The old Nest app isn’t sending notifications to some Pixel 8 owners

Ben Schoon | Nov 14 2023 - 2:15 pm PT

Google has been in the process of moving Nest products into the Google Home app, but the old Nest app is still in use by many on older cameras, thermostats, and more. For Pixel 8 buyers, though, the old Nest app is strangely unable to send notifications.

The Nest app sends notifications for motion detection, as well as for when the Nest Doorbell is used, to your mobile phone. And, while many other cameras just send alerts, the Nest app goes a bit further by sending animated previews of a clip so you can get an idea of what’s going on before you even open the app.

But for affected users, the Nest app just won’t send any notifications at all to Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro devices.

A considerable number of reports of this issue popped up as far back as October when Google’s new Pixels first hit the market. Reports have continued to slowly amass on Google’s forums and Reddit in the time since, with users all reporting that the Nest app simply isn’t sending notifications to their new Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, despite the functionality working on their prior device.

The Google Home app doesn’t seem to be affected, but at least one user did mention that the new app isn’t sending notifications to their device either.

The especially frustrating part of this is that there’s no easy workaround. While notifications have just randomly come back online for some, others report that uninstalling the app doesn’t even work, with a factory reset being the only thing that seems to do the trick.

Google doesn’t seem to have acknowledged the issue yet beyond a support team’s recommendations, so we’re not sure when a fix could be expected. If you’re affected by this problem, let us know your experience in the comments below!

Thanks, Om!