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I recently installed a Nest Hello doorbell and have run into an issue where the interior chime almost never rings. I say almost because exactly once in all my testing did it ring on the interior.

I wired it according to the instructions for my doorbell and have checked the voltage from the transformer (16.4V AC).

Here are some pictures of the wiring:

Initial Wiring Before Installation: Init

Wiring After Installation: After

Location of the Camera Relative to the Chime Box: Location

The Doorbell Has Enough Power: Doorbell

What exactly is causing the issue? Why did it ring once but not any more? Is 16.4V too close to the 16V minimum? Changing the settings from physical to electronic doorbell in the app didn't change anything, and adjusting the duration higher didn't do the trick either.

I also moved everything as far away from the chimebox as I could do prevent them from dampening the vibrations (Assuming there were any), but this didn't help.

There was something else that was strange, the voltage measurement for both the AC voltage and Battery voltage were both 0V in the app under "technical info":

App

The unusual thing is that it most certainly has power from the doorbell AC wires. I can verify this by opening the breaker. When this happens, the Nest Hello shuts off and no longer recognizes me when I approach it's FOV.

The internal battery may be dead, I have no idea and didn't charge it when I got it. I assumed that it charges by the AC current.

How can I make the chimebox ring when someone presses the doorbell?

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  • 16.4 should be fine. What is the voltage at the Nest Hello?
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Sep 4, 2019 at 22:45
  • @Harper I actually didn't measure. I just assumed that they were the same or close, or appropriate for the previous doorbell. From what I recall of the instructions that I followed, they actually didn't ask me to measure that. They just asked me to measure the voltage at the chimebox. I'll get it tomorrow.
    – Sarah Szabo
    Commented Sep 5, 2019 at 0:15
  • Time to put the wiring back the way it was and see if the doorbell still works.
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Sep 5, 2019 at 2:22
  • @JPhi1618 I can sympathize with this, but why wouldn't it? There is still a voltage coming off the wires. I'll give it a try anyway though.
    – Sarah Szabo
    Commented Sep 5, 2019 at 4:13
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    @SarahSzabo, It's a common troubleshooting technique to return a system to a known working state before trying anything else. You don't want to debug more than one problem, so the idea would be to make sure the doorbell still works and wasn't damaged in the process of the install, then start over, step by step and make sure no mistakes are made.
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Sep 5, 2019 at 14:12

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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I had a similar issue. Originally the indoor doorbell chime rang, then it stopped ringing the day after install. I found that the reason was that the white Nest connector wires that I added in the chime we’re getting in the way of the electro mechanical solonoid. They were preventing the movement. Once I moved the wires out of the way it started ringing again.

One other thing- there is a setting called Indoor Chime On/Off. If Off, then the indoor chime won’t ring but the Nest doorbell itself will make a bell sound.

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  • I believe that the issue was that the chimebox was incompatible. I don't know for sure, but we replaced it and the new one works just fine :)
    – Sarah Szabo
    Commented Jan 9, 2020 at 5:52
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If you have a mechanical chime at home, turn on the electronic chime duration button in the app and press the Nest doorbell button once. You will hear the house chime. Then turn it off and press the Nest doorbell button again. It will start working. Keep the electronic chime duration button in the app OFF.

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  • This seems to have worked, for the most part. I found that if the button is pressed twice in too short a timespan, the second press won't ring the indoor chime, and it continues to not work until I apply this fix again.
    – Dan Henderson
    Commented Dec 27, 2022 at 18:52
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We had problems with our nest doorbell, it would not work with our door chime and my son is an electrician, he tried everything. It was just by chance I was messing about with the App and found that if you go to: Settings/Front Door/Chime Duration/ Do you have an electronic chime, I turned this off, the door chime started to work, obviously the reason being I had a mechanical chime not an electronic one, give it a try it might work for you.

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Our chime didn’t work after we installed the Nest doorbell. Indoor chime setting was set to On. Once I turned chime duration to 1 second, (Settings/Front Door/Chime Duration) the doorbell indoor chime started to work.

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We have a mechanical chime and ours didn't work until we toggled the electronic chime setting to on, tested a few times with varying delays, then turned it back off.

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