Gen4 learning Thermostat Schedule Issues

[sjm1027]

I have a 4th Gen Google Nest Thermostat I just mounted with no issues.

The schedule added is:

(Den Schedule) Temp settings, 7 days of the week:

(Week AM) 68˚ 4:30 AM

(Week Noon) 65˚ 7:00 AM

(Week Eve) 70˚ 6:30 PM

(Week PM) 62˚ 10:45 PM

Nest Sense:

Smart Schedule: Off

Energy Shift Settings: Standard savings: Off and Time-Of-Use Off

Seasonal Savings: Inactive

Natural Heating and Cooling: Off and Window Reminders: Off

Adaptive Comfort: Off and Use Adaptive ECO: Off

True Radiant: Off

Sunblock: On

Safety Temp: Heat 40˚

When I wake up early 3:45 AM I notice the room temp at 66˚ and the Thermostat on at 66˚ It looks like the Thermostat is preheating the room to meet the schedule for 68˚ at 4:45 AM. 

Then I did a factory reset to wipe out any learning it may have done, turned all Nest Sense settings off or inactive and added the new schedule to find it's compensating for meeting my schedule. 

What I want right now is for the thermostat to only go on at the times my schedule says to go on, not to make sure it meets temp at the times I have set. 

Am I looking at this schedule thing all wrong?

Do we have the ability to have the heat come on at the time we want only?

Thanks

[jenniffert · Accepted solution]

Hi sjm1027,

Thanks for following up on the case!

I appreciate you sharing these important details and updates after deleting the routines for Home and Away. Since the system is still preheating one hour earlier than scheduled, please provide the following information to continue investigating:

• In which country is the thermostat being used?
• Have you experienced similar behavior with the previous thermostat?
• Are all thermostat wires securely connected, with no loose or exposed strands?
• Could you please share screenshots of your complete thermostat schedule?
• Do you mind sharing a picture of your current wiring installation?

In the meantime, please check the following settings:

• Please double-check if you followed the right steps to disable True Radiant in the Google Home app. True Radiant can turn heating on early to help your home warm to a scheduled temperature on time, and turn it off early to help prevent overshooting the target temperature. For reference, check this article: True Radiant.
• Make sure you have the latest firmware version of your thermostat. For guided instructions, please see this article: Update Nest products and apps.

Please keep me posted.

Best regards,

Jenniffer

[jenniffert]

Hi sjm1027,

Thanks for reaching out here in the community! I understand that your Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) is not following the schedules and it seems that it is preheating your room at 3:45 AM to meet the schedule for 68 degrees at 4:45 AM. I appreciate you taking the time to detail this information and for troubleshooting this situation. No worries, help is here!

Regarding your question, yes, you absolutely can set the heat to come on only at the scheduled time. To better understand why your thermostat is currently preheating and figure out which specific setting needs to be adjusted, I’d like to ask for the following information:

• Did you see any error messages? If so, can you tell me exactly what they say?
• Could you tell me the type of HVAC system you're using (e.g., furnace, heat pump, boiler)?
• When was the last maintenance check on your HVAC system?
• Have you had any recent changes or upgrades to the unit?

In the meantime, I’d suggest the following steps:

• Check the Energy History to see if any features are causing these unexpected temperature changes. If you can, please share a screenshot of the history in this thread. For reference, you can check out this article: Thermostat Energy History.
• Ensure you don’t have an active routine that could automatically adjust your temperature. To remove the thermostat action, open the Google Home app, tap Automations, select the Home or Away routine, find and select the specific thermostat action, then tap Remove action and finally, Save. For reference, you can check out this article: Change the settings for Home and Away routines.

Keep me posted.

Best regards,

Jenniffer

[sjm1027]

Hello,

Here are your answers:

I did not see any error messages. The only message that I saw was preheating the room.

The system I have is Oil fuel with Forced hot water, baseboard heat. 

Last maintenance was in Late August. I had a clean-out and oil line filter replaced.

There were no changes to the system at all.

I have attached the Energy History below.

I found 2 routines (Home and Away) that had both my Hallway and Den Thermostats in them to set ECO on. I deleted both thermostats but I don’t think it has anything to do with my problem because the ECO would usually not heat the home. But I deleted them just the same. I will try it again tonight. 

The next morning it was still acting the same way, 1 hour earlier than schedule setting with Home and Away deleted.

Let me know if there is anything else I can do.

Thank you for this article 

Steve

[jenniffert · Accepted solution]

Hi sjm1027,

Thanks for following up on the case!

I appreciate you sharing these important details and updates after deleting the routines for Home and Away. Since the system is still preheating one hour earlier than scheduled, please provide the following information to continue investigating:

• In which country is the thermostat being used?
• Have you experienced similar behavior with the previous thermostat?
• Are all thermostat wires securely connected, with no loose or exposed strands?
• Could you please share screenshots of your complete thermostat schedule?
• Do you mind sharing a picture of your current wiring installation?

In the meantime, please check the following settings:

• Please double-check if you followed the right steps to disable True Radiant in the Google Home app. True Radiant can turn heating on early to help your home warm to a scheduled temperature on time, and turn it off early to help prevent overshooting the target temperature. For reference, check this article: True Radiant.
• Make sure you have the latest firmware version of your thermostat. For guided instructions, please see this article: Update Nest products and apps.

Please keep me posted.

Best regards,

Jenniffer

[sjm1027]

The thermostat is located in USA.

No, I actually have 2 of these thermostats and one works perfectly with the same settings. This thermostat does not.

Yes, All wires are connected securly, I have slightly pulled on them to make sure.

Tru Radiant is off and has been off as soon as the thermostat was added. I never ran the heat with it on.

