If your phone, computer, smart home or other Wi-Fi devices went offline when you replaced your old Wi-Fi router with Nest Wifi or Google Wifi, they're most likely still trying to connect using your old network's name and password.
To fix this, we recommend you update your Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network's name and password to match your old network. If this doesn't fix your issue, you can try updating each of your devices to the new Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network name and password.
Troubleshooting Wi-Fi devices that go offline after setup
Before you start, confirm your network is working:
- First, check that at least one device can connect and is online using your new network. If you're unable to access the internet through any devices after trying to connect, including your phone, your modem might be disconnected or your internet might be down. Learn more about fixing your network.
- If you reused the same network name and password as your original network, make sure your devices aren't still connecting to your old router. The devices might still be connecting to your old network if you've haven't done any of the following:
- Disconnected your old router, if it's not needed as a modem.
- Turned off your old router's Wi-Fi or disabled broadcasting its network name (SSID), if your old router is needed as a modem.
- Set your old router to have a different Wi-Fi network name (SSID) than your new network.
- If only a few devices aren't working, try restarting your Wi-Fi devices that are disconnected. Depending on the device, a restart might be needed to connect.
Update your Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network name and password
Your new network should match your old network's name and password in order for your devices to continue connecting to Wi-Fi and the internet since your devices were set up to connect with the old network's name and password. Follow these steps to get them reconnected.
- If restarting doesn't work or if most of your devices can't connect, note your old router's network name (SSID) and password. If you don't remember, you might need to reconnect your old router and log in to find the information.
- In the Google Home app, set your Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network name to be different from your old router's network name, but use the same password as the old network.
- Note: Passwords are case-sensitive and must match.
- Log in to your old router and change its network name to something like "CurrentNetworkName-old." Your connected smart home devices, phone, and laptops will disconnect from the old network because your devices won't see the Wi-Fi network anymore that they were connected to. Alternatively, you could disconnect your old router if it's not being used as your modem, or turn off its Wi-Fi.
- In the Google Home app, change your new network name to your original old network name to match what your devices were set up with. All of the devices in your home should connect to your new Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network seamlessly. Your devices will see the same old network and password they knew before, even though we've replaced the Wi-Fi router.
Update individual devices
- If you want to use a new network name or password with your Nest Wifi or Google Wifi routers and points, you'll need to locate the Wi-Fi settings on each device and update each one individually.
- You might also need to do this if you're replacing some older routers that previously used a different encryption method or for routers that used multiple network names (SSIDs) for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.
Further troubleshooting
Devices can go offline for a variety of reasons. Check out Device can't connect to my Nest Wifi or Google Wifi network for more info.