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Nest Guard no cellular backup error

hoss_vw
Community Member

Hello,

I’ve been a faithful user of Nest Guard since it first launched.  I have Nest Aware and then was migrated to Nest Aware Plus.  I also have professional monitoring through what used to be Brinks.

For the past month I’ve been getting errors saying I no longer have cellular backup.  The neat app shows the cellular is active.  My nest billing account shows cellular is active.  My Nest Aware Plus is current and up to date.

 

I’ve opened support tickets with Google and T-Mobile but all anybody tells me is that it should be working.  I’ve rebooted.  Relocated the Guard to next to the window and even outside and I have no luck.

Has anybody else had cellular randomly fail for them?  I’m wondering if it’s a hardware issue but nobody wants to support these things it feels like. 

18 REPLIES 18

RPHNJ
Community Member

Yes, I have the same setup you describe and in the last few days have a “no cell backup” error. Haven’t found a fix…

hoss_vw
Community Member

Ok.  At least I'm not the only one.

Is this a known issue Nest?  

cheeyo
Community Member

Exact same situation. The credit card I had on file with Google was expired and so they canceled cell backup without notice. I updated my credit card information to resume service but that didn’t work. Was on with customer service and they said they could not reactivate cell backup once canceled. I argued I didn’t cancel and I didn’t receive any notice about my card on file being expired but even after escalating my case Google said sorry there was nothing they could do. 

I’m done with Google Nest. Clearly they’re quietly trying to phase out support for this discontinued product by these kinds of actions. The device has been working great for years…. But it’s far less secure without cell backup.  They’re not getting anymore of my money in the future. Let me know if you guys find a workaround. 

cheeyo
Community Member

Google if you’re reading this, I’d love for you to prove that you care about loyal customers and make this right!

RPHNJ
Community Member

I read that Nest Guard cellular runs on T Mobile’s 3G network. Apparently T Mobile decommissioned its 3G network in recent weeks. Is this the reason why cellular backup is suddenly not working, despite paying for the service and not having any lapses?

hoss_vw
Community Member

Hmmm. I had read that these were 4G / LTE modems and were not affected.  Don't you think T-Mobile / Google would or should have warned all the users here if this was going to happen?

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there, 

I apologize for my late response and thank you for all of your patience while waiting for a reply. I understand how frustrating your situation must be, and I would love to help however I can. I found a great article that goes over cellular backup with Nest Secure devices, which you can find here. Unfortunately, we have limited resources when it comes to T-Mobile specific questions and are unable to provide an answer to this. You can try to contact Support here for additional help. 

Best Regards, 
Brad

hoss_vw
Community Member

Hi Brad.  I have an open ticket with Google and T-Mobile that are both over 30 days old.  Neither know how to help me or proceed.  I've escalated the issue up to the different and more technical tiers with no luck.. so thats why I decided to reach out here.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

@hoss_vw

 

Well this is just a Community Forums, so its filled with other community members, and some Community Specialists like myself. Generally, this is a place for user feedback and some questions, but nothing like full tech support as you would maybe think. I am so sorry to hear that you're having this issue! Because the Nest Guard has been discontinued, it's a bit harder to troubleshoot. But if you have an open ticket with Support that has been escalated, I would suggest checking in with them.

 

Best regards,

Brad

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there,

Just checking in to see how the conversation is going as there's been a lapse in activity on this thread.

Best regard,
Brad

hoss_vw
Community Member

Hi Brad, no luck on any front.. neither Nest, T-Mobile or Brinks have been any help whatsoever in resolving this issue.  No company wants to take responsibility.   I understand this is a community forum and not necessarily tech support, but my hope was to gauge to see if any other Nest Guard user was experiencing similar issues as myself and if they were able to resolve this in any way.

At this point, I don't even know where to turn.

Drenyx
Community Member

I'm posting this in hopes that it will help someone.  My 'system' (hardware) has been working normally, but the monitoring is where I have been having issues.

My setup: Nest secure/guard/etc wifi and brinks customer since may 2020, spent nearly $600 in april 2020.  Apparently I have bad luck with sales being 'pre-clearance'. (in case it wasn't handy, declared discontinued october 2020)

I moved in June 2022, and about that time I was having issues not being able to access the customer portal on brinks.  I got dropped from live chat at least once, and 3-4 calls over the last month with reps saying multiple users were having issues and they were looking into it.   Customer service points the finger at tech support, tech support only wants to deal with brinks hardware and points you at customer service.  Today I demanded answers, and got someone (Bri, in case you see this, I do appreciate your efforts) who stayed on the line with me as we went back and forth between customer service and tech support, multiple times.  Someone said my account showed 'pending activation'.  It was unconfirmed if this was related to the move or not, but it after hours on the phone, digging and call backs, it was determined brinks is refusing to service the nest secure anymore.  After being led around for the last month with poor answers and worse service, I was offered to be transferred to sales to arrange for a new system.   FAT CHANCE.  (I did inform them the only reason I kept brinks was for monitoring my hardware, which now seems a moot point)

I also want to note that brinks has been charging more and more in a 'cost recovery fee' over the last months, which was said to have to do with technology upgrades for better service in the future.  Apparently that meant I was paying for them to phase out the likes of my hardware.