Firmware is up to date: 2.1-25

This thermostat has been replaced by Google and the new thermostat does exactly the same thing. There has to be a setting somewhere causing this to happen. I also removed Automation that references Home and Away that would include the thermostats. 

this is the old thermostat wiring. it’s the same as the new

[jenniffert]

Hi sjm1027,

Thanks for your reply and your cooperation in finding a solution! As the system configurations appear fine, the next step is to check the power readings on the thermostat. Please provide the following details to continue:

• Share a screenshot of your thermostat's power information. To find this, navigate to Settings, select Equipment, and then choose Power.
• To test, please delete all schedules set on your thermostat for one night. This will help us identify if the system is still turning on at the same hour.

For now, please check if the Early-On feature is visible in the Google Home app. This is necessary even if your system's dedicated feature is True Radiant. If you locate "Early-On", please disable it. For reference, see this article: Early-On.

Keep me posted.

Best regards,

Jenniffer

[sjm1027]

on my phone I selected the thermostat in question, selected the gear (settings), Equiptment, and I only have Heat Configuration, Wiring, Advanced Configuring, and System Details (Doesn’t open)

Under wiring I see 24V on the C terminal. Other than that I don’t have Power as an option to select.

Advanced Configuration checked off is 3 min and Auto

Let me know what I should do since I don’t have Power to select.

The next issue I see with the instructions:

I don’t see Temperture Preferences but i do see Tepperature Presets (comfort, ECO, Sleep.

What should I do?

by the way True Radient is off

I guess at this point I will wait for your answers on the issues with the instructions and what I see on the menus.

I appreciate your help.

[jenniffert]

Hi sjm1027,

Thanks for your response and for the detail you've shared!

Since you can't locate the power option, I'd appreciate it if you could share a picture of the Equipment settings and Technical Info from the physical thermostat. This will help us verify why you cannot see the Power option.

Also, please check the Nest Sense setting for your thermostat in the Google Home app and verify if you can see the option Early-On.

Keep me posted.

Best regards,

Jenniffer

[sjm1027]

Hi Jenniffer,

I have the data you're looking for. 

One thing I noticed is that this thermostat does not have Early On under Nest Sense, unlike my other thermostat. I have 2 Gen 4 thermostats. The one in question is heat only; I'm not sure if that makes a difference. But there is no early on. I will also include a picture of what comes under Nest Sense on this thermostat.

[sjm1027]

Hello Jenniffer, I have answered your questions. Do you have anything to add? I think we are onto something where the menus are missing some options. Can you help, please?

[Metairie]

Did you get any answers? I have the same problem 

[sjm1027]

I have the same problem and have returned it 2 times. No help from google on this issue. 

Any ideas?

[Metairie]

No. Google help is useless. They don't know a basic staff about Gen4

[plegault]

Can someone look into this?  This will drastically increase my energy bill.  Seems like a pretty basic feature to have.

[sjm1027]

You're right, my heat comes on over an hour earlier than I need it to, and then I want it to. Because of this, I have to move my start heat time 1 hour and 15 minutes later than I would set it if I were using a traditional thermostat. I also have to turn it off at least an hour after it goes on, because the heat can't cycle between on and off times shorter than an hour. We should have the ability to use this thermostat like a traditional thermostat without any setback like the Gen 1 and Gen 2 did. 

[sjm1027]

I just ran a test this is what I did.

I currently have Oil Heat with radiators so I changed the setting in the app Settings> Equipment>Heat Configuration and change to Gas and Forced Air.

Go to Settings>Nest Sense>Early-On and toggle to off

Go back to Settings> Equipment>Heat Configuration and change to Oil and Radiator (in my case that's what I have)

Then I made a test schedule for the heat to come on at 12:45 PM and sure enough, As soon as 12:45 came the heat came on without any pre heat settings. So the toggle to off when set to Gas stays when you select your actual fuel and heat settings. 

I think Metairie came up with a solution. I will call this fixed but the proof will be to see what happens tomorrow morning. This test I did should reflect what will happen tomorrow. Thanks Metairie

Steve

[Metairie · Accepted solution]

FIX IT !!!

it works for me for the last 2 days so far. This smart thermostat is actually very dumb. 
Go to google app. Open settings for the thermostat. Click equipment and heat configuration. Choose gas and forced air. 
Then go back to setting. Click Nest Sense. You will see now Early On. Turn it off. That’s it

this thermostat supposed to work with radiators but it doesn’t. 

[plegault]

Genius.

[sjm1027]

If I have oil heat with radiators, I don’t have that option to turn on early on in fact, early on doesn’t even show. Will it hurt anything if I choose gas and forced air?

[sjm1027]

so I just went in and changed oil and radiator over to gas and forced air. you’re right I see early on was selected to on so I turned it off. Now I went back only because I don’t know if I leave it on gas in Forced air what will happen and I went back to oil and radiator after turning off the early on I wonder what will happen then. I did notice that early on is not an option any longer. you’re a genius to find this out. I’ve been on the phone with these guys for a month and not one of them knows what they’re doing.

my only question now is if I leave it on gas and forced air, but I really have oil with radiators what will happen or will it throw anything off?

[Metairie]

I am not an expert but I think it would be no problem as now the thermostat works as simple switch on/off. Any other thermostat has no such option (gas,oil,water) and works just fine. You can ask Google support but most likely they will have no clue. If you know any Nest installer they may know the answer. 

[sjm1027]

I ran a second test and once you toggle Early-On off when in Gas and Forced hot air selected. I then set it back to Oil and Radiator and my schedule worked exactly as I wanted it. So I wouls day it's a closed case. Maybe someone from Google will read this and fix the software so we could load updated firmware to fix this for everyone.

Thanks again