I simply hate our Nest. I do not want it to have a schedule at all. We are so irregular in our hours that we have turned off the Nest’s ability to set a schedule for us. But it will not let us just turn it up and down as an old fashion nonprogrammable will. Right now the manually set schedule says 69 but it is cool here and we want it at 72. The only way to get it to lower is go into the schedule and change that but then next week it will go to 72 even if we want it at 69.
The away from home feature is nice but we really just want to turn the dang thing up and down as we need to…
I am with you on your hate of the Nest. I told my H that it is either too hot or too cold in our house and I want my old thermostat back. I ended up just setting a night time schedule for our bedroom and a day time schedule for our main living area. (we have 2 furnaces) In order to be somewhat pleased, I had to set the extend schedules to begin and end about 2 hours before my desired time so that they keep the rooms at my desired temp.
I still have to monkey with it from time to time because it seems to have a mind of its own. I use my phone app to do so.
To really complicate my life, H bought and hooked up a Haiku ceiling fan in the bedroom and this “smart” gadget communicates with my Nest to keep us at the perfect temp. NOT!!! I actually feel like the house is controlling me. Fear not, I can also lay in bed and control the fan from my phone. It adjusts and then goes back to what IT wants to do.
Thanks for these posts. I’d been mulling purchasing it - but I don’t work so my in house/out of the house hours are very random times and a set schedule doesn’t work for me. I need to easily be able to turn it up or down. Plus, H can’t even figure out the thermostat for radiant heat in bathroom works and I came home after playing tennis in 90 degree weather to find the bathroom temperature at 82!
Everyone I’ve seen have problems with a Nest has not followed the intructions. For the first week you manually override the temp when it sets a temp you do not want. You don’t change the schedule, you simply turn the dial. It then learns after a few days.
My schedule is completely unpredictable and after a few days it works perfectly. If I leave it turns the heat down. Turns it on when I come home. If I know I will be home at a certain time I just go on the app and turn the dial. House is the temp I want when I get home.
Nest has paid for itself 10x over after 5 years. I have the bills to prove it.
Yes, you are.
Sorry folks, but all you are explaining is that you don’t understand how the nest works. You don’t have to program it, and now it knows when you are home by your phone, and will respond to that. And if you want to adjust it wherever/whever you are- use your phone app. Easy peasy. If you need help, call customer service and they will walk you through any/all questions. Google Nest Help</a> (scroll down- the phone # is at the bottom)
I love my nest thermostats and smoke detectors.
By the way, if you have the next app on more than one phone or ipad, you will need to have one person as the primary and the others as family member on your account. Otherwise the thermostats cant tell which phone/device is the primary and which it should pay most attention to.
But the issue is that --for example–yesterday it was 69 in the house as scheduled. I wanted it
at 71. H went into his phone and changed it. Then there is a huge delay before it really cools down.
Our downstairs has a honeywell that we do not program(same furnace). I can go down and set it from 73 to 70 while I exercise and when I am finished put it back up to 73. And it cools immediately and within the hour is down from 73 to 71 minimum. The nest would still be dealing with the IDEA that we want immediate change.
I simply do not want it to adjust when I walk in as I never know when I will be returning home so
going into the app–well, I do not want to have to even think about this ongoing.
Guessing this is just not it for this phase of our lives.
Wondering…so you leave on a really hot day and the Nest adjusts the AC down but then you suddenly come home and the house is hot and you then wait and wait for it to cool again?
Unless you have remembered to use the app…?
That sounds like a problem with your heating system, not your thermostat. And it may also depend on where the thermostat is located relative to the heating system. you DO NOT have to adjust it when you walk in. If you have told it what temp you like, when you walk in your nest knows you are home because it syncs to your phone. And what some people do is go on their app before they get home and turn the temp up/down to whatever they want so its the temp they want when they walk in. It really isnt that hard.
I believe they may be looking into a way for it to know when you are a mile or so from home so can anticipate your arrival, but not sure how that works or if/when that will be in place.
And when you leave, you can set it on “away” (I think its now called “eco”). You can control it all from your phone.
You can also go on your phone app, select “support” and chat with someone (who will be in either northern California or Texas, not overseas) about your issues. It really is pretty darned easy.
I replaced my old mercury thermostat with Honeywell thermostat. It’s simple and it works great. I looked at other thermostats with fancy features but I was reluctant to buy because I did not want a simple device to depend too much on software. I work in software development and I know that software has bugs.
ok–really not trying to be difficult…but this is the issue–if I do not set it by app as I am predicting
my return then it does not begin to adjust until I walk in…when on a hot day I just want to walk into
my cold house. Yes, I realize we lose the cost/efficiency benefits. But this conversation is good as I
get it now and it just will not work for me the way I need it to right now.
@oregon- just go on your phone and contact customer support. They will answer all your questions. If you want to program it to be an icebox all day, you can do that. The nest is set up to be energy and cost efficient, but if you want to run the a/c all day, you can program it to do that. I wouldn’t, but you can. Or, turn it down to 66 from your phone when you are a half hour away from home. It really isnt this hard.
The beauty of the wifi nest is that they are constantly updating their software and you never know it. If there are glitches, they fix them with software updates, remotely, @coolweather. They not only update their app, they update their software in their devices. Thats how I found out that I didn’t need to walk by it anymore for it to know I was home.
You can also go to the phone app, select “schedule” (at the bottom) and schedule your thermostat to come on at any given time, to any temperature. I am sitting at my computer and decided its warm, so just turned the thermostat down from my phone. No getting up. Easy peasy. Don’t blame the thermostat for operator error
We have 3 nest thermostats (one on each floor of the house) and 2 smoke detectors. I can control each thermostat separately from my one app (they are all labelled on the app and you can call them whatever you want). If I forget to turn up the one in the basement when I am in bed, I just look on my app to see what it is set at, and adjust it. No running up and down the stairs.
Apology for typo above - nest (not next). And again @oregon101 , it might be worth seeing if your HVAC system upstairs needs a tune-up. The thermostat may not be the issue.
One of our thermostats happens to be behind an interior glass door, and the thermostats are designed to block input that comes through glass (since some sunlight could come through the window and give the thermostat wrong info - if I understand it correctly). So I have to close that door or relocate the thermostat, or manually adjust that one if I want to.
I think for me there is some tech stuff I just don’t want to bother with - like on my TV. Kid was home a few weekends ago and was showing me stuff I can do from remote and my phone - but I just want to watch regular cable, Netflix and Watch ESPN streams on it - even though it can do so much more then that.
Thanks–
HVAC has been wonderfully reconfigured just a month ago.
I get it and the problem remains that I do not want any schedule and
I do not want to have to deal with the app–however easy it is.
H has never had good customer service and now has dealt with the Nest folks both before and after
the furnace reconfiguration.
I am as tech phobic as you @emilybee, especially with the tv remote. I’d rather change the channels one by one than figure out where the guide is. And I have no idea how to record a show. My DH shows me- it goes in one ear and out the other.
But as for the nest thermostat, so program it to stay on the same temp all the time, @oregon101 and its all good.
I am the TV person in my house! I have to set up what H wants to record as he has no clue no matter how many times I show him how easy it is. He is really useless with the smart TV as there are now two remotes and he still gets it wrong even though I’ve shown him umpteenth times which one to use to just turn TV on and off.
But I do have my limits on how much I want to clutter up my mind with techy gadget info.
