Nest Cam: New Wi-Fi and Hotel Wi-Fi Connection

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I happen to stay in hotels when I travel a lot and most of the time I spend my time there is one thing that pisses me off. Using the unsecured Wi-Fi. considering I have a Nest Cam. This is the kind of Wi-Fi that I have to enter my name and the room number I have booked in that hotel.

Sometimes back I lived in Florida for a year. On the way there & back, I was only staying in Holiday Inns. The day before I left, I had bought a travel bottle of mouth wash and I left it in the room in which I was staying. After I had breakfast on the morning of my departure, I went back to my room to brush my teeth & get my things together for the journey.

When I reached for the mouthwash, there was only about an inch left, in the bottom of the bottle. I thought that it had leaked but the bottom of the bag was dry. It took some time for me to realize what happened. One of the staff in the hotel must have been alcoholic and drank it or poured it through a loaf of bread, to filter it in order to get pure alcohol.

I was pissed off and went to report to the hotel management about this incidence, but there was no evidence of what I was saying. What I hate about the hotels is something about a bunch of people having access to the room while I am away, it doesn’t sit well with me.

This is why I have the nest cam to help me when such circumstances happen again. The only problem that arises now is connecting them to the hotel Wi-Fi. Well, I have some solutions here that I use and I hope they will also help you.

As a side note, I wrote an article about how to connect Nest to Google Home which you can find here. You should check it out if you are considering them.

Hotel Wi-Fi Disconnects

Things have not been working well. I might be able to get the camera working on the hotel network for some time but I think you will find that if there is no activity or sometimes even if there is activity, after about 15 minutes or so most hotels will kick you off the network and you have to sign in again.

Otherwise, people would be signing on and not off and bogging down the network. It probably varies with every hotel, depending upon how or who set up the guest network.

I also know many hotels that only give you a limited time, say…two hours, for the connection fee. Better places are unlimited free, but might still boot you I guess.

My Ex worked at a BW Plus and there Wi-Fi was free. You even got a cable to plug in if you wished. Once signed in, you were in till you signed out. She knows, she took her laptop in a few times and never got booted.

Anyway, the best you could hope for is that while you were watching, someone did something

Before I had a big break and had the solution to this problem, I had always been unhappy. I usually had to use this temporary setup that will enable me to use for the few nights that I stay there and then move to another place or come back home after the job is done.

 Nest, just like other smart Home devices is pretty stubborn when it comes to connecting them to a new Wi-Fi network. You have to set them up all again to just connect them to a new network. But nest cam makes this process a little smoother.

I was surprised at how cheap I was able to buy the Nest Security Camera on the cheap from the listing here.

What is the WIFI For?

Nest needs a Wifi connection and this is from routers. The routers are for connecting a modem like a fiber cable or a DSL modem to other devices so that they allow communication between those devices and the internet.

There are many things that you should put into consideration when you want to have a router; such as how fast it should be to support your internet speed and devices. You should also consider its power to ensure that all your devices can receive internet access.

Have a look at these lists if you’re having trouble deciding on a new router:

How to Connect Nest Cam to Wi-Fi

To start, open the nest app and tap on the Settings gear icon in the top right corner of the screen. Here are steps that will guide you through the setup.

  • Start by opening the nest app and tap on the Settings gear icon that is at the top right corner.
  • Then select Home info
  • Tap on the home Wi-Fi Help
  • Tap on Update Settings
  • Look for Nest Cam in the list and select it
  • Scan the QR cord that is on the back of the Nest Cam using your Phone. This will take you to the next screen automatically after detection.
  • Click on Next
  • Select the location of Your Nest Cam eg Office and it will name it office camera
  • Read the warnings sent on the screen and click Continue
  • Make sure the Nest Cam is plugged in and click on Continue
  • Wait for the Nest Cam to boot then select the Wi-Fi network from the list
  • Enter your Wi-Fi password for the new network and Join
  • Wait for a few moments for it to connect to the network
  • Now it is connected. if you have another product you can add, if there is none, hit done.

Google Nest Compatible Devices

Nest cams are also interoperable with a variety of many smart home products. The problem is mainly knowing which one so that you don’t end up with something you will not be using at all.

They Work this list of home automation products that are compatible. For example, myQ smart garage hub by Chamberlain, Kasa by TP-Link, Philips Hue lights and Wemo switches automatically connect with Works with Nest without any need for complicated setup processes.

For broader home automation, a Google Nest-compatible smart home hub will be of great help to connect Nest with other non-Nest products.

Temporary Setup of Nest Cam

But if you are for the temporary setup, then I would recommend you to buy a travel router that connects upstream to the hotel Wi-Fi and then it will help you to create a new Wi-Fi for yourself.

All of your devices connected to your Wi-Fi will appear to be a single device to the hotel’s network. This means that you can then log into the captive portal using any device (laptop, phone, whatever), and all your devices will then have Internet access, even devices without screens/keyboards. The captive portal will likely time out after a day or two. At that point, you’ll have to log in again.

I do this partly so devices like Chrome cast can be on Wi-Fi, and also because I find it easier to set this up and then only have to log in on one device instead of having to log in on laptop, phone, kindle, etc… Especially if they’re going to make me log in every day, I really don’t want to be doing that every day on every device. This is very tiring.

One that I would suggest that you use and I have been using is GL.iNET GL-MT300N-V2 Mini Travel Router that will work just fine. You can have a look at them here to check there current prices and reviews. Although also having the regular routers can do this, but it’s hard to know which ones.

If you just look for “travel router”, they’re generally small, cheap, and can all do this. It can really get confusing.

Clone the Nest’s Mac

Another option that might work is if you clone the Nest’s MAC address onto a laptop, connect the laptop to Wi-Fi and log in, then disconnect and change the laptop’s MAC back … and then connect the Nest to Wi-Fi. It will probably be recognized as already logged in (since you logged in using its MAC address when using the laptop). This option has the advantage of not requiring to buy anything, but requires some more tech work, and is more annoying, especially if you have to repeat the process every day.

Use Teamviewer Instead

If you have a laptop with a camera set up in the hotel room, you may be able to use Teamviewer to connect to the laptop at the hotel and view what the laptop has on its screen. This is another solution I have used with my laptop, though I had to fear for my laptop. You have to leave the camera playing on the laptop and disable screensavers and power saving settings.

You can download and use Teamviewer at Teamviewer.com. And the last time I looked, if you use it for personal use, not for a business, it’s free. This could be of help if you don’t have the Nest cam or have forgotten to carry one.

Conclusion

Nest are making some of my favorite smart thermostats, and these thermostats are now getting pretty more capable with the support for Google assistant.

If you would like to know how to connect your nest to Google Home, I have written a detailed article here that will guide you through all the steps to follow in setting it up. Though they aren’t the first thermostats to add Google assistant support because Honeywell already did add Google Assistant support to several of their smart thermostats.

If you encounter some problems in setting up your nest with Google Home or encounter an issue with your Nest Account and Google Home/Assistant, you can have a look at my article here on how it ended up working for me just in case it helps someone else who has just started installing and connecting them.

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