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...

[AnaM]

Hey @Lingers91,

I'm sorry to hear about your issue. For starters. Can you send me a screenshot of what you have in the Nest app in Settings> Home/Away Assist> What decides if you're home. And a picture of the values found on the thermostat's display in Settings> Technical Info> Network.

Hey @ArchStanton,

Please let me know if the whole structure doesn't switch accordingly or just the thermostat. Please also send me a picture of what's showing in  the Nest app in Settings> Home/Away Assist> What decides if you're home.

[ArchStanton]

I spent the best part of 2 weeks on twitter nest support sending all my settings and doing various tests, often twice, to no avail and I have been told the matter has now been escalated.

[Lingers91]

Yeah no offence but I've literally spent hours of my life sending you lot screenshots and with tech support. Surely there would be a way for you to dig up the old chat logs rather than subject me to this again. 

[DavidE]

Ana, 

Here are photos from today illustrating the problem.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/weJDmJeEUwHxKUpw8

I was away overnight, got home at 13:32 today, and the Nest correctly switched to "Home" at 13:35. However, more than an hour later at 14:37 it is still in "Eco" mode, and therefore the heating will not come on unless I manually disengage Eco mode. This occurs most times when I get home. Sometimes the thermostat will flip out of Eco mode after a seemingly random time from a few minutes to several hours. There is sometimes also the converse problem, that when leaving home it switches to "Away" but does not shut off the heating. I can check the system status remotely on my phone an hour later, and see that it shows "Away" but with the heating still full on.

This used to work correctly but, without my changing anything, this problem appeared, seemingly caused by a recent software update to either the app or thermostat. Multiple people on this thread have reported the same issue, so this should be escalated with your software specialists, please.

I am only using the Nest app, not "Google Home" or "Smart Things".

[LifeonMars]

Yep same problem, all started around November 2021,  It all used to work without any problem, but no more.  Have Google Nest help  looking into it via Twitter.  Have tried just using iPhone for Home/Away/Assist, stays sometimes in Eco Mode although knows I am Home.  Knows I am away but heating still comes on,  Its a nightmare presently 😡 Have tried with Google Home, that seems to make things worse, Just with Nest app and phone is best option presently

[RemcoS]

Hello,

I did share hundreds of screeenshots with nest support case #33946068 (as did many others on this forum). 

Nests final reply: your thermostat is out of warranty, but you can keep using it without the home/away functionality…

well I used to have a thermostat like that ages ago which I decided to replace with a smart thermostat.
Last weekend I installed the SmartThings app, and this solved my problem. So please have a serious look at this and solve this issue!  

[BrianDarby]

Jesus Christ, that was their reply? Firstly terrible service, secondly it’s still failing to join up the dots that this is affecting far too many people 

why are people who don’t understand how a cloud service works, supporting a cloud service?

[Dawdie]

Indeed its still a problem and it looks like its a pretty big problem for lots of others also

[DragosC]

Hi there, I'm just following up on the previous message? All good, did you get a chance to check on the previous message? 

[CristianC]

Hello there. It's been a while since this thread was last updated so I'll go ahead and lock this thread. If you're still experiencing problems, please feel free to start a new thread and we'll be happy to help.

[MelbaDT · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

We understand your frustration about your Nest thermostat not working as it should, and we appreciate your reports here in the Community.

 

If you're experiencing this issue, please give all the steps listed here a shot: https://bit.ly/38qgivs. These steps have worked for others experiencing similar behavior and should help get you back on track.

If the issue persists after trying the steps on the link above, we want to be able to dig into this further. In order for us to differentiate between different countries' thermostats, go ahead and reply to the following threads with the following info:

• The type of Nest thermostat you have
• What mobile device you have and the OS version
• The software version of your thermostat

EU users: https://bit.ly/3LZlrg2
US/CA users: https://bit.ly/3Jxm52R

We thank you for your patience and we look forward to taking a closer look.

Thanks,
Melba 

[Tommy_Thompson]

I think most of us already did a lot of troubleshooting with the Nest support and on our own. I've even tried an older Android smartphone to rule out Android 11.

