Home/Away Assist, returning home always stuck in eco mode

[Dawdie]

So I have 2 nest thermostats which are controlled with Home/Away. Whenever I go out the thermostat goes into eco as expected. Whenever I return home the app shows "Home" and so does the log so it defintatly knows I have returned, but the thermostat however is still stuck in "Eco" mode till I manually turn it off.

I have all the "learning" stuff off (Auto Schedule/True Radiant) so I have no idea what I need to do to fix this aside from just turning home/away off and putting the old thermostats back in.

Potential fix (using google home not the nest app) https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Home-Away-Assist-returning-home-always-stuck...

[Anonymous]

Yet another with the same issue - I've not got the motion sensors enabled; we have the home/away on one device only. Sometimes (occasionally) we come home & it disables Eco. Mostly, though, it used to work fine. We've tried migrating to the Google Home (on iOS), but didn't make any difference. 
Sometimes restarting the Nest wakes it up, other times I leave it for a while & it realises. Sometimes I give up & disable Eco. It's not even consistent! 

[DragosC]

Thank you very much all for your cooperation. Who filled out the template and provided me with the specific details, please take all the information and contact our live support team as we can't create individual cases over here. Here's the link for that: https://bit.ly/3adTfGB

Thanks for understanding. 

[LifeonMars]

@DragosC   Are you actually looking into this problem or just passing the buck to another department ?

[DragosC]

I'm afraid we can't create cases up here, so these issues must be escalated to the senior support team, in order to do that, you'll need to contact our live support team to take a look into it. 

[LifeonMars]

@DragosCI have made a case a few months ago and just get fobbed off.   What was the purpose of your post if you were not going to act on it and get Google nest engineers to look into the app. ? Do you work for google nest ? you must have easier access to get to someone to sort the Nest app which clearly has a problem with your customers.  The problem has only existed since November 2021.

[Midjet76]

We've all done that and at the end of it all at get told that's how it's supposed to work. ie 3 hours delay is within acceptable parameters. Believe me it's not!. That's why we keep banging on here and people like you tell us to suck eggs. 

[BrianDarby]

I am taking the process through support now and will be making the point very robustly that 5 years of ordinary service then coming home to a freezing house (or heating an empty one during a period of record gas prices) is not acceptable 🙂

[DragosC]

@LifeonMars, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, I could take a look on your case and see that it is sent to the senior support team if you provide me with your case number. Also, @Midjet76 , if you contact them and provide them with the information from the template, I assure you that the issue will be addressed and sent for review on the call. 

[LifeonMars]

@Midjet76  how do I give my case number as it blanks out on here, 0############2312 January 2022

[DragosC]

@LifeonMars That's why I've been redirecting you to our support team as we can't see those details in here now. Please get in touch with them and let them know of the case number and of the details from here. 

[Steve59]

Pick up the phone to someone in Google that can do something, instead of passing us to useless support

[Midjet76]

Lol i don't know try it with a space between each digit 

[LifeonMars]

0 2 6 6 8 0 0 0 0 3 2 3 1 2 

For DragosC

case ref above submitted Jan 2022 had earlier case but lost it, please inform dept of this thread and updates 

Case sent Jan 2022

Could you advice them please and inform them of the additional info and  this thread again please I did have an earlier case but lost it.

[DragosC]

Perfect, thank you all for your cooperation on this. 

[Ugly_Bloke]

Case1-############2212

After initially going through the obvious fault finding, I’ve not heard anything further for weeks.  
Surely the Support team are able to see a pattern emerging on this issue? 

[DragosC]

Could you tell me please @Ugly_Bloke if you've received any mail from them? Or replied to their email? 

[Ugly_Bloke]

@DragosC  my last reply email from support was 03/01/22 asking me to try obvious troubleshooting I’ve already tried. I have replied/chased on 18/01/22 and 25/01/22, attaching a link to this thread but have not received a further response.  
perhaps you can compile a list of all the case numbers on this thread and forward them to Support so they might finally be able to see a pattern?  
many thanks. 