I would like to join the rest of these users in calling out premature retirement of both the hardware and the servicing of products.  I bought this because I wanted something that would be -mine- and not something that was fully tied to the alarm company.  Now I question if I need to spend another $500+ on something that will not only be obsolete, but functionally more useless than a brick in 2 years time (at least if it's not being monitored, a criminal could use the brick to smash my window).  Please do better.

Options:

1:  If not brinks or ADT (wonderful chat with ADT today, they love working with google devices...all of them, after you buy their alarm, had no idea what nest secure was) maybe finally integrate nest devices into google home and nest aware?  monitoring partner?

2: at least some basic nest aware integration with priority alerts to facilitate backup cell coverage?

3: ?  anything with cell backup coverage to at least self-monitor in case power/wifi is down?

I love my pixel phone also, when it works, but it has it's own share of issues.  This is definately becoming tiresome and making me rethink my future purchases.

--Another affected user

Drenyx
Community Member

4: if it's *dead*, how about release some source code?

I understand the API was kept very tight as it is designed to be a security product...but no monitoring and no cell backup at least let the community have a shot at using the hardware we paid for; in whatever fashion we (your community that wants to be happy with their purchases) might find.

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there,

I appreciate y'all sharing your experience, and I'm sorry to hear that there are still issues with this backup problem. I am not sure what to say as this is not something that we can do anything about in the forums. Just checking in on this thread and the activity on it. We'll leave this topic open for another 24 hours in case there are any follow up questions or comments.

Best regards,
Brad

Drenyx
Community Member

Close the topic?  How about close the site. I've seen too many posts where Brad wants to treat community collaboration like a trouble ticket to close.  "not something that we can do anything about in the forums." ... Then what are the forums for Brad?  Support can't do anything, forums are for the users and the community!

 I speak for myself but suspect there's are many who are like minded: We have invested our money in these products, we like the product, and we just want it to work.  These products have been abandoned by it's creator and we are now forced with some choices.  One option is to just replace everything, at significant cost, after I had purchased this barely over 2 years ago.  If there is no official solution, we will seek an unofficial solution.  That will only happen with community collaboration, sharing of symptoms and successes.  If threads are continually closed, that information will be spread between multiple posts and will be hard to piece together.

 

So here we have multiple people, saying their hardware and service they depend on became unsupported, end-of-life, with no warning.  I am sharing current, emerging information, that will hopefully save people the same time/effort/frustration that I went through..

 

I guess Reddit or some other 3rd party (like my future hardware purchases) site may allow productive conversation.

 

Google and it's partners took us from 'will still support our users' to 'Surprise!' and you want to grace us with a 24 hour time window for resolution.

 

So really, if there isn't an existing faq to direct someone to, and no help is provided..  redirect Google nest community seekers to google.com where they can do their own search. 

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

@Drenyx
 

As Community Specialists, we occasionally do a bit of housekeeping to keep the conversations in our community fresh and relevant. This includes locking threads after a period of inactivity. I get that closing a topic may not make sense, but this is a space for community members helping other community members. You are always welcome to contact Support if you feel you need additional help.

Best Regards,
Brad

Drenyx
Community Member

Again, we are here because support is not a viable solution. The topic is 2 weeks old, not 2 weeks silent.  Community members are likely not able to check twice a day, to make sure they didn't miss a 24 window to respond to a post.

 

I don't know what could be more fresh and relevant than multiple people with similar issues participating in a conversation, and new information being added.  Possibly the person that needed to jump in is busy until the weekend and isn't able to troubleshoot their equipment immediately. I understand managing a forum to remove stale and inactive posts, but this is far from that. What's your quota on locking threads or ratio of new posts to locking posts?

 

Any information you suggest to people is unhelpful, you follow up with the question was answered, and then silence them by locking the post.

 

Do what you are going to do but nobody buys that you are facilitating community members helping community members. 

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,

 

I just wanted to jump in real fast and thank you for your feedback. Please feel free to submit your feedback to us. I've put instructions for feedback below.

 

  • Open the Google Home app

Google Home app

  • At the top right, tap your account.
  • Tap Feedback 

and then

  • tap the type of device you'd like to submit feedback for.
  • To display available emails, in the "From:" section, tap the arrow on the right. Select your email address.
  • In the feedback summary, write a brief description of your issue.
  • Be sure to check the box for Screenshot and System logs.
  • To submit feedback, at the top right corner, tap Send 

 

If you need anything else, please let me know.

Best regards,

Brad