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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

After a week of numerous twitter exchanges with Nest Support, sending them screenshots of my settings and trying various fixes to no avail the matter is finally being esculated. When I told them that even manually switching the NLT between Home and Away doesn't switch eco mode as it used to I think they realised there was a problem. Hopefully it will get fixed. A roll back to last years software which worked fine will do me.

joeka
Community Member

When I contacted support about this (for a second time), I too showed them this thread explaining that this appears to be a fairly common and recent problem.

They were very quick to dismiss it and said it looks unrelated - which I think is a load of rubbish ... as far as I can tell I am having the exact same problem as most of you on this thread!

DavidE
Community Member

This is infuriating. I am a software developer, and if I looked at this thread it would be clear many users had reported exactly the same issue, in the same way, which was not present previously, and which should be passed to their tech support for comment. Clearly the first line support agents are just following their script and are not willing/able to do that.

heshie75v
Community Member

They really have no idea as to what is wrong, and they can't fix it.  I have done everything from deleting the app reinstalling & resetting thermostat etc. etc.

Nontechmike
Community Member

I also have the problem of nest staying in eco mode despite it recognising I have got home.  I left it several hours one day and it never came out of eco mode despite being during a scheduled heating on period.  Have tried with and without movement sensor set but no change.  This has only started happening recently so like most others I think Google introduced some bad code with last update.

ernestocivello
Community Member

Hi, I've the exact inverse problem:
even if Google understand thath I'm away, it starts my heating system.

Away mode active with heating system on

Nontechmike
Community Member

Just checked and I have this problem too.  So basically Home/Away assist simply does not work anymore.  So even though it detects we going and arriving and changes my status accordingly both on the Nest App and on the Google Home app, it regularly has no effect on my Heating.  I have seen on some occasions that eventually it changes from On to Eco hours after I left but this is very hit and miss.  If it is in Eco it stays Eco when I get home and if its On it stays on when I leave home.   This all seems to have started after the software update they did last month.  Is it possible to roll back to the previous build??

Its worse than that, even if you manually change away to home the eco setting still stays on!!!

Nontechmike
Community Member

I have always used both Geo Location (my mobile phone in local vicinity) and the Nest Thermostat movement sensor to activate the Home Assist function.  I can see with this setting that the Thermostat (and Google Home App) recognises correctly when home or away, it takes little notice of this status.  Even if I manually change my setting to Away on the Nest Thermostat App it still ignores it.  However, I just discovered that if I deselect the Thermostat movement sensor then all seems to work OK.  I'll keep an eye on this over the next few days but this seems to be a work around whilst Google fix the last software update released last month.

I have though had the movement sensor deselected on my thermostat for a long time (as this didn't quite work the way I wanted), and I do still have this problem with getting stuck in Eco mode.

Nontechmike
Community Member

Just done some more checks and you're right David.  De-selecting Thermostat movement sensor does mean that the thermostat does respond correctly and immediately when you manually set yourself as away or home but if you let Home Assist try and work out if your in or out just using the Geo Location from the phone it does not work.  I guess we still do not have a way around this fault after all - come on Google, get this bug fixed.

The situation for me is that Home/Away Assist does correctly detect Home or Away, but when I get home the thermostat does not switch out of "Eco" mode, so the heating does not actually come on, even thought it knows I am "Home". I think this is what several others have found.

Nontechmike
Community Member

Yes I do experience this but I also suffer from when I go out it stays In heating mode even though it detects I am Away.   Eventually/occasionally it does drop into Eco mode whilst I'm Away but when I get home the thermostat does not switch out of Eco mode even though it knows I am Home.  Basically it just doesn't work!

PS. Not sure if this is relevant, but I think there is some interaction/incompatibility between the Nest App and the Home App.  I obviously run both Apps on the same mobile (its called Mike's Galaxy S9+) but the Home App suggest that I am not using this phone and that I should switch to the Samsung "SM-G965F".   The problem is that is that same phone - its just that one App uses the Phone Name and the other uses the Model number but they are the same phone.  If however, I use the "SM-G965F" in the Home App, the Nest App then says my "Mike's Galaxy S9+" is not being used for Home/Away Assist.  Not sure how to fix this.

I've noticed this also but when you link your phone to the Google home app, the Nest app will follow the Home/Away changes automatically. And also the other way around. I use the Home app as my "main" smart home app because I also use some Philips Hue smart lights.

