I see that I am far from the first person to encounter this issue and I am beyond frustrated that there does not seem to be a solution listed anywhere other than "return them and buy some other product". ???
I have three 2nd Gen, battery-powered Nest Protect devices for my new-ish house, and one of them is in my primary bedroom. They were meant to be an upgrade from the old-school smoke detectors which came with the house which are still in place and still functioning (although without C0 detection). The Nest Protect in the bedroom was sitting on a windowsill next to closed window, running on batteries and theoretically functioning. (It's been sitting there for a few months waiting for a tall person to come install it properly.) In the meantime it has been running off of batteries and functioning although I have not added it to my Google Home/Nest application on my iphone yet. The other 2 devices are either still in the box, or have not had the battery-guard removed, so not active.
Last night on 9/10/2024 it rained for the first time in several weeks. Nothing earth-shattering, but there was a barometric pressure drop from 1013.57 mbar at 2AM on 9/10 down to 1006.86 mbar at 6AM on 9/11, and the rain began around roughly midnight or so Tuesday evening on 9/10.
At 2AM on 9/11/2024 the Nest Protect declared an emergency with full alarms; there was no "heads up" warning first. The Protect blared its audible alarm and said ""Emergency. There's smoke in the master bedroom." I was already across the room flinging open the bedroom door to find out WHERE MY HOUSE WAS ON FIRE by the time it said "Master Bedroom" - which was clearly NOT on fire nor filled with even a trace of smoke, as I was already in that room. The primary bedroom WAS filled with two terrified dogs and one exasperated human. (!!)
I pushed the center button to shush the alarm but just about simultaneously the Protect had declared that the "smoke alarm was over" and ceased blaring the alarm. Grrr.
After I retrieved the dogs from the back yard and calmed us all down, we returned to bed to try to get some more sleep.
At 5AM we repeated the same series of events all over again: blaring audible alarm from the Protect, it declaring that the master bedroom is filled with smoke (when there was literally none), and without a heads-up alarm first. This time I ripped the batteries out of the Protect to disable it and hid it in another room of the house.
There was no smoke in any rooms of the house.
There was no fire.
There was no increased temperature.
There was no steam.
There was no dust.
The Protect was nowhere near a bathroom or kitchen where it may have encountered hot water (or steam). Similarly it was nowhere near a heat register (and besides, the furnace remains OFF so far this season due to warmer weather).
Note: The existing old-school smoke detectors installed in that bedroom and all over the house DID NOT ALARM at any point.
I have not seen any helpful troubleshooting listed for this issue, and it seems consistent with what other users have reported near as I can tell: that it happens at 2am, and it happens when it rains outside.
Please tell me what on earth I can do to try to debug this issue, if there is anything to try? I cannot put myself or my dogs through another night of terror waiting to see when/how often this bug repeats, or lie in wait in perpetuity for another occurrence.
I had years of excellent experiences with the 1st Gen Nest Protect and Thermostat at my previous home. I am incredibly disappointed to learn that somehow the technology so has become disruptingly unreliable in just few short years!
What is the story? Why are 2nd Gen Nest Protects so flaky and unusable? And what I can I do with these three devices which are well out of the return window?
Thanks.
