Farsight Near display stopped working

[schase56]

Nest Learning Thermostat 3rd Gen

I've had this for six weeks, and the Near (detailed) display has stopped automatically showing when I am close (3 ft). The Farsight display still automatically triggers, but when coming closer it no longer switches to the detailed display. If I press on the Nest face the detailed display then shows.

Suggestions?

(I'm in the UK)

[DragosC]

Hi there @schase56,

Thanks for reaching out. You can learn more about the Farsight settings and how to change them by accessing the following article: The Farsight screen . Also, could you provide me please with some pictures or a short video of the specific issue? 

[Flyfisher1]

I am having the exact same issue.  Farsight is turned on and wakes up when Im far away but the 'near' feature doesnt work anymore.  I tried resetting the thermostat and that didnt help.

[Flyfisher1]

Follow up-  I did a full reset of the Nest and now farsight is working properly.

[CristianC]

Hey @Flyfisher1. I'm glad to hear it works now. Let me know if you see anything unusual. 

[schase56]

@Flyfisher1 , when you say you did a full reset of the Nest, what exactly did you do? I'm a bit nervous about doing something like that and having to redo all of the settings--most of which were done by the professional who installed my boiler.

[Flyfisher1]

First I tried just selecting 'restart' and it just reboots the nest and doesnt erase anything but that didnt fix the issue.  Then I went to the reset option on the thermostat and selected 'all settings' and then set it up again and that fixed it.  Maybe you can copy all the settings first and do a full reset and enter info back in.  good luck

[CristianC]

Hey @schase56. You can take a photo of your current settings and then reset the thermostat from Settings > Reset > All Settings

[schase56]

OK, I'm going to leave this for now, as it's a minor issue and there are bigger ones, e.g. Home and Away not working properly, has been mentioned in other posts.

But I will point out to @DragosC: the page in the link you provided earlier has an error: it's missing a couple of images--the ones that are relevant in my case! Under the heading 'Farsight changes when you get closer to your thermostat' your linked page is missing the images for 'Current room temperature', whilst this page has the images!

[DragosC]

https://bit.ly/37aaZ69 Try this link please @schase56

[schase56]

No @DragosC, that's the broken page!!

Compare to this linked page (scroll down to the 'Farsight changes when you get closer to your thermostat').

[DragosC]

Understood now @schase56. Sorry for the confusion. You can point out to the article writers that the information is missing from the European page. Thank you also for pointing this out. We'll file a report for it as well. 

[schase56]

Curiouser and curiouser

Today my near (detailed) Farsight screen started working again! I didn't do anything to make this happen. Although it now seems that I sometimes need to be very close to the Nest, i.e. less than a foot, for the detailed screen to activate. My main Farsight screen still activates at the greater distance, as it always has.

What kind of sensor(s) does the Nest use to trigger the far and near Farsight displays? I think it might be heat related, as waving an object in front of the Nest does not trigger the display. 

[CristianC]

Hey @schase56. I don't know what type of sensors they are exactly, but I know that there are proximity and motion sensors in the thermostat. Is your thermostat on a stand or on the wall? Can you also check the battery in the power settings? Farsight won't work properly if the thermostat has a low battery. 

[schase56]

@CristianC, it's on a stand, plugged into a wall outlet.

I've now discovered the 'Technical Info' menu in the thermostat settings, which provides a lot of information, most of which is explained here.

The battery voltage is fine (over 3.9v), there's some data about the activity sensors (which I'm now curious to research): long; ALS vis; ALS infrared; TP. I can see a couple of these numbers changing as I move around.

[CristianC]

Thanks for getting back to me. If it's on a stand, it might not be as accurate as on the wall. For instance, using the Nest Stand to place the thermostat on a shelf or table, the Farsight sensing distance will change because of the angle of the stand. Here's what I can tell you about the activity sensors:
 

• Long: This value changes between 0 and 1 based on movement. You can test it by waving your hand in front of the thermostat.
• ALS vis: Ambient light sensor, visible light. 
• ALS infra.: Ambient infrared sensor. It's expected behavior for this to report 0.

[AlexD]

Hi, I wanted to check in. Do you require assistance with anything else at the moment? If so, make sure to let me know. 

[schase56]

Thanks! Yes, probably. Some of which I will post in the forum when I have time, others are definitely problems I need to raise with customer support.

[DragosC]

Sure, no worries. If you need any detailed help, let us know please so we can create a case with our senior support. Have a good one! 

[michaeljay]

I have the same issue… it seems to have started after the most recent software update… never had an issue with it ever, for years. 

[schase56]

Hmm..this happened to me again yesterday. I came home in the early evening to discover it had stopped working. But it was functional again this morning! The three times this has happened the functionality returned after a few days (or in this case, hours).

Regarding software updates, are these automatically pushed to the thermostat? I just checked mine, and the software version is 5.9.5-2 (13 Nov), meaning it hasn't been seen an update since the Nest was installed this past January.

[AndaD]

Hi there @schase56 and thanks for bringging this to our attention. Let's check this. Can you tell me what the average ambient temperature in your house is usually set at?

[schase56]

I keep my thermostat set at 19C during the day (Glasgow, UK).

I'm getting close to turning the heating off for the summer, as the heating is currently only going on for about 15 mins some mornings, and never in the evenings. The thermostat sits in a room with west facing windows, so it does heat up in the afternoons. I've now seen the Sunblock activated on a few days.

[DragosC]

Understood. Thanks. Could you tell me please if you've tried restarting it? Still the same after? 

[schase56]

No, I've never restarted my thermostat. As I've previously stated, these were three isolated incidents, many weeks apart, and the Farsight returned to normal operation after a short period (ranging from several hours to a couple of days)--without any action on my part.

Still running v. 5.9.5-2 from November.

[michaeljay]

Resetting all settings and wiping the device was the only thing that worked.  Seems to be working fine now,  was getting a low battery reading out of nowhere prior to wiping the device and it seems to have started after the April software update,  working fine now though 

[DragosC]

Thanks for letting us know. Please let me know when the feature is not working properly. 

[Vladut]

Hi there, just checking in with you. Do you still need my help?

[DragosC]

Since I haven't heard from you in a while, I'll have to close this thread. Should anything else come up, please open another thread and we'll take it from there. Have a good one and stay safe!