Google Nest Camera not Sending Events

Third party integrations
1

I have 3 cameras installed, all Google Nest Cameras.
Let’s call them camera A, B, and C.
Camera A & B are working as expected. HA receives “sdm.devices.events.CameraPerson.Person” events. However camera C does not seem to send them.

After some research and looking through the integration troubleshooting guides:

  • Stream for camera A, B, & C working as expected. Confirms auth is OK?
  • Cloud Pub sub metrics look health, with messages being sent/received and acked
  • All permissions are enabled in the Partner Connection Manager
  • I have checked that all options are enabled in the google home app for event detection AND notification
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For some reason in the pub sub console I do not see any messages:

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But metrics look healthy:

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Any suggestions on what I may try next to debug this?

2

Found the problem. The problematic camera had the “away-only” notification enabled.

Given how Google home camera settings can affect sending of events, I am wondering if it could be helpful to add a bullet point under the troubleshooting section?

What do you think @allenporter ?
Happy to write a PR with a sniper to check that notifications for that camera must be enabled, including, checking the “always-only” setting , ec

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3

So now you are recieving notifications from the Google Home app and Home Assistant?

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4

PRs for troubleshooting section are welcome. Note the section on automation already talked about how setting in the home app can affect automation ,but it’s not specific since it’s very different for all camera and it changes over time and it’s hard to keep up.

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5

This is the the section you are referring to ?

This feature is enabled by the following permissions:
…

  • Other permissions in the Nest or Google Home apps.

Couldn’t find anything else related to this topic, but let me know if I missed it.

If so, I am thinking it could be helpful to expand this to include not just about “permissions”, but clarify that notification settings can affect HA’s ability to receive events, which for me was very counter intuitive

(Similar issue I encountered)

[…] what was causing this issue, as I have only just now figured it out.
It turns out, the notification settings for these cameras, notably the “away only notifications” option in the Google Home app, seemingly control not just your notifications to the Google Home app, whether or not they get published to the Pub/Sub feed at all. Meaning if you enable “away only notifications” in the Google Home app, HASS only gets events when your phone is away from home.

PS: Cross-referencing another similar post:

I wasn’t getting any event information for my second gen cameras (Nest Indoor Wired) but all my old gen 1 cameras (mix of IQ indoor/outdoor) was just fine. After a lot of tinkering, it looks like the events in the subscription are being tied to the notifications settings in the Google Home app for the account that was used to set everything up.

I had all notifications disabled for the new cameras. After turning on the notifications, I suddenly started getting event data pushed through the subscription. If you turn off push notifications anywhere, it stops sending events again.

6

Yes that it is. Any improvements would be welcome.

Part of the reason it’s vague is because it is mysterious to me about what does what and it’s different for different devices.

There may be a number of users affected here on existing issues and bugs so appreciate your raising this and sharing your fix.

1 Like
7

Here is the PR created as a result of our conversation -

PS: this is my first PR for the HA project.
Thanks you all for the incredible working and for creating such a great community.