Nest Thermostat

[Captmorgan]

Hi, was wondering why there is no 'idle' state to set under thermostat mode? I see on, off, heat, cool and heat-cool. I have a light change colors when cool or heat is activated, but no way to return light to default color without an idle state. Same options available on the home app and script editor. 

[Hollen_ar_mor]

Hello,

I had a Nest in my old house (Netatmo now).
As I remember, the screen turned orange when it turned on the heating (I didn't have air conditioning, so I never saw a blue screen).

I don't think it's possible to change these colors. And I don't really see what use would be made for Automation to do this...

[Captmorgan]

Currently I use Smartthings to automate this but since Google came out with the scripts editor I would like to transfer the automation to Google home, since well, we can now, or at least should be able to. My Nest thermostat controls a millivolt furnace and a swamp cooler. When the furnace turns on, I have a light in my house that turns red. When the cooler turns on, the light turns blue. The default color state of the lamp is orange. Smartthings can identify the "idle" state of the thermostat and change the light back to orange when the furnace or cooler is in an idle state. It also sends the command to a smartplug to turn off, which turns off the swamp cooler. The thermostat controls the furnace directly but Smartthings still checks the state. But there's no idle state in the script editor or home app, only "off" which wouldn't allow for that automation. I just like to have a visual cue of which appliances are running or should be running but failed because of a cloud error. 

[Hollen_ar_mor]

Maybe you could try "thermostatMode" with isNot ?

Like :

For me, there's no "cool" under "thermostatMode"...

[linkian19]

You might be able to use a couple of blocks of automation in the same routine to accomplish this.

As I understand it - you basically want to check if the thermostat ISN'T running either your heater or cooler. Normally your thermostat is just in an "idle state" but is still set to whatever mode you have set (be that heat, cool, or otherwise).

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there is any sort of "idle" check for thermostats at the moment, but, onto my idea.

Example Code:

automations:
  # ---- <TYPE> STARTERS ---- #
  # ---- <DESCRIPTION ---- #
  - name: Hot Side
    starters:
    - type: device.state.TemperatureSetting # Handles temperature points and modes of a thermostat device.
      state: thermostatTemperatureAmbient
      lessThanOrEqualTo: 80F
      device: <YOUR THERMOSTAT> 

    # ---- CONDITIONS ---- #
    condition:
      type: <ANY OTHER CONDITIONS YOU MAY WANT>

    # ---- ACTIONS ---- #
    actions:
      - type: <YOUR ACTION TO CHANGE LIGHT COLOR HERE>       
        
  # ---- <TYPE> STARTERS ---- #
  # ---- <DESCRIPTION ---- #
  - name: Cold Side
    starters:
    - type: device.state.TemperatureSetting # Handles temperature points and modes of a thermostat device.
      state: thermostatTemperatureAmbient
      greaterThanOrEqualTo: 67F
      device: <YOUR THERMOSTAT>  

    # ---- CONDITIONS ---- #
    condition:
      type: <ANY OTHER CONDITIONS YOU MAY WANT>

    # ---- ACTIONS ---- #
    actions:
      - type: <YOUR ACTION TO CHANGE LIGHT COLOR HERE>

This will do, mainly, 2 things:

1. Start the automation when the ambient temperature is detected at or less than 80F
2. Start the automation when the ambient temperature is detected at or greater than 67F

I'm assuming that your heater or cooler will turn off when the thermostat decides it has reached it's appropriate temperature, so you will have to sort of decide what these temperature values are and what might work for you.

I've left conditions and actions blank as I'm sure you can sort out if you want any other conditions to be true and you know what actions you would like to run.

Hope this helps!