Google’s Nest cameras are randomly going offline in Europe

I woke up at 7am yesterday to find that two of my Nest cameras appeared to be offline. After hours of troubleshooting and hard resetting to get the cameras working again, I realized the problem was a weird quirk on Google’s part. Hundreds of Nest Cam owners have reported their cameras showing up offline over the past week, but Google hasn’t notified owners or even posted the issue. Nest Service Status Page,

Most of the reports are from the UK or countries across Europe, but all mention that the Google Home app shows cameras as offline when they are in fact still able to record events. Both my cameras won’t let me see the live feed, but will happily record while I try to fix them. Resetting the cameras back to factory settings has allowed me to get them fully working again and some Nest Cam users have gotten the cameras back on after just a few hours.

Google appears to be aware of the ongoing issues, as the company’s Twitter support account acknowledged the problem earlier this month, Amazingly, Google has failed to update its own Nest support site to let owners know about the “offline” Nest Cam issue. After resetting my cameras I noticed the problem reappeared briefly last night, and others are still waiting for their own Nest Cam devices to show up online in Google Home.

We contacted Google for comment on the Nest Cam issues, but the company did not respond in time for publication.

Separately, I had to get Google to replace my Nest Learning Thermostat last month after it decided to stop connecting to my Wi-Fi just a few months after the original installation. The problem has returned again this week on the replacement unit so I’m waiting for another device to get it going again. The Nest thermostat Wi-Fi issue has been ongoing since at least 2020, with units randomly failing and being replaced by Google. I’m starting to wonder how smart Google’s smart home devices really are if they can’t connect to Wi-Fi networks reliably.