Nest Wifi - Devices Slow or Drop

[rbrowning]

I have had a mesh Nest WIFI for about a year and everything has been great until about two weeks ago.  I keep having issues with my WIFI points degrading in connection or dropping all together.  Location has not changed. 

Another issue - when I run a speed test on the router, I am seeing my full bandwidth; however, when i run a speed test on devise (phone, tablet, etc) I am seeing speeds sub 10M (I am on a fiber 500M connection).

I have to keep restarting my Nest WIFI Network (2 to 3 times per day) through app and that usually fixes the issue.  I have restated my fiber modem, powered off the Nest Router and WIFI points and the issue keeps coming back.

Model: H2D - Software Version 13729.57.27

[Art7]

Im loosing my patience recently as im happen to have this issue too. I had no issue att all for are year or so and now my internet through wifi is completely unacceptable in last few months it became slower n slower until today drops down even buffer a simple YOUTUBE VIDEO!!! Just checked speed test on router everything fine, connected lan cable direct to pc no problem but all stuff which runs WIFI gets super slow or spikes down!! 

[rbrowning]

FYI - I continue to have this same issue.  The only work around that I have found is to go into my Google Home / Wifi / Network Settings and then select Restart Entire Network.  It only takes a minute or two.  I then experience acceptable speeds.  I am on a 1G Fiber Internet Connection.  After doing this I am in the 200M ish speeds on the Wifi.  Not what I expect, but workable.  I will be replacing this Google Mesh network once I find a superior product.

[ybanezm]

Hi. I posted here about 9 months ago. Don’t get your hopes up…today all my devices are flying along at about 14mbps. Thanks google. 

[FL1P]

I don't know why I still trust google products 😑 extremely disappointed... Lesson learned 

[rosemariegriset]

I just started having the same issue after they sent the update that changed the look of the Home screen. No issues for 4 years and now I have rebooted 6 times today.

[7777xm]

Any fixes or updates on this?  I get a good day or so after factory resetting but it always falls back on its face.

I had to resort to putting a smart plug at each point and one at the router and put it on a daily timer to kill the power and reboot.  

[jonstrong]

I was one of the people complaining bitterly back a few months back... If I'm not mistaken it was around September when it seemed that google was pushing all sorts of firmware updates to the WiFi units. After years of my experiencing Google WiFi, and then Nest WiFi, as being "like an appliance - just works" - super reliable if lackluster in performance, this reliability had disappeared. I experienced all the frustration of trading messages with Google reps in the forum whose role seemed to be more about mollifying than actually solving our issues. I spent weeks experimenting with different arrangements, testing signal strength, etc. All very frustrating... and then the updates slowed down, and my Nest WiFi setup (base router and three additional nodes) became stable again. Considering that I have GB Internet from Verizon FiOS, and my base Nest router is plugged directly in my FiOS ONT (optical network terminator) and gets an average of about 900Mbps from Verizon - both up and down, what comes out the other side and into my home is OK but not great.

That said, I seem to be doing much better now than many others in this forum who seem to still be suffering from the kind of instability that I was experiencing a few months ago. These days, I'm seeing about 300Mbps to 400Mbps over WiFi when I'm one room away from the base Nest WiFi router. When I'm further -- one more WiFi node hop away -- speeds drop, but even at the further distance in my house, about the slowest I'm seeing is about 160Mbps or 170Mbps. 

This isn't as good as what I'd like to see, but it's good enough so I can hold off before replacing the whole mesh. There are some really impressive 6E mesh units out there these days (especially if you're willing to set up wired backhaul), and the first WiFi 7 units are in the market now. If my Nest mesh can remain stable for now, I'll stick with it and see where the market is a year from now.

I'm hoping the rest of you can experience the kind of "settling down" to reasonable - if not exciting - performance again - that I've experienced.

[GreenRoom]

I'm here and it's July 😞

[hurricain]

Same, I work from home and my laptop is even hard-wired in. I get about 13 Mbps every work morning. I restart the entire network and then get 900 Mbps. Time to buy another device.

[JeremyDD]

Th same thing has just started happening to me today: I have 1GB fiber connection, and the speed between the router and Google Nest is ~1GB upload and download, but the speed from Google Nest to my laptop is 100MB download and... 1MB upload. It's *very* disappointing to hear that there is no solution. 

[LovelyM]

Hello JeremyDD,

Thanks for reaching out. We're sorry for this experience.

Our team is currently rolling out a firmware update for Google Nest Wifi routers and points to fix bugs and improve their performance. Please check if you have the latest firmware version and if that has helped resolve your issue.

