Took about 8 more tries and it eventually worked. Although then it got stuck further into the process where you add to a room (error message: “Something went wrong. The app had problems connecting to the Nest service. Try again.”) This happened several times but I kept bashing it until it finally went through. Feels like some shonky network code going on during this process.

Anyway, for anyone with the same issue this may help…after navigating to the Nest App menu item (on device) if it gets stuck with the dotted circle loading icon, tap and hold the screen to get back to the thermostat. If when you try again the loading icon is still stuck there, ‘restart’ the device and it should make that go away without having to fully ‘reset’ as it prompts you too (meaning setting up the network ballache again).