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Feature Request - Adaptive Fan (Nest Thermostat + Sensors

Mrakc
Community Member

My suggestion is to add a feature that either learns your home’s thermal characteristics, or simply tries to equalize the house temperature with the furnace fan. I find with our 2-storey house that upstairs and downstairs are aligned sometimes, but very different at other times. If I want to set the evening temperature upstairs to 21 degrees let’s say, but it’s been using the thermostat temp all day, upstairs might be 19 deg at that time. The furnace kicks on to heat upstairs. Now it’s 21 upstairs and 24 on the main floor. It would be nice when there is this kind of gap, the furnace fan could be run to equal out the temperatures as needed, rather than using the furnace more often to keep one sensor way too hot. I would buy more sensors and rely on Nest to equal out the rooms on an as-needed basis instead of running the fan too much or too little. 

As with other posts, I agree there should be finer control with the timing of those sensors, rather than grouping it into large time blocks. I would also like to see there be a fan schedule. I don’t run the fan all day, every day, but I typically turn it on all night. 

1 Recommended Answer

Mrakc
Community Member

I found my solution:

Step one: purchase an Ecobee thermostat and sensors. 
Step two: return Nest to point of purchase

Step three: basic, flexible programming. 
Step four: enjoy a balanced home. 

The setup is not automatic unfortunately, but by day 2 I had figured out when to run the fan, when to put the fan in auto, and which sensors to use (you can select multiple, and it will average their temperatures). Night and day difference in control - you could have different temperature, sensor, and fan settings every minute of the week if you wanted to. 

View Recommended Answer in original post

8 REPLIES 8

Peter_N
Community Member

I have the exact same problem. My second story will cool off much faster in the winter, and heat up more in the summer. Additionally, my nest is in a room with northern facing windows (northern hemisphere) and doesn't get any solar heat, but the southern facing rooms will get very warm on a sunny day yet the thermostat may kick on for the rest of the house instead of circulating the available heat. Nest already has the Airwave feature for cooling, just needs to add heat redistribution for it and add support for temperature sensor monitoring.

Mrakc
Community Member

I found my solution:

Step one: purchase an Ecobee thermostat and sensors. 
Step two: return Nest to point of purchase

Step three: basic, flexible programming. 
Step four: enjoy a balanced home. 

The setup is not automatic unfortunately, but by day 2 I had figured out when to run the fan, when to put the fan in auto, and which sensors to use (you can select multiple, and it will average their temperatures). Night and day difference in control - you could have different temperature, sensor, and fan settings every minute of the week if you wanted to. 

Danmanlott
Community Member

In the same boat here in a 2 story townhouse. My upstairs rooms are almost always 7-12f hotter than the downstairs. I am finding myself manually setting a fan timer for 15-30mins multiple times through the day. This would also save a considerable amount of energy, just using the sensor as is to get the upstairs cool, nest will chill the first story to 65f when it is 95f outside.

scottlanger55
Community Member

Same issue almost daily in both winter and summer have to manually run the fan otherwise I am either overheating or overcooling, just need to be able to set a threshold for differential between two sensors to circulate the air

jbruso
Community Member

I just came here to make this same suggestion. Like, give us a slider to keep the fan on until the temp sensors are within 98% of each other, etc. I am constantly running the fan manually.. but the basic setting of running it for 30 min or 15 min each hour might be too much

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey jbruso,

 

I appreciate your input on this and I'll make sure your comments are passed along to our internal teams in the form of a feature request. You can also leave feedback in the Home app if you'd like. Aside from passing along those comments, I did want to see if you had any other questions or to see if I could do anything else for you. If so, just let me know.

 

Thanks,

Jeff

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,

 

I wanted to follow up with you, and see if you had any other questions from here. Please let me know, as I would be happy to take a closer look.

 

Best regards,

Jake

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,


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

 

Best regards,

Jake