After 2 days of troubleshooting with the Nest support 2 weeks ago, they literally said that I will have to wait for an update. But they didn't mention when or even if there will be a fix. 

[Nontechmike]

Like everyone else who has posted here (and I assume every other user out there) when I go out it stays In heating mode even though it correctly detects I am Away.   Eventually/occasionally it does drop into Eco mode whilst I'm Away but if it does then when I get home the thermostat never switches out of Eco mode even though it knows I am Home.  Both the Home App and the Nest App show my correct status (Home or Away) its just that the thermostat ignores it - basically Home Assist doesn't work anymore since the last software update!   This is a fundamental performance attribute of Googles "Smart" thermostat that needs fixing - please log it as a priority task and action accordingly.  It would be good to get confirmation posted here that Google now accepts there is an issue and that it is being given urgent attention to fix it.

[Nontechmike]

Ok AnaM, you've seen all the reports here so what is your solution?

[evernon]

Thanks for the info. Seems the Smart Things app is finding the thermostat and the cam but I can only set up routines for the thermostat. Cam isn't listed which sucks. I want the thermostat to go down and the cam to turn on when I leave.

[JoyR]

I tried the Smart Things option.  It worked once, then back to the same problem 

[Midjet76]

Lots of us have been there and done that also. Worked once for me then same issue...

[bjleend]

To Community Specialist (a.k.a. AnaM) in this board:

Please do NOT insult the collective wisdom of this board. We don't need your hand-holding and baby-sitting treatment of this board members. Everyone in this board knows what we are doing. FYI, let me concisely summarize the problem here AGAIN.

When I come home to my garage, NLT switches from Away to Home by detecting my phone location, but Eco is stuck, does not change to set-temperature. It was not like this before the current update. It responded either phone location or motion sensor, but the recent update has broken this link. Google needs to fix this problem.

[xtof2021]

Hi all,

Maybe I found a solution.

I have the same issue. It used to work and suddenly, it stopped properly working when at Home.

However, I found this:

In the Nest app, there is a setting "what determines you're Home". You, your phone. It was set to No. This contradicts the routines Home/Away in Google Home.

I set it to Yes and oh miracle...it started heating automatically.

Let's see tomorrow when I go home.

Hope that it helps.

Christophe

[Nontechmike]

Mine is already set to phone yes and although it changes my home/away status according to the location of my phone, the Thermostat ignores this information and stays in Eco despite reporting me as Home.

[Jeffrey87NL]

Same problem here.

I have a Nest Learning Thermostat, and since the latest software update (5.9.5-2) my thermostat occasionally doesn't switch to Eco mode whenever I'm out of the house. It does detect that I am away, both using geofencing and motion sensors, but it fails to switch to Eco.

I have even swapped my thermostat at the retailer where I bought it, but this did not make any difference.

In case it matters: I am living in The Netherlands.

[evernon]

Sent mail to Sundar Pichai not expecting anything to come of it but an hour after sending the mail, a Senior Google Support Engineer reached out to me. Not sure if this will help but we have his ear.

[Iany1954]

This now is throwing up more problems. I’m trying to use Google Home and have activity detection off in the Nest app and Google Home. However, my Nest is now switching to ECO but still showing HOME and the logs (history) in both Nest and Google Home show that it should have switched to AWAY due to INACTIVITY! Nest shows HOME and is in ECO. So, not only is AWAY not working correctly but inactivity is being used as a trigger when it is disabled. I suggest people look at their logs and see what exactly is causing switching. NEVER had this problem before using only the Nest app, please Google correct your destruction of a once perfect (for me) system.

[Iany1954]

A bit more digging has shown that Nest has been using inactivity to switch since 17th November. At that time I was only using the Nest app and had activity detection turned off. I guess that 17th November was the last time that the app was updated (Nest firmware has not changed since 2019).

[DavidE]

Ian, just to mention one thing I have noticed in the logs, where I think it is actually working correctly, but the log entries are a bit confusing. I have the motion sensor deselected, so am using phone location only. When I go out, the logs always show "Your phone was away from home", followed immediately by "Away - No activity in the house". E.g. first screen shot I took here:

https://imgur.com/a/OCODIb7

What I think this means is they have coded the "activity check" step to always return "no activity" when you have deselected the motion sensor, but that step still gets logged, which rather makes it look like something is wrong, but I think it's actually working correctly up to that point.

