Google Nest Wifi Mesh - now requiring restart every day or so

[Doonan79]

Hello Google team and community,

I have a Google Nest Wifi Mesh. I've had it for around 5 years. I've no idea if it's Gen1, Pro or otherwise. Does it say that somewhere in the App? Surely you'd think it would but I've failed - so far - to find it.

Anyway for around 5  years we had Virgin Wifi, put the router into Bridge mode and used the Google Mesh. It was pretty good - we've an old 1900 large semi-detached Victorian house, so we needed careful tested placement but the mesh worked quite well. 

We have 1 main router and then 3 further Points setup throughout the house.

There were niggles and black spots but it worked reasonably well.

Now we moved over to BRSK in the last two months and things have bizarrely gotten a lot worse. Here's some details:

• We had BRSK setup and I setup the BRSK internet/wifi box into bridge mode and the Mesh immediately connected without me having to do in depth messing with IP addresses or setup - good start!
• Wifi tests are excellent, demonstrating - I believe - that the connection to the main Google Nest Wifi point is exceptionally good (800MB/s download, 200+mB/s upload). Great.
• However then the mesh seemed much weaker in some spots, my son's bedroom which was always OK, started to be terrible. I couldn't work out why and still can't see why BRSK vs Virgin would make any difference. I figured we'd also done work to the house and moved points so I.....
• ....... Factory reset all the points (not the main router) and then reconnected them all...
• This worked much better at first and all gave good connections (though I also moved one Point and this maybe helped too)
• Now however it becomes practically unusable after 1-2 days and then......
• ....when I reset the network (Google Home App > Wi-Fi > Network Settings > Restart Entire Network) then things get significantly better.....
• until 1-2 days later when it's all awful and I have to restart it again (this literally never happened previously)

I'm at a loss.

I'm not a Wifi specialist but I am an IT specialist with 24 years in industry and a degree in computer science. I've checked the channel we're broadcasting on vs neighbours, I've made a journal for myself.

I cannot work out what's happening and I cannot see any diagnostic log options that could show me anything like errors posting on the network as it starts to fail to function.

I'm really hoping that the answer is not that Google Nest products only last 4-5 years and then need to be replaced. 

If anyone can help me diagnose I'd be most grateful and will try to post detailed updates to help others! 

[MrJopple]

I am SO glad this is not a "me" thing. Exact same problem started for me around the same time, possibly late Tuesday, hard to recall. I've also worked in IT and networking for a couple of decades and for the life of me can not believe that I have to "turn it off and on" daily if not multiple times per day.

[ndavid]

Had this problem start for me several months ago.  Router just bricked itself today 😕  Recently was burned with the nest security discontinuation.  Will be switching to a better router company and discontinuing use of google home products indefinitely. 

[sicsacol]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reaching out about the issues you're experiencing with Nest Wifi mesh. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this is causing.

I appreciate the troubleshooting steps you've already taken. To help us diagnose the issue further, I recommend contacting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and requesting your connection logs. These logs will provide valuable information about your internet connection's health. Once you have the connection logs, please fill out this form: Contact Us Form. A specialist will then be able to review the logs and provide you with more specific troubleshooting steps or next steps.

In the meantime, please feel free to reply to this post if you have any further questions

Cheers,

Jonathan 

[MrJopple]

What’s the expectation here because I’ve called the ISP while this was happening and they could find no issues between them and my modem after troubleshooting and testing everything on their side. 

[sicsacol]

Hi folks,

Thanks for posting.

@MrJopple, as discussed earlier, contacting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and requesting your connection logs is a key step in diagnosing the issue. Do you have the logs yet? If so, please fill out this form: Contact Us Form. My team will then review the logs and provide you with a diagnosis and more information about this issue.

Feel free to reply to this post if you have any further questions

Regards,

Jonathan 

[Doonan79]

I shall do this and see if it helps.

A parallel question as I have a lot of google kit. Cameras, Protects, Mesh. If this mesh setup is really a mess is there any kind of discount for existing customers to upgrade to newer kit?

[ndavid]

I just switched to an ASUS ROG router which seems a bit excessive, but has blasted wifi throughout my house far more consistently than the Google Mesh ever provided. 

All of the problems I had with connectivity like the dropped devices, needing constant reboots, everything, resolved immediately when I swapped.  

Most of the feedback I've gotten from Google is you're SOL once you've bought in.  Google was offering a either google store credit or a free ADT system for a while when they were discontinuing Protect.  The ADT system is HORRIBLE.  Go over to the forums and read about how bad it is before you commit.  I regret immensely giving that system a chance.  That said, it was nearly impossible to get the store credit back in the day anyways and customer service was giving everyone the run around, so no idea if it's even possible now.  If you do get the store credit, I suggest staying the hell away from google home or networking products.  

I started dating a developer who lives in the bay, and apparently the running joke in the dev circles is that these products get made only when they need to justify giving some senior dev a promotion.  I don't know how true it is, but it certainly has some credence when you consider the immense graveyard of google home products they've developed or acquired, and then buried in development hell of obsolesence.

I feel like I learned my lesson being burned by google.  I used to really love them as a company but their inability to sustain a cohesive platform and their lack of comittment to do right by their customers when they screw them is tragic.   At least the Android team hasn't burned me yet, though that might be only a matter of time.  

[Doonan79]

Thanks David. I am leaning in this direction so the feedback is really appreciated.

I must say the google mesh has worked for several years and the integration with nest cameras has been OK (though always needes two apps!).

But generally always felt it was at best a low or mid tier product despite spending plenty on it!

[ndavid]

That's what gets me as well.  The premium they charge for their average products is predicated on a seamless operating environment and long term support.  It's like they're duping an Apple product environment and charging Apple prices for mid 2010's off brand laptop quality.  

If I didn't know better I'd say Alphabet is like, what if Y-Combinator was made up of guys who day drink and bought BAYC NFTs.  I don't think they want to compete with Apple though, and the home products are just data harvesting end points to drive search monetization and LLM's for the scraping du jour.  It's why they can afford to fire up entire production lines just to discontinue a couple of years down the line and make several thousand more tons of ewaste; the profit was never in the product, the profit for them is in the data.