[DragosC]

Thanks, understood @Ugly_Bloke. In this case, please send another reply to our senior support team and send me the case number here with spaces between the numbers so I can leave a note on their case to fasten up the work. 

[Ugly_Bloke]

Case 1 - 2 0 7 9 0 0 0 0 3 2 2 1 2

I’ll put in another chase shortly….

[Midjet76]

Theres a surprise them losing the case.  ... I've spoken to sort then asked for a refund told her couldn't refund and that i needed to phone a different number which i did and still told a load of rubbish including we don't do refund and that 3 hours is acceptable/normal for it to switch between heat/eco. Despite my insistence it isn't.  Hence us all contributing and venting our frustrations on here in the hope that someone at Google Android there's s problem, which by three way you clearly don't as i was told by my Google support Chris that it wasn't a common problem where it clearly is 

[Midjet76]

I've already had a case opened and promised a satisfactory resolution which was most definitely not forthcoming. Re: Your Google Support Enquiry: Case ID [8 - 2 0 1 8 0 0 0 0 3 1 9 5 8]

[Steve59]

@DragosC  My case number is 

############989

please tell me where mine is at

bit or advice to share with whoever you work for, when you have a ticket case number system the customer should be able to interact with the case owner and get updates on progression but as you well know no one from joe public can access the case - pointless 

I run a business that supports customers and our systems interact with the customer so they have up to day info on progression

[Steve59]

Can’t even add my case number, how do I tell you what it is

try this

case208000031989

[DragosC]

Thank you, @Steve59, the case number should have a hyphen in between the first 2 numbers. 

[Nontechmike]

My case number is

Case ID [6-############2066]

[Nontechmike]

Case ID [6 - 0 3 4 9 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 6 6]

[sboden2315]

@DragosC  - one of our collective frustrations is that Google seems to be dealing with this person by person and circumstance by circumstance.  You want us each to log case numbers and each to speak in a single threaded forum to a unique support rep who does not hear any of the other feedback.  What is the purpose of this forum if not to allow some issues to be addressed as a group ?

Is Google aware that the latest version of the Thermostat software is causing issues for some customers?

Is someone addressing this at the software level not at the individual level?

If so can you give us any feedback from the product team if these are recognized issues and are they on a product roadmap to be addressed ?

If not and these issues cannot be resolved why isn't Google honoring exception refunds?  My guess is that you are instructed to address these concerns as individual threads because Google doesn't want to give out hundreds of refunds, but if this only affects a few hundred customers Google should stand by its products and services with a 100% guarantee.

[LifeonMars]

@DragosC

I have just wasted 2 hours with a support team member who told me " 

It does not depend on whether you are home or not. If the schedule is set to turn on, the thermostat will automatically turn on the heating and

A higher agent will tell you the same thing that I told you. Please set the temperature for the eco mode higher, monitorize it, and if it doesn't work, maybe it's an App issue, and it will be resolved as soon as possible. "

Please is there anyway this can be escalated so it gets sorted seriously.

case number 

ID  is:  5 - 7 1 6 9 0 0 0 0 3 2 2 5 5 

[Steve59]

Love it haha, who the heck are Google employing are they really so stupid, they clearly do not know how the product works when it works properly let alone helping when it’s brok

i have experienced the same with every issue that has previously be sent via support

The support staff tier and senior tier 2 are the customer facing element the people that understand issues very very rarely interact as once you get someone useful the just get bombarded

[BrianDarby]

OK, I'm playing the game. Got a support call open with Google now and will be supplying info.

They weren't immediately aware of the issue I was raising...

