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Can’t change safety temperature from default settings in nest app

rgaila
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Disclaimer: This thread was migrated from our previous version of the Google Nest Community. You can continue to receive updates on your thread issue here or simply ask, browse or more in the new Google Nest Community.

Original Poster: User 7007047860859713927 

 

Cannot change safety temperatures from default settings in nest app
 
56 REPLIES 56

rgaila
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi User 7007047860859713927,

Sorry to hear about your thermostat troubles! Thankfully, those defaults aren't fixed temperatures, and it's easy to change. Let's get work on this together.

If this is the Nest Thermostat (base model), the Safety Temperatures have to be managed in the Google Home app.

1. Open the Home app and tap on your thermostat.
2. Tap Settings > Temperature preferences > Safety Temperature.
3. Tap the plus or minus symbols to raise or lower the Safety Temperature. If you have both heating and cooling, you can change their temperature independently.

If your device is an E or Learning Thermostat, you can adjust this feature in the Nest App.

1. Select your thermostat.
2. Tap Settings > Nest settings icon.
3. Tap Safety Temperature.
4. Drag the sliders to your desired Safety Temperature.

Let us know if you have any other questions for us.

-From Garrett DS, Community Specialist.

Spooley6
Community Member

Can't slide safety temperature levels on Nest 3rd generation. Both Nest app and Google Home app show fixed temps, can go lower than default 7 and higher than 35 but nothing in between.

Seri
Community Member

Unfortunately, the sliders to modify the safety temperature on our model/app don't work. You can't change them from the defaults.

 

We set up our Nest with the needs of our parrots and reptiles in mind, and we shocked to find that it had shifted to the safety temps while we were on a trip. We came home to a 46ºF house with pets that should not be kept at temps below 65ºC (outside temps were 6-25ºF while we were gone). We had to reset the Nest to get the heat to come back on, and now we get to pay for all of the extra heating it took to get the home back to temperature.  Who was the idiot who decided upon the safety temps and to disallow changing them?!?  We'll be going back to Honeywell, which follows our settings.  We can't risk our pets if this happens again.

DMA5
Community Member

My Learning Nest won’t let me adjust the safety temperature above 45 on the app or manually on the wall. It stays right at 45 on the app even if I try to slide it; and the wall offers no higher temperature for the low heat above 45. 

Gee1
Community Member

Same problem here, I think I’ll just return this pos! Tired of getting nowhere with this and their helpful advice and tired of the circle game.

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all,

 

Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to follow up, and see if I could be of any help. If you are having trouble setting the safety temperature using the app, you can also set the temperature using the Nest Thermostat. I found an article with more information on how to do that.

 

Best regards,

Jake

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all,


I wanted to check in and see if you are still in need of any help with your device. Please let me know, as I would be happy to assist, and answer any questions you may have.

Best regards,
Jake

Jhfsnake
Community Member

It seems like Jake doesn’t know how to fix this problem either. The specialist should know the ins and out of the product. Maybe he has the same problem and the company just doesn’t care

AnnF
Community Member

As with comments above, I cannot get the slider to move beyond 7 deg

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Seri,

 

I am sorry to hear about the trouble you had run into. With you no longer having the Nest device, we are unable to troubleshoot further. Please let me know if you have any questions, as I would be happy to review.

 

Best regards,

Jake

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Seri,


I wanted to check in, and let you know that I will be locking the thread in 24 hours.

 

Best regards,

Jake

Spooley6
Community Member

Had been hoping a fix would be found, possibly with new firmware. I can't move the arrow slider in safety temperature setting on Nest app, Home app or on the thermostat itself. Like the Nest line of products but this is a deal breaker when or of we upgrade.

Rk2
Community Member

Exactly. Google hasn’t even acknowledged the actual issue that we’ve all been reporting. I would expect at least a feature request to be submitted on behalf of us. Not sure why the thread would be closed if there are still people running into this. 

