even less so able to set them as part of the automation. What I would request is a solid variable system where variables can be set, read, and read from other scripts in the actions scheme of the automation. I have never found a service that connects with google home that is able to do these things, so when I heard about this new take on google home automations, I was actually excited to try working out how to accomplish this with the new features, and was ultimately let down as it doesn't seem to be much more 'automated' than what I can get in a Tuya smart devices app. I would ask Google to please try to implement this as I have not had a working solution since I got the speaker 3 years ago.

If anyone else has suggestions about alternative services to accomplish this, I would love to hear about it.

[ACrabb]

My custom typed actions to "Matrix Clean" specific rooms with a Shark vacuum (Bertram) were disabled by a Home update a few weeks ago.  For example, "Ask Bertram to Matrix Clean my Living Room" now has my My Google Home Mini tell me something to the effect of "I'll be back in a few hours.  In the meantime why don't you do it yourself. You'll be glad you did." & other strange responses.  The "Adjust Home Devices" actions for the device still work, but that will only perform whole-house actions (Start, Stop, Pause, Resume, & Dock) & is only for the Standard Clean (not Matrix Clean).  Wish it still worked like it had before...

[Gbalerdi]

Does Nest Hub (2nd gen) support Thread?   (and acts as a Thread border router?)
There is conflicting information. 

HERE IT SAYS YES

The following Google devices can act as a Thread border router with Google Home:

• Displays: Nest Hub (2nd gen), Nest Hub Max

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/12391458

BUT HERE ON THE STORE,  ON THE NEST HUB THE SPECS IT SAYS  NO

Connectivity

802.11b/g/n/ac (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) Wi-Fi

Bluetooth® 5.0

Chromecast built in

802.15.4 (at 2.4 GHz) Thread - functionality not yet available

https://store.google.com/product/nest_hub_2nd_gen_specs?hl=en-US

Can you please clarify

Thanks

[TCS_Tracking]

Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

How about actually fixing the many many bugs? Oh wait that sounds too much like right. 

[Leap]

Welcome anything that gives me an excuse not to spend more money replacing my speakers with Alexa. However, due to the fact that you still can't turn off voice responses, or set a consistent volume for them, I may have to. Such a basic thing that has been asked for by many for years. Still ignored. I honestly never would have bought google home speakers if I had realised.

[Garyjr217]

I want the firmware fixed on my google nest wifi, wifi keeps getting dropped by my router, this is an old and confirmed issue, lots of people are ditching google wifi over this issue. 

[Jonathansimon]

My early Chromecast doesn't work anymore. My tv screen is stuck on set up, follow directions in home app. Home app doesn't recognize my devices anymore. It's like Google has it out for me. Waste all that money on electronic junk that only works a couple years. Apple and Amazon next. My fire stick works great. Will never buy Google anything ever again

[Verlon]

I have a google doorbell, speaker, and camera. with the google nest device.   I used them last year and then moved then moved back to the same house.  I cannot get any device to connect.  It says connecting, then sorry something went wrong.  Can anyone help me please.

[wordsdk]

Same WiFi?

[Verlon]

Same company different username and password 

[Garyjr217]

I’m ditching Google wifi mesh, there’s a issue with the firmware and they won’t fix it, it’s causing internet to drop on router, google knows about this and they are ignoring us.

[yvonne243]

Since these November 2023 updates, the camera on my nest hasn't worked! My other cameras are ok, I can see those from the nest, but that camera won't come back online. I'm super pissed! Paid too much for this system!!!

It is for a bedroom to see grandchildren so I've had to do other methods. FIX IT! and I'm usually a nice person but dang it!

[Verlon]

I have the same problem but no response from Google.  I have no idea what the problem is, and my next step is to get a solution.