Nest Doorbell Chime Not Working? (How to Troubleshoot)

Wondering why your Nest doorbell chime doesn’t work when visitors ring your doorbell? This post contains some troubleshooting tips to help you fix the problem.

But first, you should know why the doorbell chime isn’t working.

If your Nest doorbell chime isn’t working, here are some reasons behind this problem:

The battery in your Nest doorbell is running low.
Some settings are preventing the device from working.
Your Nest doorbell is offline.
The weather in your location is too hot.
Your circuit breaker is turned off.
Your chime or doorbell wiring is faulty.
The transformer voltage is insufficient for the Nest doorbell chime.

With that being said, let’s look at what you can do to fix the problem with your chime.

Table of Contents

Nest Doorbell Chime Not Working: Try These Troubleshooting Tips

1. Charge Your Nest Doorbell Battery

If you use a battery-powered Nest doorbell, you can start your troubleshooting by charging the battery.

As you probably know, the Nest battery-powered doorbell mainly gets power from the battery. So, when the battery runs low, the performance reduces, and this could be the reason the chime stops working.

That said, you may need to check whether your battery is low when the Nest doorbell chime stops working.

How do you know when your doorbell battery is low? The Google Nest app notifies you when your battery gets low. If you’ve seen low battery alerts from the Nest app, you’ll need to charge the doorbell to fix the problem with the chime.

To charge your Nest doorbell battery, unmount the doorbell from its mounting plate. Then insert the USB cable into the charging port on the doorbell and plug it into a computer or wall outlet. Your Nest doorbell battery will now start charging.

If this fix doesn’t help, continue to the next step.

2. Check Your Nest Doorbell Chime Settings

Some features/settings in the Google Nest app may prevent your Nest doorbell chime from working.

For instance, you may have turned the doorbell chime off in the app. The Google Home app has a feature called “Quiet Time” — which lets you turn off your doorbell chime to avoid getting disturbed. You may have forgotten that you turned the Quiet Time option on, thus turning off the doorbell chime.

So, you’ll need to check whether the Quiet Time feature is turned on. If so, turn it on.

Follow the steps below to check and turn on the Quiet Time feature in the Google Nest app:

Open the Google Home app on your phone.
Click on your doorbell. Then tap More.
Next, select Quiet Time.
Now tap Cancel to deactivate the Quiet Time option.

You may also have changed the duration of the chime. The Nest doorbell chime duration shows how long the chime will ring when someone calls at your house.

If your chime ringing duration is too short, you may not hear the sound when it’s ringing. This is probably why you think the doorbell chime isn’t working.

Increase your chime duration to help you hear your chime ring more clearly.

Here is how to increase the ringing duration of your Nest doorbell chime:

Launch the Nest app on your phone.
Click on your doorbell.
Tap the Settings icon. Next, select Chime Duration.
You can increase the chime duration in the Chime Duration section.

3. Check that Your Nest Doorbell is Connected to a Wi-Fi Network

If you are using a battery-powered Nest doorbell, the chime won’t work when the doorbell is offline.

If your doorbell chime doesn’t work when someone rings your doorbell, go to the Nest app to check whether the doorbell is offline. You should see the message: “Nest doorbell is offline.”

Once you’ve confirmed that your Nest doorbell is offline, you’ll need to troubleshoot the Wi-Fi connection to bring the device back online. You can troubleshoot your Wi-Fi connection by rebooting your router, moving your router closer to the doorbell, or factory resetting the doorbell.

Note that your Nest doorbell chime also needs a Google speaker to sound the chime. So, the chime may not work if the Google speaker is offline.

Take the following steps to check if your Google speaker is connected to the internet:

Open the Settings icon on your phone. Then select Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi network your phone is connected to will be labeled “connected”.
Now, you need to check if your Google speaker is connected to this active Wi-Fi network.
Open the Google Home app.
Click on the Google speaker.
Tap the Settings icon. Then select Device Information.
If your Google speaker is online, you’ll see “Wi-Fi” on the Device Info page, and your phone’s current Wi-Fi network. If you can’t find “Wi-Fi” on the Device Info page, you may need to troubleshoot the device’s Wi-Fi connection (reboot your router and the device).

4. Wait for the Weather in Your House to Cool Down

When the weather in your home becomes scorching, your Nest doorbell chime may switch off automatically. This helps to protect the doorbell’s internal circuit system. Don’t worry, the chime will turn back on when the temperature outside your home falls.

If the weather in your home is the reason your doorbell chime isn’t working, you’ll still get alerts on your phone when someone rings your doorbell.

