topic Re: Cannot setup home/away in Home Automation

Cannot setup home/away

thegios — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 04:43:20 GMT

Google Home 4.3

One phone (Pixel 10 pro XL)

One neat cam

One nest thermostat

Presence sensing enables

I can no longer set home/away:

Re: Cannot setup home/away

AndersC — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 04:55:05 GMT

Hi @thegios,

Thank you for posting in the community. I understand you're experiencing an issue setting up the Home/Away feature for your Nest Cam and Nest Thermostat. I appreciate you providing the information about your devices, your phone, and the Google Home app version. I'm happy to assist you.

Could you tell me if the issue with the Home/Away Assist is more related to not switching when you're home or away, your devices not responding to it, or if you're getting a specific error trying to connect? Additionally, please let me know if you have set up the Home/Away Assist in the Nest app or the Google Home app.

In the meantime, I recommend visiting the article Presence-based automations not working, which includes some general troubleshooting, including for the Home/Away Assist.

Keep me posted.

Regards,

Anders

Re: Cannot setup home/away

thegios — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 07:12:00 GMT

Here the problem: https://youtube.com/shorts/8CWvA2Kt6jo?si=Ku1RA1GwB_inSf0c

Re: Cannot setup home/away

thegios — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:44:50 GMT

It appears that manually creating an old household routine restores the missing functionality. By navigating to the Automations tab, clicking on the + sign to create a new automation but then.selecting the three dots in the top right corner, and choosing "Household routine," I was able to save a new routine (even one without a starter or action). Once this was saved, the Home/Away switch immediately became available again.

I am sharing this because it clearly indicates a software bug where the switch visibility is tied to the existence of these old household routines.