[Steve59]

That just shows the lack of info in support, I have already got a case created by made by google on Twitter(or so thy say)

Googles right hand has no clue what the left hand is doing, and even if it gets escalated to senior support that person is only a more senior muppet that can only pass info along but does not actually achieve anything, the people that can sort these issues do not speak to the public

[jrawle]

Like everyone here, I've been affected by unreliable home/away behaviour for the last few months. I put this down to the update to 5.9.5-2 on 16 November. I have a 3rd Gen NLT and and Android phone, in the UK.

Before November, there was always a delay in switching the thermostat to Away. This could vary between 15 minutes and an hour. This seemed reasonable as there needs to be some latency to avoid the possibility of repeatedly switching the system on and off. However, the delay was in Nest switching to "Away". When it switched to Away, ECO mode always switched on at the same time. When returning home, it always switched to Home immediately.

Since November, the behaviour in switching Away is probably similar to before, or often quicker. However, it no longer switches to ECO at this time. Instead, ECO is set some time later. Annoyingly, the History in the Nest app settings only shows when it was set Home/Away, not the ECO status. However, the Thermostat's history, available after midnight, shows when it was set to ECO and back to Heat (although the former is labelled Away, the timings are when it switched to ECO).

I did speculate whether the change is deliberate to some extent, so as to make Away immediate without it also switching the heating off immediately. If someone has an alarm, it needs to be armed as soon as they go out. Perhaps Google have decided to separate the timings and logic and control the two separately. The trouble is that this is all very opaque and hidden away.

A side-effect is also that setting Away manually in the app does not set ECO at the same time.

The issues point at any bug or change being in the thermostat's software. However, I see the Android app also updated at the start of November. I may try rolling it back and see whether that has an effect, given that I can actually do this, whereas there's no way to roll back the thermostat's software (or stop it updating again). I was actually pleased in November to see the first update since 2019, but now I wish they'd left the stable version alone.

[BrianDarby]

For all the talk of the new software causing the problem, I’m on 5.9.5-2 (which is quite old) and definitely having this problem with Eco mode.

[jrawle]

5.9.5-2 is the newest version for 3rd Gen thermostats in the UK and maybe elsewhere in Europe, released late last year. Higher version numbers only apply to different models and/or regions.

[LifeonMars]

@BrianDarby

on same 5.9.5-2 for thermostat  but think that  app  upgraded in November 2021  when problem started.

[Iany1954]

I have a second generation Nest and it’s last software update was 25th September 2019 (5.9.4-5)! It worked perfectly until the app software was updated in November 2021. So there is no problem that can be attributed to my Nest software. The problem is something that Google have done in November 2021 relating to the app (iOS or Android) or the way these interface with Google servers and thus the thermostat. The problem is not Home/Away but is the corrupted way that Heat/Eco now functions. This has been going on for more than 3 months now with no resolution in sight. As I’ve said before I’m now using Samsung SmartThings to set Heat/Eco and it has been perfect for 2 weeks (2 x Apple phones)….

[BrianDarby]

I don’t think it is the app, because if you use a third-party app to change your home and away settings it also doesn’t change Eco properly. Therefore the app can be ruled out I think.

[Iany1954]

That’s possible but if it’s not the app and it’s not the Nest software it must be something that Google have done with the way they handle the information (attempting to integrate it with Google Home?). This is information that should be obvious to them if they bother reading this forum or listening to people who contact support. I’ll not hold my breath!

[Rohan10]

I have also been facing the same issue since November. No luck with google nest support, they are totally clueless. Progress on this forum and everyones shared suffering are what keeps me sane. My energy bills have spiked unexpectedly, its not fun. 

Apart from November being the time of issue starting, are there any other patterns? 

I see both iphone and android users are facing this, and different generations of thermostat. 

What about the setup - I have 2 phones running nest and both activated for on when home and eco for away. I recently started using google home on 1 phone which support told me to delete, though it did nothing. I only otherwise have nest cams and recently got an android tv (which by the way is terrible and I need to refund it). 

[Rohan10]

My case is 
8 - 9 2 4 4 0 0 0 0 3 1 6 7 1