cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Replies are disabled for this topic. Start a new one or visit our Help Center.

Alexa TURN OFF THE HEAT! ...'the heat is off'... but it's not.

CJK860
Community Member

First, I spoke with Google Nest support about this issue and as expected, they put me on hold for 5 minutes to research the issue and hung up on me.  That seems to be a trend in customer service these days.  

But anyway, So i can use Alexa to control all aspects of the Nest Learning Thermostat.  I can turn it on, i can change the temperature, but when I ask it to turn off the heat, it does not.  The Nest app shows it as off, Alexa thinks it's off, but the thermostat on the wall is clearly on and set to whatever temperature it should be and it's lit orange indicating the furnace is running.  It never used to do this and use to work fine.  

74 REPLIES 74

Tuellmom
Community Member

You might want to reset the Nest thermostat. Sometimes that will fix the issue. If it doesn't, try to call Nest again. You can also try these links:  https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/136596/nest-thermostat-gen-2-won-t-turn-off-furnace

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9235232?hl=en

CJK860
Community Member

Thanks. I tried that and didnt work. Not sure what changed, it used to work.

Dlee
Community Member

This also happened recently with my thermostat. Even the Nest app will say “OFF” but the thermostat will still be on. You have to manually turn on heat/cold then hit off in the nest app for the thermostat to turn off. 

Ahfmca
Community Member

i have the same problem after all was working fine for a long time, all of a sudden alexa cannot turn off heat eventhough app says its off but thermostat shows its on!   Resetting did not work.    BTW Alexa can turn on thermostat just does not turn it off!! strange!

Dlee
Community Member

It was the update on the 10/25 to 6.2-22 is where I started to notice the problem. If you search the latest update on the Nest website they don’t even have that version documented…. I’m thinking they took the patch off knowing there are issues. Hopefully they create a patch to fix it soon. 

Ahfmca
Community Member

After trying everything I decided to order a new thermostat, will see if that is the problem causing this issue.  If its a patch I should still have same problem,  will let you know!  thx

PS did not bother calling customer service,  could not be bothered talking to some idiot in India trying to convince me nothings wrong with the thermostat!

Daysprung
Community Member

I have been having same problem the last week or so...

Hobo1512
Community Member

Same exact problem here.

Gnestuser
Community Member

I too am having the same problem.

I've done a reset of the thermostat, the app, the Alexa app. Removed accounts, re-added accounts, etc... None of those fixed the problem.

I did notice it started happening recently after the latest patch. Please fix!

CJK860
Community Member

what ticks me off is I trusted the science when i thought the furnace was off and opened all the windows on a warm enough day.  I come downstairs and the furnace was running for a couple of hours with the windows open.  So all that money was flying out the window and I feel i should be compensated for my loss because some developer didn't fully test a patch before deploying it to millions of homes.  Someone should be held accountable.   Still no word from Google on this.  

JohnnyDirect
Community Member

Same Problem here.  Any fix yet?

So far none on my side. This problem seems to be prevalent. I hope they are listening!

futureshrink
Community Member

Seriously this is so frustrating!! I literally have to turn off the heat at the thermostat. It no longer responds to  the app or voice commands. Fix it!!!

Brutherford
Community Member

You are not the only one! I am experiencing the exact same problem to a T. Please tell me there is a solution. I have tried reinstalling the APP. Factory reset the nest and nothing seems to work. 

AlexaNest
Community Member

I too am having this problem.

Rickflix
Community Member

I just spent hours between Nest and Alexa, establishing that the problem was an Alexa issue, and cycling through chat with 6 or 7  useless Alexa customer service reps. Reset everything, uninstalled and reinstalled both Nest and Alexa apps, all with no solution. Every time they sent me to reset something, I return to the chat with somebody new who needs to review the previous chat and asks the same questions. All of this with no solution at all. Customer service hell.

rastajaguares
Community Member

I have the same problem and dont think its Alexa related, hope google figures this out soon cause its very annoying

jobear
Community Member

Same problem here

Fofer
Community Member

Thanks for reporting this. Same issue here. Crazy! This is major. I wasted all this time troubleshooting and resetting, and nothing worked.

If this doesn't get fixed in the next week or two I'm getting rid of my Nest gear. What a joke.

rastajaguares
Community Member

so today I had a chat with google support, I have to say it was a huge waste of time, at this point I am at the third level escalation, but I got answers from Alexa may be the problem to switching to off position is not supported for Alexa, and the always fun "if your app does not work as well there may be latencies on your network that you should check, anyway after proving that all of their "on the flight diagnosis" was incorrect I am waiting for them to come back over email on the latest escalation, however I am not expecting for that to change much, hopefully on their next update this will be fixed, but judging by how oblivious of this issue their support personnel is I would not hold my breath 

GumbyPW
Community Member

The simple fix is to say "Alexa, set thermostat to eco" that will set your thermostat to min @ max temps you have setup

The better fix is a workaround

Create a routine called thermostat off
when you say "set thermostat to off"
or whatever you choose to use as the phrase
next enter custom command type "set thermostat to eco"
from device you speak to
she will respond "thermostat set to energy saving"
on the thermostat itself goto settings, eco & adj heat & cool both to off
This will cause Alexa to set the thermostat to off for all practical purposes

 