[Iany1954]

David, thanks for that, you are correct as my logs show the same type of entries as yours. My Nest is set up as yours with motion sensing deselected. I’m using Google Home to trigger a smart switch based on the home/away information. In Google Home the presence sensing is set to on with the Nest activity sensor disabled. The presence sensing shows two phones (mine and wife’s) but under my phone it says that I’m using a different phone! I’ve tried changing this to my phone but then Nest Home/Away stops working. Leaving it as is seems to work correctly (both in Nest and Google Home)! I followed xtof2021’s advice and reset Home/Away and this morning the whole system worked correctly. I’m not convinced that this will stay the case but time will tell. I’ll report back when I’ve tried this out further.

[xtof2021]

Please take into account that I also disabled the auto-learning.

Good luck!

[Iany1954]

I too have auto learning disabled. I’ve just been out again and my wife went out separately and all worked fine. It did take a few minutes to come out of eco but I can put up with that!

[Iany1954]

Yes! The Nest app was updated 1 month ago. This proves that the Nest app is the problem (I think)!

[xtof2021]

Hi all,

I think I found the solution.

Yesterday, whilst I was browsing thousands of threads looking for a solution, I read that actually, the Nest thermostat learns WHEN you are at home and when you are AWAY, that is, it is not only based on your presence. And there it is possible to reset what it has learnt.

You must go to the thermostat (not the Nest app), select the wheel, Reset, and there, you can select only Home/Away.

I have tried and now it detects immediately when I am away and goes into Eco mode, and when I am at Home and gets out of the Eco mode and start heating.

Similarly, I found out that if you have the Auto-schedule learning On, but you set your own schedule, somehow, it merges what it has learned and your schedule, leading to weird behaviour. I set Auto-schedule Off and suddenly, different Temperatures appeared on my schedule...temperatures that I did not program. And some of them correspond to the time it was heating when actually I was on my way to work, which I could not understand.

Conclusion: the learning part is maybe nice but you must just use the IA, which I haven't. If in addition, you want to add some of your own preferences it messes it all up and it starts having a weird behaviour. Reminds me of HAL in 2001 with contradictory orders! LOL

Hope it helps

Christophe

[Per52]

All I want is : start heating when i'm arrive and stop heating when I leave.

It's all that simple.

No learning is necassary.

Moreover people state that it all worked fine before the last software update.

I'm going to ask for a refund.

Just switch, no more.

[xtof2021]

Have you tried the solution I posted yesterday? For me, it works.

In the Nest app, switch off the auto-schedule learning.

On the thermostat, select the setting (the wheel), then Reset, and there, Home/Away. It will erase all it has learned about when you're home or away.

It seems it learns not only what Temp you like but also when you are away or home, and uses it. This explains the weird behaviour that enters into conflict with the presence detector. It's what I conclude.

Since I did that, it works fine.

Hope it helps.

[evernon]

That might be true of the Thermostat but I have a camera that doesn't respond to home/away so I still think it the app.

[Per52]

Dont understand this discussion.

Same problem for me.

Its perfectly clear the software is bull**bleep**.

Google developpers deliver bull**bleep**, you dont believe this.

[Per52]

**bleep** = **bleep**

[Per52]

The software 'sees' I'm home and is not able to switch from eco to heat.

This is absolotely unbelievable

[xtof2021]

With the solution I found yesterday, it now works perfectly. When I'm away it falls into Eco mode and when I am Home it starts heating straight away.

See the solution I posted yesterday.

[Per52]

Hi Xtof2021,

I did the reset this evening.

Let you know.

Thanks for your concern

Peter

[Per52]

Switched in the app from home to absent manually.

Nest refused to switch from eco to heat.

Exactly as expected.

Sorry Xtof2021

[Per52]

from heat to eco ofcourse

I'm so annoyed hence making mistakes

sorry