Anyone have a Nest Hello and Google Home Hub?

[vzwuser76]

Hi, my Home Hubs arrived today and so far it hasn't been a stellar experience. The reason I even got them is that my 89 year old father lives with me and I've been waiting for a smart display that will bring up the camera when someone presses the doorbell on the Nest Hello. That way he can see if it's something he has to deal with or not. Since it was listed as one of the features during the launch event, I ordered a couple.

Long story short, it doesn't work. When the doorbell is pressed, not only does it not bring up the camera on the display, it doesn't even chime or announce someone's here like it does on the regular Google Home devices. And when I swipe down to show the dashboard, it's like they're all grayed out. None of the buttons on the Hub's dashboard do anything if touched. You can ask by voice command for Assistant to show you the different cameras, but otherwise nothing works in terms of connected devices. It's happening on both Home Hubs.

So far today I've spent around 4 hours on the phone with tech support from both the Google Home team and Nest, neither of which could provide any explanation (though they did escalate it to high level support, whatever that means). The Google Home guys said the dashboards on the Hubs they have work, and they only had 2 troubleshooting steps to try before they gave up. Nest support just kept telling me to toggle settings on and off, reboot, or sign out and back in, putting me on hold for 5-10 minites at a time to come up with something new to try. (I was afraid to even mention the issues I've been having with their cameras dropping out intermittently or that night vision has a hard time switching back to day vision most of the time).

So now I wait. Wait for them to come up with a fix for something that should work from day one. I'm starting to regret going with Google for my smart home ecosystem. It just baffles me that this wasn't ironed out before they shipped.

So my question to those here is, does anyone else have Nest doorbells or cameras and a Google Home Hub, and if so, does your stuff work properly?

 

[Phil Nickinson]

Mine works as advertised. ... Almost sounds like your Google and Nest accounts aren't linked up?

 

[vzwuser76]

Mine works as advertised. ... Almost sounds like your Google and Nest accounts aren't linked up?

No, I believe they are. The Nest Hello does it's little chme and announcement on my non display Google Home devices, and I can have Assistant call up Nest cams on the Home Hubs, but the Nest Hello won't trigger the Home Hub display and the Hub's dashboard doesn't work, but the dashboard on the Home app on my phone works fine.

 

[Kevin_G_Sanchez]

Mine works properly. No issues here. Sorry about your headaches. Hopefully tech can figure something out.

 

[vzwuser76]

Well after a couple more hours of useless time spent with Google Home Support, I figured it out on my own by spending a lot of time running through the Google Home app.

First I ended up assigning the cameras to one of the Hubs. But then it moved them from the rooms they were assigned to and I couldn't get them back out. Then I realized the problem, Both Google Home Hubs set themselves up in their own little area or group, separate from the Home that I had all my other devices assigned to. So I deleted the Hubs' separate areas, then assigned them to my Home in the rooms they were supposed to be assigned to from the start. Then I was able to assign my cameras back to the proper rooms I had originally assigned them to.

Both Home Hubs' dashboards now works as they should. I haven't tried the doorbell yet, as it's late and I'd have to wake my Dad to test it, so I'll know if it works as it's supposed to tomorrow morning. I'll post after I test. Hopefully this will help anyone else having the same issue.

 

[vzwuser76]

Update: Tried the Nest Hello doorbell and it works as it's supposed to, chiming and announcing that someone's at the front door, and brings up the camera from the Nest Hello, with the option to reply with 3 pre-recorded responses.

So the issue was that when I set up my Google Home Hub, it somehow set itself as a separate area. The solution is to delete it under the settings, which leaves it as unassigned to a room in the Home app. After that, assign it to your regular Home area in the room you want to have it in.

And as for Google Home Support, I don't know why they didn't catch this. I stated that I had 3 areas listed in the Google Home app, Home, Home Hub Basement, and Home Hub Living Room. I even stated that the main Home area had all devices under it, while the 2 Home Hub areas only had other cast devices (Google Homes and Chromecasts) listed under it. But they assured me that was how it was supposed to be, and not to try and link other devices to it. Had I not tried that, I wouldn't have stumbled onto the solution. It doesn't help that the support staff is overseas, which they let slip when they wanted to set up a time for higher level techs to call me (it was 10 pm CST where I was). She seemed surprised and I said I take it you aren't in the US, to which she hesitantly affirmed. I don't know if them being US based would've helped or not, but one things for certain, they need to step up their game. It almost seemed like they had a script in front of them, and any more difficult scenarios would've required talking to their higher level techs, which required an appointment to be setup. Considering the time difference, that may have been problematic.