Cannot connect Google Nest Wifi Point to Google Nest Wifi Router

[kristofsmits]

Hi all,

I bought a Google Nest Wifi Router some months ago in a Belgian shop. Since the coverage was not suffient, I bought an extra accesspoint this week in the same shop.

I tried to connect it for 2 days, but it just doesn't work. Here are some of the error messages (in Dutch) that I get.
Translations:

- This Wifi point was manufactured for another country
- Something went wrong
- Connection problem during configuration

This Nest Wifi Point is manufactered for another countrySomething went wrongConnection problem during configuration

I looked over the internet, tried several stuff like installing it with different devices, I changed my upstream ISP modem to bridge mode (making me loose support at my ISP), but still does not work.

Please help me out, thanks in advance!

[David_K · Accepted solution]

Hi kristofsmits,

Unfortunately Google Nest Wifi is not officially sold or supported in Belgium. I suspect what's happened is you've received models of these devices that as the error explains, are manufactured for different countries. 

Mixing units manufactured for different countries potentially increases your chance of issues and it's definitely not supported by Google. The 5 GHz band is regulated differently around the world. Google Wifi and Nest Wifi units manufactured for use in the USA for example use the 5 GHz channel in a way that is not allowed in the EU and UK. WiFi units manufactured for use in the EU and UK use a different 5 GHz channel.

One way of finding out the region for your existing Google Nest Wifi router is to find the LAN IP addresses of your existing router (can be seen in Google Home app for instance), then, while connected to Wifi or PC by wire, go to "http://<ipaddress>/api/v1/status" from a browser. For example, it may be http://192.168.86.1/api/v1/status. There you should find a countryCode value. What does that say?

Depending on what the country code is, the best thing to do may be to return the Wifi point to the place you purchased it from, and enquire about one that has the same country code as your existing Nest Wifi router.

[kristofsmits]

Dear @David_K , thanks for your answer!

Allthough not the most satisfying news, this is the first clear explanation to my problem and the many similar problem reports I found over the internet.

In the mean while I figured out the country code of my router is US.

"countryCode": "us"

Does that mean I am now using a 5Ghz channel which is actually not allowed in the EU? All my other devices connect withouth a problem to the router though.

Anyway, if I now buy a new access point in the store, can I find the region code outside the box of the access point?

Best regards, Kristof

[Jeff]

Hi, everyone.

As we haven't had any activity here recently I'm going to go ahead and close the thread. If you have more to add, feel free to start a new discussion.

Thanks

[David_K]

It potentially means that yes, depending on what channel the router has selected. The region code isn't printed anywhere on the box I don't believe, but the models should be different. In any case, the retailer should know the difference, or at least know where those units were originally sourced from.

[Jeff]

Hi, kristofsmits.

It looks like davidking was able to answer your questions, but I wanted to drop in real quickly and see if there's anything else you needed here or if there's any additional support I can provide. Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks for posting to the community!