Night Vision Too Dark

[SuperTrollMan]

Hi All,

I've recently installed new Google Nest Cameras.

They had been running perfectly, however I noticed night vision on 1 of the camera's had deteriorated significantly.
I toggled the night vision from auto, to on, to off and back to auto.
Its definitely on when its on auto, but its considerably poorer than a week ago (a lot darker).
The camera's are mounted and wired with the genuine Google cable, so they haven't moved or changed any other factors.

When looking at the 2x 'battery' camera's I have, the other one was working perfectly fine.
I noticed the firmware had changed on the one having issues "nq-user 1.67 OPENMASTER 361459"
Whereas the working camera was running 1.65 of the software.

I started chatting to support about this, they had me restart the camera this afternoon, which didn't change the issue unfortunatley.

I then noticed the working camera started showing the same symptoms, upon checking the Home app, it has now been updated to 1.67 aswell.

The same shot 24 hours apart has significantly poorer night vision and the only common denominator I've been able to come up with is the 1.67 firmware having issues.

Is anyone else seeing this?

[3Gs]

This morning My 3 cameras now display overexposed and the white balance is off. All 3 now have the 1.67 firmware. 

[FloridaResident]

Absolutely something changed with the recent update to the Nest Camera. Mine has the exact same issue, much lighter contrast during the daytime, and much darker at nighttime now. This started occurring upon receiving and rebooting with the most recent software update on the Google Nest Cam. 

[aatienza]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out. We'd like to a closer look about this — could you send us a photo of before/after images from your camera?

Looking forward to your response.

Best,

Archie

[3Gs]

Top: today / bottom: 4/2022 similar lighting conditions

[3Gs]

Yesterday

[freb]

I knew I couldn't be imagining this so I found the exact time of the change:

There is also some type of ghosting now when people are moving in the new firmware. I really hope this was just poor QC and not an attempt to nurf our quality.

[Adj]

It is now September 5, 2023 and there is still no update on the camera software issue.  

[Jdavisjr]

I'm now having the same issue on one of my cameras. Started on 9/25/23. 

[yuklenchuk]

 

 

 

 

[aatienza]

Hey there,

Thanks for the photos you've shared and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is already aware of this and currently looking into it. We'll make sure to circle back to this thread once we have news to share.

Best,

Archie

[lextron]

Can you get an update for us. This is really bad. Can't see any detail on porch pirate, casing cars, etc. In other thread, poster said support now claims the 1.67 upgrade did not cause this over-exposed huge loss of detail. It did! For doorbell battery cams and nest battery cams, I lost so much detail right at 1.67, with this amped-up brightness & messed up night vision. I have a cam low in driveway where you now can't even make out the full license plate a few feet away in great daylight. All the cams could be zoomed in to read plates a few car lengths away before 1.67, now like 1980s security cams.

[CookieSnooper]

I have the same issue. I thought I saw things or just forgot how bad the video was, but I looked at some older clips downloaded a few months ago, and they look miles better than now. I could recognize faces at night without night vision turned on because the video was bright enough. Now it's not only pitch black but also looks like it's stuck in 480p.

[ErinZ]

I have the same issue, used to be able to recognize faces at night but now night vision is a dark, grainy low res mess and daytime video is washed out with poor image detail. Wish we had the option to revert back to the previous software version.

[yuklenchuk]

I understand that this question may not be directed to you, but still - why doesn't the team simply roll back the firmware changes to the previous state? Currently, it seems that with the current update, the surveillance cameras no longer meet the quality standards and cannot be relied upon. I understand that Google is a huge and bureaucratic company, and all decisions are made very slowly and complicatedly, through numerous meetings and approvals. But is it really the case even when it comes to a simple firmware rollback? Let's make Google great again! 🙂

[diggyphil]

Please provide an update.  June 5 was my second Nest Outdoor Cam Battery, before the firmware updated.  The images today, which are atrocious, are obviously after the firmware update.  

Also, note that Google rolled out a firmware update on these cameras around 10-11 months after they did the exact same thing with the Indoor Gen 2 camera.  Exactly the same issues experienced, which then took 3 months before Google issued an update.  I've never experienced such poor QA - even with all of my other Google/Nest/Pixel devices.  

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nest/comments/zb8260/latest_firmware_165_326080_for_nest_cam_indoor_v2/

[freb]

Agreed. How does it take weeks to roll back a botched firmware upgrade? If you have any procedures in place at all they should cover this situation.

[Foxwolf6777]

 this is not safe! I didn't pay almost $200 for a camera that barely shows anything at night. 

[Foxwolf6777]

 this was before you guys fixed it running perfectly fine

[diggyphil]

One thing that works for me, which I just randomly discovered and is manual, is to turn the camera off, wait a minute, and then then it back on.  You can do this from either the home app or home.google.com (on the video preview there is a toggle in the bottom right, not through the live stream).  I've found that once the image starts going dark that you can do this and it "refreshes" the brightness.  It will stay like this until the next time night vision tries to kick in.

Yep, definitely working as expected. This product team needs to be fired.