But it won't solve the issue with the eco mode. That's a different problem I'm afraid... 

Just checked last night and I also have the "going out" problem - I just hadn't checked this before! I left the house at 18:40, the Nest correctly set itself to "Away" within a couple of minutes. But I checked the app when I reached my destination 40 minutes later, and it was set to "Away" but with the heating still full on. Grrr! So I have probably been wasting energy on many evenings when I've been out and assumed the heating had been turned off - which was the point of getting the device.

Maybe Google are in a conspiracy with energy companies to increase energy bills. I agree they are to an extent pretty pointless just now. Who needs a NLT when we now have to rely on manually turning the heating on and off.

Tommy_Thompson
Community Member

I've been in touch with the Nest support and they made me try some troubleshooting. I've come to the same conclusion as other users:

Manually changing to Away in the app usually puts the thermostat in Eco mode immediately.

When manually changing to Home, the thermostat usually is stuck in Eco mode. Sometimes it do goes to heating mode but that's very random and mostly after a long time

These MANUAL changes are also logged in the energy history in the Nest app

 

When I leave my home with my phone, both apps change to Away but the thermostat doesn't go to Eco. 

When I come home with my phone, both apps change to Home. The thermostat stays in Eco (and not because I manually put it in Eco, but rather when it went to Eco by itself in some rare occasions)

These changes are not logged (anymore) in the energy history. So it seems that the link between the automatic changes and the thermostat is broken since the update. 

So please Google if you read this topic. FIX THIS PLEASE

Have been engaging with Nest Support every day for past 9 days and is very frustrating. Going round in circles. They seem to think it is a wifi or geofence location issue but this works ok as expected. The problem has to lie internally in the NLT control loop. IF NLT IN HOME MODE THEN NLT SHOULD SWITCH OUT IF ECO MODE. IF NLT IN AWAY THEN NLT SWITCHES TO ECO MODE. As we all say on here, it worked fine until recently so must be a software update issue but they seem reluctant to accept this.

JCK
Community Member

I have the same problem. I was just wondering, does any Google representative actually read these messages? It looks like the issue has been around for months, and no info from the company?

Info: Home/away works as expected, but the thermostat sets itself to Eco when I leave, and does not leave Eco mode when I return (even though the app shows I am "Home")

joeka
Community Member

No, I don't believe anyone from Google reads or replies to these threads.

I have been speaking to support about the exact same problem and showed them this thread recently.  They were very quick to dismiss it as "everyone's problems are different", even though I tried to explain that you can clearly see there is definitely a pattern here.

My advice to you, or any one with this problem, is to also contact Google Support about this problem directly.

GB123
Community Member

I also have this problem. It was working fine until recently, and now it’s either very slow or I need to switch in / out of Eco manually. Really frustrating.

miltex145
Community Member

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9261396
Under either the "Nest thermostats" or "Nest cameras and Nest doorbells" sections.
For me, the "Your camera didn’t switch on or off as expected" topic under the "Nest cameras and Nest doorbells" section fixed my problem. As I suspected, the "Google Home" and "Nest" apps on the iPhone are fighting each other and causing Home/Away Assist not to work properly. What resolved the problem for me was following the instructions under bullet point #3 which was to setup the "Routines" function within the Google Home app which sets it as running the Home/Away assist function with my iPhone from now on and that automatically shuts it off within the Nest app. Now the 2 apps don't fight each other anymore and the cameras properly turn themselves on when I leave and off when I return home. Interestingly enough, I'm finding that it works best if I do the same with my wife's iPhone except set the Nest app to run her Home/Away assist which then automatically disables it within the "Routines" function in the Google Home app. I found that if both of our iPhones are setup to have the Google Home app control the Home/Away Assist function, the cameras will turn themselves on when she leaves the house and I'm still home as well as vice-versa. It would have been nice if Google hadn't ruined a good thing and just left the Nest app alone in the first place instead of making the Google Home app have to be running in tandem with the Nest app on our devices in order for the system to work.

Iany1954
Community Member

I too have this problem. It’s recently started failing after working fine for years. Switches to eco when we both leave home (using two phones only for home/away assist) but does not come out of eco when we return despite the status returning to HOME. It has obviously been broken by an update and Google need to fix this ASAP as we now have to manually intervene to get the heating to come on. NOT GOOD ENOUGH GOOGLE.

joeka
Community Member

Yep, exact same problem here.