@Jake, to be clear. The issue isn’t that we don’t know how to change the safety temps, it’s that we can’t set the safety temps to a SAFE temperature. The max heating temp is capped at 45°F and the min cooling temp is capped at 95°F. We have pets (me specifically, reptiles) that must not be exposed to ambient temperatures as low as 45°. I want to set my safety temp to 60° so it protects them. I cannot do this because the app and the device limit it to 45°F, a temperature that would be dangerous to our pets. 

Dvb
Community Member

I am having the same problem, the slider does not work. Did you solve this problem? I can sure use some help ?thanks.

Jhfsnake
Community Member

I am having the same problem as everyone else. The slider doesn’t move past 45F. I know how to do it but the slider won’t

Spooley6
Community Member

Hasn't been addressed by Google yet, been waiting over a year for answer to set safety temps

jfkaye
Community Member

This is so frustrating. I live in a climate where having the house at a temperature of 45 degrees could cause serious damage. It’s not safe to come home to a 45 degree home when it’s -49 degrees outside!

BHill
Community Member

Absolutely stunned on Google’s part to not even acknowledge that the maximum safety temperature is 45. A ton of people must run into this problem. They must think that we all live in California.

My Nest thermostat won't allow me to lower the safety temperature default below 76. I would like the AC to start automatically at 74 degrees not 76 degrees. How do I change it?

Seri
Community Member

You actually can’t change it on my model. The slider does not work.  This almost killed my tropical pets while we were on vac.  We changed to the Ecobee and threw out our Nest.

I did that and I’m still freezing and it’s 23degrees outside and 47 in side

The safety temperature is not the setpoint for room comfort.

There are several setpoints that your thermostat could be using depending if you are in comfort, Eco, or sleep mode.

Check to make sure you are in the right mode.  If your thermostat says it's heating and your furnace is not running, you have other issues

HK
Community Member

Can you lower cooling temperature below 95?

 

Seri
Community Member

Not for the safety temperature setting. It seems to want us to freeze in winter and bake in summer if we go away for a few days.

Tyler1
Community Member

I live in an area that in winter months can reach -30c/-22f and in the summer can reach 50c/122f. That said I would like to set a minimum of 18c/64f and a maximum of 25c/77f so that pets and anything temperature sensitive will be alright if the thermostat is ever shut off for any reason. How do I unlock this setting?

kwstoudt
Community Member

My housing authority wants thermostats to go no lower than 60 in the winter, but my safety temp won't go above 45. Any way to change this?

Rk2
Community Member

In my case, I have some reptiles at home and I want my safety temperature to reflect that the safest minimal ambient temp for them is 67. 

dhx227
Bronze
Bronze

Dumbest thing ever: why is the heating safety temperature fixed at 45 degrees?   Where the hell do the engineers live that they don't realize the purpose of a safety temperature and that it should be calculated based on a home's insulation/heat retention factor versus the typical length of a power outage and outside temperatures.   My nest is located in the mountains where night time temps are often < 0F and power outages are fairly common.   Over 40 years, we have determined that with outdoor daily temps between 0-20F, a safety temperature between 50F and 55F will allow for a  power outage time of approx 2 days before the indoor temp drops to freezing (32F).   Why does Nest think their 45F is sufficient?!?!    Stupid thing.   Probably need to just return this and switch to a Honeywell as broken pipes will cost me a LOT more than this fancy, but useless thermostat!!!

Waiting to hear the response. I am trying to set it to 50 or 55 but doesn't allow me to go above 45. Default was 40 and only allowed me to move to 45!!

Darwinjunkie
Community Member

Agree! I'd like to know my furnace isn't working before it's that cold! If it reaches 45 degrees it means my furnace is malfunctioning and even if I can fix it, it would take a very long time to heat back up!

