Nest Labs

I own one Nest Protect, two Nest thermostats and an indoor Nest camera. All of my products have exceeded expectations, brought great return on investment, and have amazing user interfaces.

Just last week Nest sent me a newer version of a smoke detector I had purchased from them about 5 years ago, just because they no longer carried the inexpensive wall mount piece that I needed to replace. I didnt even ask them to this and I went into it expecting to pay for my lost part. They sent out the replacement to me the next day at no cost. Thats a company that is interested in customer loyalty.

I have been a long time fan of Nest cameras. I have been thinking about the Nest Thermostat. I did however pre-order and received the Nest Hello doorbell. I was very excited based on the specifications and options. Sorry to say, I noticed right away the Nest (we will call it the Hello from here on) Hello had an awful lag time if at least 18 to 30 seconds before I received the notification of motion detected. If someone rang the doorbell. The notification time would be better, around 5 to 8 seconds, but still not instant.

After going through every configuration imaginable (yes, I am a tech for an internet company), I contacted nest. They were not very helpful and had no clue as to what I was talking about. Asked if I could speak with an someone else they said I could not. I then signed on to the Nest forums and found a huge discussion of people complaining about the same issues with the Hello and no customer service. A rep named Sheila D who claimed to be the Nest Community Form Mgr, said she was aware of the problems and that engineering would have a fix out soon.

Here are the issues:
1. Terrible long lag time for notifications
2. A "cool down" time where the cam did not reset to work again is 30 minutes.
3. Voice clarity is awful.

It has been 5 months now and no fix has been made. Most every user of the Hello is experiencing the same problems. Upon investigation by myself, and a few other forum users, we have discovered that there was no Sheila D, and that Nest, that is/was owned by Google, has been sourced out to a marketing firm in Dallas Texas. You can read more about this on the Nest Community Forum. Basically, Nest no longer has their own customer service, no engineering or programmers and they have also out sourced the executive team as well. The products appear to be engineered and built in China. We also noticed that Google's website has removed the Nest logo and name. So, buyer beware!

Disclaimer: I have returned my Hello for a full refund. I will not say who i am going to buy another wifi Cam doorbell from as well. Further, I do not work for Nest, any competitor or any company that deals with Nest or Google in and way.

Have a great day!