Nest Protect won’t do heads up

[Natewagner]

No matter what I have tried, my 2nd generation Nest Protects just will not do heads up when in the presence of small levels of smoke. I’ve tried matches, small amounts of smoke spray, blowing out candles, but nothing works. I recovered by old 1st generation nest protect and heads up still works fine on it even after it has expired. Why won’t my 2nd gen nest protects that I purchased Dec 2022 do heads up at all? It just goes straight to the emergency alarm every time

[Natewagner]

And yes, for those wondering, heads up IS turned on in the app

[Spaghetti69]

Not sure. Mine do the heads up about every month when someone decides to burn food

[aatienza]

Hey folks,

Natewagner, I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with this. No worries, we'll check this out. When did it start happening? What's the status light of your Nest Protect? Could you try doing a Safety Checkup on your device? Also, try resetting it to default settings to refresh the device. 

1. Press and hold your Protect’s button. It will chime and glow blue. Continue holding the button down.
2. Release the button when your Protect starts to say its version number.
3. Your Protect will start a verbal countdown and tell you it’s erasing all your settings.
   • To cancel the factory reset, press Protect’s button again during the countdown.
4. After a few seconds your Protect will reset to its factory default settings. You can then go through setup with the app and add it to an account again.

I appreciate the input, Spaghetti69.

Thanks,

Archie

[Natewagner]

Hi. So one time I lit a match in my house just to aid with a smell that was lingering. I used the match pretty far away from the protect as well. The protect went off without warning and it was very loud. My nests all started going off in my house but when I went on my app, it said nest protect detected “brief” levels of smoke which is correct but I just don’t understand why it didn’t warn me first with the heads up feature. I tried the same test but with a different detector in my house, I used a match and put it a long distance away from my protect. It did the same thing and went off without warning. After that I tried to factory reset them. All of them. I re added them to my app and did the match test one more time. It did the same thing once again and went straight to the emergency alarm. I then recovered my old gen 1 nest protect that I had at own point that is expired and tried a match test with that, and it did do the heads up. So I’m just confused why this is happening. Heads up just won’t activate on my nest protects. I have done the safety check up and everything and it says everything looks good. Just really confused. Also I don’t know if this info will help but I have 9 total nest protects in my house, 7 of them being 120 volt wired models and the 2 others being battery models. 

[Natewagner]

And also, I know that the nest protects aren’t supposed to do the heads up if the smoke levels are too high but it said in the app that it only detected brief levels of smoke which is not high. Also the status light was red in the emergency and was saying emergency there’s smoke. It was green after I finished the safety checkup meaning everything is okay but I just want to know why heads up won’t work and hopefully get it working. Also yes it is enabled in the app

[Apollo606]

I have the same issue. The heads up simply doesn't work on my Gen 2 product. I see in the manual that if the smoke levels are high and quickly escalating, it'll skip, but like this poster here... it's small amounts of smoke. I've worked with 2 support cases to try and fix and did what the Nest Support Rep here did, didn't help. I do get the notifications on my phone when the alarm is on, heads up is on, I have a droid, my wife an iPhone, same thing happens. I look at the device history and see that heads up was done.. but at the same time as the alarm.. making it useless. There needs to be a software update to make it so heads up 100% comes in 20-30 seconds prior to alarm going off. It doesn't do that now which makes this alarm essentially an expensive dumb alarm. 

[EmersonB]

Hi everyone,

@Natewagner and @Apollo606, we appreciate all the information you've shared. Try reinstalling your Nest app and restart your mobile phone. You may also try turning off and on the heads up option from your Nest App and check its behavior. Let us know how it goes.

I appreciate the help, Spaghetti69 and Archie.

Best,

Emerson

[EmersonB]

Hello folks,

I'm dropping by to ensure that everything is covered here. How's it going with your Nest Protect? Were you able to read the information I've shared? Also, were you able to perform the steps I’m suggesting? We'd be glad to hear from you.
 
Regards,
Emerson

[Apollo606]

Hi Emerson,

Appreciate the follow up. I've done all that, with support. Twice. Not sure what else I need to say, as well as the others that have taken the time to post their experience, but this is a software issue. The heads up does go off. Please understand that. However, it goes off at the same time as the regular alarm. 

Now, as I've posted before, the manual says it'll only do that when it picks up that smoke is rapidly increasing. However.. the smoke we've had is not rapidly increasing nor thick. 

What is needed is to make the gen 2 like the gen 1 (again, see the posting). The heads up actually goes off as it should on the gen 1. It gives you 5-10 seconds, which is realistic. The gen 2 gives you zero seconds warning. Which is useless, right? 

Please no more reset, uninstall, power off/on, directions. Those don't help. Please work with your engineers to fix this software issue.  

Thank you. 

[EmersonB]

Hi Apollo606,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience on your Nest Protect. We'd be happy to take a look into this for you. Please fill out this form with all the needed information. Let me know once you’re done.

Best,

Emerson

[EmersonB]

Hey Apollo606,

I wanted to follow up and see if you were able to fill out the form? Let me know if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Emerson

[Apollo606]

Hi Emerson, 

I'm waiting to see if the update worked for me as it did the other member. I haven't had a smoke signal go off. I'll try cooking something soon that usually triggers the alarm and if it acts as before, I'll update this thread and full out the form. 

[Apollo606]

Hi Emerson, just filled out the form. I ran 2 tests yesterday, no heads up this time. Before it would show in history as going off just before, these times there wasn't a heads up. There's another thread on this topic, Gen 2 Protect - Heads Up feature doesn't work (as designed).

Can you have level 2 support or someone with software knowledge that can speak with me as it's not just me, it's others that experience this. 

[zoeuvre]

Hi everyone, 

@Apollo606, thanks for completing the form; we have received it. Soon, a member of our upper team will contact you via email. Also, this thread will be locked within 24 hours.

In the meantime, I'll go ahead and lock this thread within 24 hours. If you run into any more questions in the future, please feel free to create a new thread.

Thanks for the help here, @Spaghetti69, Archie, and Emerson. 

Best,

Zoe