Cheaman
Community Member

This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen! 45F? It's currently -30C (daytime temp) where I live. I'm going on vacation and need to know well before it gets down to 45F to have someone go and fix it in my absence. 

kopoboi
Community Member

This has to be fixed Google. I get it, your in Mtin View I lived there for 30 years before you took over the bay and all those AOL buildings finally found tenants. . Great weather rarely gets cold. But now that I live in Upstate NY where it snows 45 is bad. I go a notification that the temp was below 45 at 6am, so it kick on. My contractors went in the morning (8am) and it was frezzing. Took a long time to heat up. You talk about energy efficient. It cost more to heat up from ############ than to keep to heat consistent.  My Lennox thermostat which we had to replace because the smart screen went out (not going to pay 1300 for a thermoset prev owners were dumb) safety temp was 65. Here where it snows if the temp gets to 55 is when you start calling HVAC. You have so long before you pipes frezzed. This is a very expensive fix. We are already fix a house that was runied by water pipe. We dont need to get another claim because google doesnt think about regions whose safety temp is not going to be the same in very area.  

finmark
Community Member

I, too, just discovered you can't set the safety above 45 degrees.  After researching why I couldn't move the slider above 45 I found this thread.  I find it interesting that not one of Google's 135, 000 employees has stepped up to respond to these comments after the August comment.  Not good Google......

Seri
Community Member

We got rid of our Nest and went with an Ecobee. Not risking my pets again.

Miaj1436
Community Member

How do you like the Ecobee? 

Seri
Community Member

Just saw this - sorry.  So far we like it.

You can shut off the away setting so that it doesn't switch over to safety temps at all. (e.g., we traveled recently, and I was able to tell it to turn that off for a week, which was a convenient and simple way to do it.  In addition, you can monitor and alter the settings remotely via the app.

Ours came with 2 sensors that we put at different places in the house, and we bought 2 additional. They let you set the thermostat based on the results from 1 particular sensor, or to average them. This is useful to us because our house only has 1 zone for heating, and we get a lot of fluctuation in temperature based on where you are in the house.

pmat1218
Community Member

To help out those users in this thread, the ECO temperature sets the minimum temp while your away not the saftey temp.  So I have mine set to 65 degrees and the house never falls below that while I'm away.   The safety temp is the absolute lowest your temp is allowed to fall even when off.  Not sure how that is different than ECO temp.   The ECO temp is listed better on the home app then the nest app of what it actually is and is described as "Your thermostat uses ECO  temperatures when your not home"    With that said, it was very dumb on Google's part to call it ECO temp as that is what 99% of people are going to think that is what safety temp is for. 

I agree that a lot of the confusion (perhaps even on the part of the Google engineers), is a lack of definition between what the ECO temp and the Safety temp are really for.   Also, there is not very good documentation on how these behave for the Cooling side of things.    Also, at play is what the best practice is for when the thermostat is turned off versus just always being on (ie, in ECO mode).   What are the advantages/disadvantages to the thermostat being in OFF mode?

To me: I've always thought of ECO temp as a more temporary Away mode.  Eg, during the day when everyone is out of the house.   Typically, this would be just a few degrees cooler than Sleep and the point of it is to try to save some energy while temporarily away, but not so cool/hot that it takes a long time to get back to Sleep/Comfort temps.    This is opposite than when you are not home for an extended period and the main point of a Safety temp is to maintain the temperate such that things are not destroyed by the lack of heating/cooling.

However, whatever the Safety temp is set to, it must consider environmental conditions, which the Google engineers have apparently decided will not ever exceed 45F - even though locations like a mountain cabins in the winter may need a higher Safety temperature.

I also literally have no idea how Safety temp works in the cooling scenario.   Eg: is there even a upper Safety temp?   Which would seem totally reasonable.

Really, Google needs to consider and better define the requirement for how the thermostat is supposed to behave when OFF (but still honoring the Safety temperature) versus in ECO/Sleep/Comfort modes.

TimisW
Community Member

Ultimately... we should have control over all of these! 

Not everyone lives in a certain location.  Not everyone has the same requirements.  

Nothing should ever be hard coded.  Especially if it is on a slider bar!

If we are doing something that isnt efficient, dangers, or could cost a lot of money... then give us warning along the way!