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

Dawdie
Community Member

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...

1 Recommended Answer

MelbaDT
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

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 

View Recommended Answer in original post

752 REPLIES 752

It’s an Automation.

IF (Location mode Home) THEN (Send notification to members Heating set to HOME [member name]).

With notifications ON for SST on the [member name] phone this should work.

The [member name] is a person who is the SST account holder or who is added as part of the household.

 

Good luck!

SST main account holder can invite additional users who then can also receive the same notifications if they're added to the send notification to members bit.

Currently, my wife is main account holder for both Nest app and SST. I just use SST, if i change a setting in SST routines this is reflected in my wife's SST as they are linked (by her inviting me) and vice versa.

JoyR
Community Member

As far as I can work out, I have notifications set correctly.  The symbol is a bell, but I don’t get notifications for my emails (I have set that deliberately).  I just assumed that when Away was set I’d get a “ping” or something on my phone.

That's why then. Your relying on a 3rd app, your email app to notify you, if you've disabled that for notifications then that's why you're not being notified. An SMS would be better i guess on your situation.

Actually, whilst it relies on emails for the notification routine, it doesn't actually send emails. So, not write sure what that's for.

Perhaps you have enabled the notifications on SST, not in the actual routine creation but in the menu, last option bottom right, then notifications, then the settings(3 vertical dots) then enable. 

Hughk
Community Member

The mystery with the Nest app goes on.

After being out for a run, noticed that the system had dropped into ECO whilst I was . All well and good you may think but my wife was home so the system should have recognised that her device was at home.

On checking the nest app, the settings on what decides if you are home/away had changed to not using our phones. In fact, the app stated that it hadn’t seen my phone for a few days and I needed to turn on location settings for the app in iOS settings. IT’S ALREADY ON AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

 

The same return came with my wife’s phone when she logged into the app.

I’m at a loss with that.

 

However, there may be a glimmer of hope least acknowledged that they have an issue with the system and are working to a solution - a bulletin would be nice so as to keep everyone informed

Iany1954
Community Member

That is a problem that I’ve had regularly over the last few years (it’s not new). Occasionally I’ve had to delete and reinstall the app to make it function. It can be either phone that suffers (two phones in use)! This has not yet happened with SST.

DavidE
Community Member

@Hughk wrote:

On checking the nest app, the settings on what decides if you are home/away had changed to not using our phones. In fact, the app stated that it hadn’t seen my phone for a few days and I needed to turn on location settings for the app in iOS settings. IT’S ALREADY ON AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN.


Do you know if you had used the Nest app since last restarting your phone? I used to see an issue where if the app had not been used and was not running (at least in background), it would not do its thing to notify Nest of location changes. I don't know if that's still the case.

DavidE
Community Member

It does seem to have been working OK for me over the past week or so - changed to "Eco" promptly when going out, and back to normal mode a few minutes after getting home. (Just the Nest app here, no Google Home or SST.) 

Have any others noticed the same? I wonder if they have fixed something?

JoyR
Community Member

Yes, mine has also been behaving recently. But I do have SST.  But even with that it was sometimes a bit hit and miss.  Yesterday when I went out I watched the Nest app change first to Away and shortly after to Eco, the reverse happening when I came home.  Interestingly, according to the history the settings were made by me, not by the app.

The SST app makes the settings show "made by me"  not made by the app

Hughk
Community Member

I don’t have much hair but if I did……🤬🤯

A Senior Google NEST Support request today. 

‘After the department in cause reviewed the information, we will need the following additional information.

Can you please confirm the approximate distance to how far you have traveled when the thermostat didn't switch to ECO even though no one was home and the home was away with you. 

Also, has anyone moved past the thermostat in order for it to pick up the movement and register that someone is home?’

Words fail me!

Dawdie
Community Member

Hi Everyone, been a long time since I made this thread and it well and truly grew arms and legs. Its a shame Nest never admitted it was a fault or attempted to fix it.

Anyway its not idea however I recently discovered google home can control the nest thermostat, this has worked without issue for me. Before you create a routine in google home (its super easy) make sure to disable home and away from within the nest app.

 

Before I mark this post as the solution I'd like others to test to make sure its not just a fluke, it's not the nest app but its better then nothing

In my case, this doesn't work. I've always used the Google Home app as the main driver for the home and away function. That didn't made any difference. 

Can you give us a little more information on what you just did? Do you have the Nest app still installed on your phone?

What settings did you change in the Nest app? I tried turning off home and away in the Nest app like you said but it turned itself back on again when I changed my home/away status in the Google Home app...

Disabled home and away within nest (Basically turn everything off in the "What decides" bit). Create routines in google home for "Home" and "Away", disable battery optimisation on the Google home app

 

https://imgur.com/a/syCo781

DavidE
Community Member

I do feel like for me the issue seems resolved, or at least much improved. For the past couple of weeks it has been fairly quickly switching in/out of Eco mode when going out or returning. I'm not using Google Home or SST, just Nest.

JoyR
Community Member

Mine has also been much better for the last couple of weeks, but I’m still using SST.  I don’t have Google Home.  I’m wondering whether I should dare disable SST and see what happens using only Nest.