If this is the case with you, you’ll just have to wait for the weather to cool down. Then check to see if your chime is now working properly.

5. Turn On Your Nest Doorbell’s Circuit Breaker

Do you use a wired Nest doorbell? Then the chime may fail to work because the circuit breaker is turned off.

So, if your doorbell chime isn’t ringing, another fix to try is to check that the circuit breaker is turned on. Go to the electrical panel and check whether the Nest doorbell’s circuit breaker is turned on. If not, turn on the breaker switch.

If you use an Indoor Power Adapter alongside your breaker, ensure that it is plugged in properly.

Your Nest doorbell chime should start working once the circuit breaker is turned on.

6. Fix Your Chime Wires

If you have a wired Nest doorbell, the chime may not work because the wires have loosened from their original position.

How do these wires loosen? Over time, the chime’s cover may press on the wires, thus causing them to protrude out of their usual position.

If you have a mechanical, these protruding wires may interfere with the chime’s moving parts.

So, if your doorbell chime stops working, you need to check whether the chime’s cover is interfering with the other parts of the chime. You can do this by removing the chime’s cover and pressing your doorbell button to see how the chime sounds without the cover.

If the chime sounds better, the cover is the cause of the interference. But if the chime’s weak sound stays the same, another thing may be responsible for the interference. Let’s look at how to fix your chime’s wiring:

Use a tape to hold the wires away from moving parts of your mechanical chime.
Replace the chime’s cover.
Then press the button on your doorbell to test the chime sound.
If your chime still sounds bad, move the connector away from the chime with double-sided tape.
Now, test your chime’s sound. The chime should sound better.

If another element in your chime has made your wires collide with your chime’s moving parts, here’s how to go about this:

Ask someone to press your doorbell button while you study the chime. You should be able to see what is interfering with the movement of your chime’s strikers by doing this.
Move your wires and connectors out of the chime box with some tape.
Open the chime cover and test the sound.
Put the cover back and test the sound again to confirm that nothing moved while you were moving the cover.
Once you are satisfied with the sound, put the wires back in their original place. But before you do that, check if any of the wires are rusted. If so, trim off the rusted parts. Now, fix the wires back and ensure none of the exposed wires touch each other.

If you have an electronic chime, your wires won’t interfere with any moving parts. That said, they may still get pushed out of their normal position when the chime’s cover pulls on them. So, you’ll need to check that your wires are correctly inserted when your chime malfunctions.

Here’s how to inspect the wires in an electronic chime:

Check that the wires are correctly inserted into the chime connector. If you see any wire about to loosen, use a screwdriver to drive in the screws that hold the wires together.
Ensure that no exposed wires are in contact with each other.
Follow the installation instructions in the Google Nest app for setting up the chime wires.
If your chime wires are more than 3, consult a Nest installation professional to re-install these wires.

7. Tighten Your Nest Doorbell Wires

Did you unmount your Nest wired doorbell recently? Then some wires may have come loose while you were remounting the doorbell to the backplate. These loosened wires may prevent the chime from working properly.

So, if your Nest doorbell chime isn’t working, you might need to re-tighten your doorbell wires.

Follow these steps to tighten your Nest doorbell wires:

Unmount your Nest doorbell from its backplate.
Use a screwdriver to tighten the screws that hold the doorbell wires.
Remount the doorbell.
Now, press the button on your Nest doorbell to test its sound. The Nest doorbell should start working properly now.

8. Upgrade Your Doorbell Transformer

Your Nest wired doorbell chime may not work if the doorbell does not receive sufficient voltage from the transformer.

Nest wired doorbells require 16-24 volts (North America) and 12-24 volts (Global). Your doorbell transformer must be able to supply the required voltage to power the chime effectively.

If your Nest wired doorbell isn’t working, check the amount of voltage in your doorbell transformer. You can find your doorbell transformer inside your Nest wired doorbell chime box—beside the fuse box or breaker. Your doorbell transformer is a rectangular box with two bolts attached to its top.

Once you find your doorbell transformer, you’ll see the device’s voltage rating written on its body. If your transformer doesn’t meet the voltage requirement, get a professional to upgrade your doorbell transformer.

Wrapping Up

So that’s how to troubleshoot your Nest doorbell chime. As you can see, there may be several reasons behind this problem, so try all the troubleshooting steps until the device works properly.

However, if the problem persists after trying all the fixes here, contact Google Nest Support for help.

You may also like to see how to troubleshoot Wyze Chime and Ring Alarm Chime.