Troubleshoot familiar face detection

What your camera might misidentify

In these scenarios, try to tweak your camera’s view away from these objects to avoid false person or face alerts.

• When a mirror is present, your camera might mistake a person and their reflection for 2 people.
• If there’s a TV, your camera might confuse someone on the screen as an actual person inside your home.

Remove incorrect snapshots from a face profile

If your camera identified someone incorrectly, remove incorrect snapshots in the face profile as soon as possible. This will reduce the chance of that person being misidentified again.

Home app

To delete photos:

5. Tap Edit , then select any photos that you want to delete together.
6. Tap Delete .
7. Confirm that you want to remove the selected photos.

To move photos to the correct face profile:

5. Tap Edit , then select the photos that you want to move.
6. Tap Move .
7. Search and select a person saved in the familiar face library, or type in a new name to save the photos in a new face profile.
8. Tap Yes to confirm your choice.

Nest app

1. Open the Nest app .
2. Tap Settings Familiar faces the face profile you want to review.
3. You’ll find a grid of snapshots.
   • For Android, tap any incorrect ones to highlight them.
   • For iOS, tap Select, then tap any incorrect ones.
4. Tap Delete to remove those snapshots.

Sometimes your camera may misidentify a familiar face as a new face and create another profile of the same person. To fix this, merge the profiles.

You can add or change a name in the familiar face library if a face profile was saved without one or with the wrong name.

Make sure to turn on your camera's familiar face detection.

If you have more than one Nest camera, you’ll need to turn familiar face detection on for each camera individually.

If that isn’t the issue, ensure your camera has a clear shot of the area you want to monitor. This will help your camera tell the difference between faces.

Tips to help your camera detect faces better

• Position your camera so it can find faces easily. Familiar face detection works best when the subject is directly in front of the camera.
  • Place your camera roughly 6-8ft (183-244cm) above ground and place your doorbell about 4ft (122cm) above ground.
  • Place the camera where people would naturally walk towards it, such as pointed at a path or down a driveway.
  • For best results, the camera should be placed within 10ft of where people will walk towards it.
• Check the lighting around your camera. Check your camera’s view at different times during the day to make sure that there’s no glare from the sun or other light sources.
• Review your familiar faces library regularly basis in the first few weeks, especially after you add a new person. Promptly fix any face recognition mistakes.

Important: Before you change notification settings it’s important to understand how they work. Here are a few key points about familiar face notifications:

• When your camera spots a familiar face, the event includes the name (if any) you assigned to the person.
• When your camera spots an unfamiliar face, it will send an unfamiliar face alert.
• If your camera spots a familiar face and an unfamiliar face at the same time, it will send an alert about the unfamiliar face.
• If your camera’s not sure whether it recognizes a face, it will send a person alert instead of a familiar face alert.
• You might get different alerts for the same person if you have more than one camera and their settings are different.

If you can’t manage your camera’s familiar face detection settings or your home’s familiar face library, it could be caused by the following:

• Your home is in an area where familiar face detection feature isn’t available.¹
• You’ve entered your date of birth into your Google account and are under the age of 13 in the US (or the applicable age in your country).