• Nest Wifi router: 14150.882.9
• Nest Wifi point: 1.56.368671

Here's how you can view the software version.

Sincerely, 
Lovely

[rajeevkugan]

Mine is finally working fine since the Feb firmware that broke everything, will this new one break it again?

[NCEagle76]

Bwahhahahahahahah!  Another firmware update that will supposedly solve our 3 year old problem?!?!?!  Hahahahaha...  And I have some prime swampland for sale.

[Robert1480]

This is my last comment on this. I haven't submitted one in months as I moved off of Google almost a year ago. Hard to believe this is still going on, but hardly surprising. 

Unsubscribing after I send this so I don't keep getting this junk, but I will say that anyone who sees this thread and thinks Google is really going to fix it is crazy...years of "a fix is imminent!" have proven apparently to be BS.

[rajeevkugan]

Before you go Robert, please share your current setup/solution so we can alll move on. Please and thank you!

[Cej]

Hahahaha!

[lexod]

Having an issue with my Nest Wifi Router
Model: H2D
Software version: 14150.882.9
Wifi Point Software version: 1.56.375543

it lags and requires frequent restarts to keep up with internet speed distributed by provider.

Any recommendations on that?

[Pepperjack1]

After 3 years .. I am trashing my Googlemesh routers... going with eero 6 Pro mesh router system.

This Google mesh system has been a headache for 3 years...they don't care

[NicC]

Dump Google and move on... they are never going to fix the Nest wifi probs

[Strydus]

I have this problem too, 1 access point randomly goes offline which I have to powercycle to bring it back online.

Router Model: H2D

Software version: 14150.882.9

Wifi Point Model: H2E

Wifi Point Software version: 1.56.375543

I've been troubleshooting with Google over Messenger chat for over a month now on this issue.

[Cej]

Just got the email notice that Google is rising the Nest Aware rates. It’s time to seriously get off of the broken and greedy service provider. 

[jonstrong]

Oh no. Right after ranting about the firmware updates that, once again, made my mesh virtually unusable for weeks, I see the announcement two days ago (in this thread) that yet another update is being rolled out. OMG. I could only hold my breath waiting for the latest disruption...and it hit me this morning (Fri, 9/1, early morning Eastern Time). 

How did I know this started? Woke up this morning around 7am only to find that my WiFi mesh had no Internet access. My Nest hubs were all complaining about this. My Pixel phone wanted to know if I wanted to switch to my carrier's towers and give up on WiFi. 

This was a big deal for me, as I work from home most days (267 miles from the "office"), my teams are accountable for a number of high visibility programs, and I deal with this via Zoom, MS Teams, Slack, Confluence...and none of these were available.

I look in the Home app and see that the Nest base router has no Internet connectivity, and 2 of the other 3 mesh nodes are offline. Realizing they might have been in the middle of firmware updates I didn't want to power cycle them and risk bricking the devices I waited half an hour, checked and situation and found that it hadn't changed. So - I unplugged them one by one, waiting 30 seconds and re-plugging them in. A minute later the base router could NOT reestablish a connection with Verizon FiOS (I have it connected directly to the fiber ONT / optical network terminator). I try again - nothing. I start panicking, thinking I'll either have to stand outside and conduct all my calls today by cell phone, or else drive to Starbucks or my local library and work with public WiFI and VPN.

Finally, on the 5th try, the base router comes to life with Internet connectivity. I had to unplug / replug two of the mesh nodes again, and they finally connected to the base router. Happily, I was able to work today after an hour of this idiocy.

I've lost count of the number of times this has happened, tied to firmware updates every time as far as I can tell.  I understand what's going on, and it's infuriating for me. What does the average non-technical consumer do in these situations? It really seems that the concept of "user experience" is no longer part of the delivery model for this product line.

Super disappointed and disillusioned.  Bad enough that a consumer's user experience would be so bad. As a professional, working remotely, I don't see how I can rely on this platform.

- Jon

[Paul29]

Hi, i have a simple solution which worked for after trying a lot of things for about an year. Nest wifi has a bug, all you need to do is, reset nest wifi and do all the initial setup, chcek you wifi speed using 'ookla speed test' neve ever use the speed test in google home app of you use it after the test the speed will drop down to half (its a bug) as long as you dont use the speed test option in google home app the speed of internet stays the same. Not sure its gonna works for everyone. All the best. 

[jonstrong]

Are you suggesting a factory reset for each unit - the base router and each of the mesh nodes?

I've done that a couple of times over the past year, and after all the lost time over the past year I don't relish the thought of spending the time doing that again without some serious affirmation that this will make a significant difference.