JoyR
Community Member

Well, I tried just that.  I disabled the SST settings, and went for a walk.  In due course the Nest app showed that I was away, but did not switch to Eco.  I left it alone, and as I neared home again it switched back to Home.

So back to SST.  My only beef about that is that the geofencing is not to my liking, as the minimum distance I can set is quite far from home.   Also, unlike the Nest app, which switches to Home, (and when it works, out of Eco) when I am a short distance from home, whereas with SST it only switches to Home when I am actually in the house, so it takes time to warm up.  Strange, when it takes me so far away before it switches to Eco.

 

 

Iany1954
Community Member

I’m using SST and have been for a couple of months now. It’s working great. It doesn’t switch Nest Home/Away but acts directly on Heat/Eco (this overrides any Nest action). I’ve found that when walking it’s usually switches about 600ft from home. However if driving it can be different as there is obviously some polling effect and when coming home it can be pretty close. I don’t recall this as being very different from the Nest operation (when it used to work). I’m much more confident in operation now as I get a notification when SST makes the status change. It’s SST all the time for me now.

Can't you adjust the geofence circle in SST?  My wife's phone and my own receive notifications way before we get into the house probably 100meters or so as the crow flies.

The minimum SST geofence radius is 150M. The point at which home/away is triggered is dependant upon the radius of the geofence, the rate at which SST polls location and the speed that the user is travelling at. I don’t know SST’s polling rate but I’d estimate about 1 minute as when driving I’m home at about the time SST recognises it. I have geofence radius set to minimum.

All this trouble has been caused by Google’s destruction of a working Nest Home/Away system. Grrrrrrr………

bs3rob
Community Member

Mine was much better for a few weeks - using both Nest and SST but has gone back to being absolutely useless - shows that I am "home" but stays in Eco (several times this week) and even (9 degrees - i.e. not Eco but don't care). Have tried rebooting my phone but makes no difference. This is so exhausting I have started talking to a legal firm about a class action - if you're interested I will setup another website.

Midjet76
Bronze
Bronze

Last few weeks we stopped using SST as wasn't as reliable, but think that might have been because Nest was working better as others had reported.  The last 2 days I've remembered to check home and away and heat/eco status just with Nest and it's been working correctly, within acceptable parameters, not as responsive as SST but good enough. SST would switch before we had got thru the front door, Nest, a good few minutes later. But also like other contributors have suggested might be working better now that the weather's getting warmer and therefore less demand on Google's servers, idk.  It would have been helpful, if Google were more open and transparent and kept us all informed if they were actually working on addressing our concerns and feedback accordingly. I would certainly be interested in class action but can i still be involved while it seems too work at present ?

LifeonMars
Bronze
Bronze

Yesterday 31st March 2022 Nest updated the App in iOS to 5.68.0 and Apple updated to iOS15.4.1

I deleted SST from my phone, leaving the Google Home and Nest App running. 

All went well this morning when I left home and later returned with the Thermostat correctly switching to  away (ECO)  and to Home (heat) mode on my return.

Will see how it acts later,  

Well, Nest App and Google Home failed earlier to switch back to Heat after being out. So back to SST for me 😁

islandniles
Community Member

43CDDDFA-D9ED-47B8-9EF4-7D41B27EAF93.png

I haven’t tried it since the Nest app update, because SST continues to work really well got me.

What I have noticed though, is that the orange screen when the heating is switched on now looks awful, and I hope it’s just a glitch. I can’t describe HOW it’s changed, but it definitely has. Grey screen is the same as before.

I’m still successfully using SST with no problems. So much so that I don’t check the notifications/history much any more!

I actually prefer the updated orange screen in the app. It has much better contrast for the temperature display and up/down controls. 

@steve99uk  after finding that the updated  Nest app 5.88.0.11 for iPhone and the updated firmware for iOS 15.4.1  did not function correctly . I have re installed SST which makes the Nest app and Google Home app work as they should. 😄 also with the added bonus of a notification when it switches to away (Eco mode)  One of my routines.

I wish some would explain why having the SST app installed makes the Nest Learning Thermostat work, when only having the Nest  app or/and Google Chrome it fails. 

I think it’s because when you use the Nest app, you’re relying on it to correctly do the following steps:

1) Nest app recognises that you’ve left home.

2) Nest app changes the home’s state to Away.

3) The home’s Away mode triggers the thermostat to switch to Eco.

All of that happens in reverse when you come home. The problem seems to arise with the third step, whereas SST sort of removes this step by doing the following:

1) App recognises that you’ve left the geofence area.

2) App tells the thermostat to switch to Eco.

It doesn’t rely on the Away or Home state triggering a communication to the thermostat to trigger the current thermostat mode, which is where the issue seems to lie.

Ryan_G
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks,

 

Thanks for visiting the Google Nest Community. 

 

Since this thread hasn't had activity in a while, we're going to close it to keep content fresh.

If you have additional questions, feel free to submit another post and provide as many details as possible so that others can lend a hand. 

 

Hope this helps!

 

Kind regards,

Ryan


 

Midjet76
Bronze
Bronze

Nest failed today for the first time in a few weeks. Failed to switch from Eco too heat. D a m n.