[Adj]

It’s been two months and all we hear from Google is they are aware if the issues and their engineers are working on it.  This is unacceptable. When is this getting resolved, people have invested a lot of money in these cameras and with a Nest Aware and Nest Aware Plus subscription. It’s too late to return my 8 cameras but after hours spent online chatting with Google about this and my nest aware plus subscription I canceled it and Google has given me a two month free trial since they cannot refund my subscription payment. Oh and they tried to give me a $25 google store credit instead of the free trial to make up for this disaster😡

[Agriffo13]

After the recent update on 6/6, there is a visible degradation of video and video feed is very washed out only on my new nest cam battery cameras. All my legacy cameras remain unaffected. Looks like others are having the same issue. Video feed shows the same on any of the devices (android or iOS)

[Billk2k]

1.67 has made it almost impossible to see anything at night.  This update needs to be reverted.  

[Anonymous]

Yep totally inept Google software engineers. We as consumers pay hard earned money these cameras are exoensive along with an expensive subscription and googie have taken us all for a ride with their ineptitude and inferior products. Google are absolutely pathetic. These cameras and associated home app never have been and never will be fit for purpose. If yourea prospective buyer take heed of this and buy another brand. If you've already purchased the cameras and are able to get a refund then return then get your refund and buy another brand.

[SuperAdam]

I have been in contact with Nest support and they just won't admit it's their software update, I sent them videos and images showing the difference in HDR and night vision, colors are so washed out and you can't see that good with Night vision when it's on, these cameras used to be amazing but now feel like they are some cheap knock off I bought off of AliExpress of something, even 9to5Google tech site wrote about this and people are commenting the same thing and sharing photos of the before and after, please everyone, report this to Google, the more of us complain and say something the more they are going to see that it's not us, don't let them tell you to reset your cameras or uninstall and then install the Home app, it's not the app or the camera themselves, it's the software. 

[lextron]

How do you officially report it? It is wild they are claiming it isn't 1.67, since they replied in other threads, here, saying that they were aware of the problem and thad teams already working on it. Posters showed very clear evidence of the issue happening right at the moment of the firmware update, camera by camera. That's what I saw, as well, with my multiple cameras updating a bit apart. I think employees working in homes with animated, color-changing led gamer lights, thought the cranked-up brightness looked cool on their huge gamer monitors. It does look kind of arty and aesthetic, like a maxed-out fake HDR effect on my phone - until you look for details that are now missing. License plates, car model badges, faces, logo on hat, identifying clothing details, etc. - all gone. I thought we had some weird-but-pretty sunlight, at first, but both my doorbell battery cams and nest battery cams have lost all detail with this blown-out brightness. In middle of nice day, can't even zoom in & read my own, high contrast, license plate that is only a few feet from a doorbell cam I have down low in drive. Used to be able to read plates a few car lengths back, now, 1.67 has made my multiple cameras pretty worthless for IDing thieves.

[Anonymous]

What we are all seeing here is Googles pathetic attitude toward the consumer. Even when theres thousands upon thousands of complaints online in all sorts of forums and platforms google deny its their products and/or software. Its beyond a joke total and utter pathetic behavior from a company as large as google...

GOOGLE PRODUCTS ARE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE AND BECOMING WORSE BY THE DAY

[Lance_L]

Hey everyone, 

We’ve duplicated your thread to the main one here. You’ll receive all updates on this issue on the main thread and we recommend updating and checking this thread when needed. 

Best,

Lance

[3Gs]

Hi Lance and Archie,

sounded like Archie says the team is aware of the issue (on 6/7). Can you give any kind of update on when a new release is being planned?

thanks!

Gregg (3Gs)

[Adj]

So these threads keep getting moved or combined with other threads and then no response on a resolution to these issues. This is ridiculous. 

[MikeBrum]

Have only had my camera for 6 months and suddenly the color of the video changed. It's looks as if the aperture of the camera stopped working. The picture is very bright and washed out. Not as crisp as it once was.  

Before

After

I can't get it back to how it was before. Tried factory reset and still looks like above. 

Any ideas? 

[Enzo12]

Same issue with mine i noticed.

[Connor2]

I’ve noticed the exact same issue with mine, also tried to do a factory reset with the exact same results. Wonder if the cameras firmware has updated and caused the issue. 

[MikeBrum]

I actually have 2 cameras and the second one isn't behaving this way. 

[Connor2]

Are they both on the same firmware version? 

[MikeBrum]

I just checked. The one with the crappy video is at 1.67 and my other is at 1.65. Interesting. Why would they be at different versions? 

[Connor2]

My nest cam is also on version 1.67, so more than likely a firmware issue. Hopefully google will acknowledge the problem and push out an update to correct it if that’s the issue. I’m guessing that one of your cameras has pushed for an update and the other one has not. 

[lextron]

Is it on 1.67, too? All my doorbell cams and regular cams got the blown-out look with lost details, one-by-one, as they got the the 1.67 update. 

[Anonymous]

Never ending faults and issues that come thick and fast thats been my experience since day 1

[Tink]

Yes I've had the same problem for the last 4 days with my outdoor nest camera,daytime it's to bright and washed out and night time even though it's set on auto night vision even that's to dark and washed out. This has started since the update, so frustrating. Please this needs to corrected ASAP