Call me skeptical - but full factory resets with these devices never made any more difference for me than doing a soft reset / restart.  BTW: it's good to understand that speed test in the Google Home app is testing the speed that the the base router experiences when connected to it's upline source, either your combo router / gateway from your Internet provider, or perhaps a direct link to your ISP's termination at your home. In my case, I did away with Verizon's FiOS gateway / router, and have my base Google / Nest mesh router directly plugged into the ONT -- the optical network terminator - that Verizon provides.

Looking at the speed in your Home app only tells you how fast the connection is between your base router and the ISP-provided connection. Using an app like Ookla's tells you how fast the connection is to the device on which you're testing - and that will always be slower than what you see in the Home app - they're simply not measuring the same thing.

As convenient as Nest / Google WiFi might be, it has no wired backhaul, and no dedicated wireless backhaul. Each hop from node to node, then, likely cuts the speed significantly, perhaps about in half, depending on the nature of your traffic.

As I type this, I'm sitting in my kitchen, with one mesh node between me and the base router. I have FiOS "gigabit Internet", which in reality tests out to about 920mhz at the base router (as the Home app will illustrate). Out here, a single node between me and the base router, and the speed has dropped to about 150mhz.  Note - after all the instability over the past year, most likely due to all the firmware updates being dropped on us and making the mesh unusable for 24 hours at a time... now that the system feels pretty stable again... it seems no better or worse than it was a year ago.  It's certainly no faster...and I do believe there was a period a few months back when it WAS somewhat faster, although less stable, but that's subjective.

I have no reason to believe this will ever become better or faster, and many of us have suffered through the unanticipated outages that seemingly random firmware updates cause. I'm glad it's in a somewhat stable period right now, but I'm talking myself into doing the wiring for a wired backhaul, and watching for discounts on a good 6E mesh platform supporting that (like ASUS).  This is stable enough for the moment so I don't have to rush out for a replacement, but I have zero confidence in the long term experience now, and will be moving on.

[rajeevkugan]

My nest was finally working fine .... lol and now they nuked it again with a new update -_- this is so frustrating 

[Joonny]

Please try to disable UPnP function on wireless setting. It worked for me.

[jonstrong]

What does that mean? What did disabling UPnP do for you?

[Joonny]

Go to setting on the main router -> Advance Networking -> Disable UPnP function

Enabled UPnP function is a default setting on nest wifi router.

[jonstrong]

Yes...that's easy enough. But, despite my frustration with this whole situation, I can't imagine what UPnP has to do with what we're experiencing. It certainly wouldn't have any impact on bandwidth and speed. What change did you experience after disabling this?

[Dan_A]

Hi folks,

That certainly isn’t the experience we want you to have and apologies for the delay. A few questions: are you using a modem/router combo from your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? Also, do you have any paused devices?

We know that you’ve already tried other options. It would be a pleasure helping you get through this. Kindly try these steps:

1. If you're using a modem/router combo, set that to bridge mode to avoid double NAT issues.
2. Make sure that there is minimal to no interference (concrete, bulletproof glass, metal, mirror, etc.) and the points are no more than two rooms apart.
3. Remove any special characters in your network name and password.
4. Turn off IPv6:
   1. Open the Google Home app Google Home app.
   2. Tap the Wi-Fi coin  and then Settings Settings.
   3. Scroll down and tap Advanced networking.
   4. Scroll down to IPv6.
   5. Toggle the switch off Toggle button off.
5. Change your DNS server into 8.8.8.8 on the primary and 8.8.4.4 on the secondary server. Hit the save/ floppy disk icon on the upper right.
6. Unplug the power from your Google Wifi devices for 2 minutes.
7. If the issue persists, try factory resetting your network. Take note that this will delete all network data.

You may skip any step that you’ve done already.

Let us know how it goes.

Best,

Dan

[gregorsmith]

Changed my DNS from automatic Google to IP DNS and my wifi speeds shot up exponentially.

Shame it's dumb Spectrum DNS now

[Dan_A]

Hi gregorsmith,

That's great to hear! It's awesome that switching to Spectrum's DNS server improved your internet speeds so much. While it's unfortunate that it's a potentially less secure option compared to Google DNS, ultimately the most important factor is finding the DNS server that delivers the best performance for your specific needs.

If you're concerned about security and privacy, you can consider exploring other options like OpenDNS or Cloudflare DNS, which are known for their speed and reliability while also offering some security features. You can try them out and compare their performance to Spectrum's DNS to see which one works best for you.

Remember, choosing the right DNS server is a balance between performance, security, and features. Make sure to weigh the pros and cons of each option before making a decision.

Cheers,

Dan