OverIT
Community Member

Umm no. This needs to be fixed. Please don't offer up alternative options. Instead advocate and help get it fixed. Enabling is never helpful in and situation. It encourages ineptitude and laziness. Especially in a situation when it's obvious some kind of update broke this part of the skill. I'm so over the world excusing these billion dollar companies that continue to increase the ridiculous amounts of money we already pay them for subpar services that continue to decline as they make more money when they already have disgusting amounts of it to begin with. They need to do better. YOU need to stop helping them get away with it. And ALL of us need to demand what we deserved from the beginning when their attrocious charges (even then from the beginning) at least resulted in those of us getting robbed receiving the services we were promised in the first place. Unfortunately we are all weak and too addicted to even the subpar versions of them to do what we should, which is drop them and sit back and watch them crumble and put their feet back in the ground instead of flying over us thinking they are some kind of gods. Smdh. There's a reason we have so many ignorant members of our species and that this pandemic is the beginning of the end of the parasites we've become. I'm sure people will think I sound crazy...just FYI I'm an immunology oncology researcher and have been for over 20 yrs. Gluck everybody...evolution, karma, and "mother nature" are all angry bitches and we're about to feel her rightful wrath.

 

Happy New Year!🥳

Fofer
Community Member

Agreed and well said! Why should we give up the functionality of ECO mode just so we can still verbally turn off our thermostats?

 

and why hasn’t Google officially acknowledged this huge bug?  It’s far past due and is demonstrably dangerous.

Smokeyham
Community Member

I appreciate the poster who provided an alternative as temporary solution.   Looking forward to a longer term fix.

GumbyPW
Community Member

You are right, this is an issue that they need to fix. But, at least to me, the auto (Heat/Cool) setting is the same as the (Eco) setting & redundant. So as a work around until they fix it I personally can sacrifice 1 of these to facilitate an effective “off” for the thermostat. I am not affiliated with any of these manufacture’s and in fact just A 71 yr old paraplegic offering A work around that I came up with for those that might want to  be able to turn their stat’s “Off” via voice  

Blankken
Community Member

Happening to me too. Glad to know it’s not just my device. Sad to see it is a known problem for so long. 

rastajaguares
Community Member

the google joke of the day, they came back after the escalation and asked to factory default the device and unlink the Alexa skill. so dont get your hopes up, I think this issue is known to the community of users but not to google so chances are it wont get fixed

The simple fix is to say "Alexa, set thermostat to eco" that will set your thermostat to min & max temps you have setup

The better fix is a workaround

Create a routine called thermostat off
when you say "set thermostat to off"
or whatever you choose to use as the phrase
next enter custom command type "set thermostat to eco"
from device you speak to
she will respond "thermostat set to energy saving"
on the thermostat itself goto settings, eco & adj heat & cool both to off
This will cause Alexa to set the thermostat to off for all practical purposes

This workaround worked for me

Chuggins
Community Member

Glad others are having this happen. But it just started today. It turns on but not off with eco. My Alexa app turns it on but not off. Nest app turns it on and off from my phone.

GumbyPW
Community Member

According to Nest, the only 4 voice commands "for thermostat Modes" Alexa can chose from are Heat, Cool, Heat&Cool or Eco

If you set the eco temps both to off you can accomplish the voice response of off by asking her to set thermostat to eco instead of off. I understand that asking her to set it off she responds "it's off" & the app says it's off, but thermostat is still on. Don't know why Nest wont let that work, but you can use the eco mode to do the same thing.

rastajaguares
Community Member

I found something interesting today, usually turning the thermostat back to off doesnt work for me from either the app or alexa however I recently found out that you can do this from the google home app, anyway after doing this the app went back to work, then I tried to do it with Alexa again and the issue re appeared, it seems as if alexa is creating the problem somehow and leaving it stuck until you unstuck it using the google home app, the interesting part is that you can say, "hey google set thermostat to off" and that would work, but not Alexa, that will generate the issue again as mentioned before

yes, I had the same issue and this works. Google assistant can turn off the heat but Alexa cannot!

I dug out my google minis and have been using them to turn the heat on and off - if you forget and turn it on with Alexa then google home app or a google mini won’t be able to turn it off.

If you forget and turn it on from the Alexa app and the Google Home app or a Google mini will not turn it off. You have to turn it on and off from the Google Home app or Google mini.

Pbassi62
Community Member

Same problem. Watching to see if it gets resolved. 

Deathspared
Community Member

Same problem here!

Smh5108
Community Member

Same thing here.  Sucks!

Fofer
Community Member

Every day that goes by is another day of Google not acknowledging this major issue. Their Alexa skill is no longer properly communicating with Nest thermostats and it's now inaccurately reporting "OFF" status in various ways.  It's one thing for firmware to get out of sync with hardware... I realize development isn't easy and involves many moving parts, It's another to completely ignore a major feature breaking, simply because it's not using Google Assistant as the voice command.  This product was sold with full Alexa compatibility by way of the Nest "skill" and Google isn't maintaining that promise. And their silence on this front is deafening; it's been going on for over a month!

If this isn't fixed soon, Google has lost my trust and I'll be ditching all of my Google hardware and switching my thermostats to Ecobee.  

SP12345
Community Member

Cause of the latest firmware update. My only work around is use google home (i hate using it as it is slow).  No longer works with Alexa. Hope they fix as it has been months