My advice to you is to contact Google support directly about it.  I don't believe anyone from Google reads or responds to these threads, so hopefully the more people that contact them about the same problem, maybe they will eventually get the message!?

JoyR
Community Member

Exactly the same problem 

Iany1954
Community Member

Just done a further test by manually activating home/away status through the app. Setting AWAY causes ECO to be entered but setting to HOME has no effect (stays in ECO). Seems that once ECO is activated it can only be deactivated manually!

NestUser2
Community Member

Solution to the home/away and eco mode issue : Install Samsungs "SmartThings" and connect it with your Google Home account. Your Nest thermostat will show up in SmartThings and you can now configure routines here, similar to Google Home. Home/away and Heating/eco works perfect when using SmartThings !

Conclusion : The problem is probably  in the nest/google home app, not in the thermostat itself...

 

Thanks for that.  Just set up Smart Things and added the routines. Will test over next week and see how NLT reacts. If this is a solution then somethings gone wrong between NLT app and Home app that needs sorted. So now I've got 3 apps on my phone with dome level of control over the NLT.

Been using Samsung Smart Things after I deleted Google Home App for 4 days now and everything works perfectly now.  Its even better than Nest app in that you can vary size of geofence area and set delays for when you enter and leave. Switches in and out of eco mode instantly. Still need Nest app for time schedule though. Poor that a premium thermostat comes with a broken 3rd rate app that requires use of a 3rd party app to operate it.

@ ArchStanton So do you let Samsung Smart things access your location/phone and turn it off on the Nest app. Do you also switch off the thermostat  in who decides if your home in the Nest app as well ? 

RemcoS
Community Member

Thanks for sharing. After three weeks of chatting with Nest support I was getting desperate. This solved my issue. 
However, it is unbelievable that a so called high-tech company is making such a mess of something that used to be a good functioning ecosystem.

DavidE
Community Member

The Google Home app should not be necessary - I have never had this app, nor even heard of it until this thread! The thermostat should work correctly just with the Nest app, as it used to.

Should being the operative word. To have more than one person connecting to the thermostat that's when Google home is needed as can only have one account directly in control of Nest. As lots of comments above had been working fine until Nov. Nest only for just me also now not working, so if yours is still working thank your lucky stars cos the rest of us are getting really frustrated. In this busy household there's lots of comings and goings that require multiple phones to determine if anyone's home.

rhelger
Community Member

I have had the same issue (nest app registers I’m home but does not switch out of eco mode without manual intervention) referenced on this thread for the past month or so.

Last night I decided to migrate my nest account with my google account (this was done using the nest app). In the process my nest thermostats were also added to my Google Home App.

When I came home tonight my nest thermostats almost instantaneously switched out of eco mode and the heat kicked on.

For those with the same issue, if you haven’t migrated your nest account with your google account, it might be worth a shot.

rhelger
Community Member

Also, after the migration I am still able to use the Nest App to control, configure, etc. the thermostats.

evernon
Community Member

I migrated my account long ago and am still having issues. I have tshooted it down to the app however. It is not respecting the Location = Always setting. It does for a while and then stops which then means the app and Thermostat stay in the last setting. I suspect a process in the app that runs in the background is crashing and not restarting. Seems an easy root cause for Google engineers but I don't think they are paying attention. This is the same issue regardless of the app (Home or Nest) so I am guessing the location module is shared between the apps.

See posts further up. Install Samsung Smart Things App. Delete Google Home. Use Nest app for schedule and Smart Things fir Hime/Away which provides a lot more functionality. Problem solved. The Nest app is broken. NLT is supposed to be a premium product but has a 3rd rate app.

AnaM
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey everyone,

 

I'm sorry about the delayed response as I can see this thread was opened a while ago. However, I'm here to help now, so please let me know if you still need assistance.

Lingers91
Community Member

Well unfortunately the same issue persists for me. No matter if i manually change the state from home to away and back on the app, eco mode is not switched automatically. It doesn't work if i leave home with my phone to use location to trigger it either. The only of doing it is now to manually change the mode on my thermostat if I remember when i leave, which kind of defeats the purpose of this thermostat. This obviously removes any preheating when I return home. Honestly, it's simply not fit for purpose and google haven't provided any avenues to escalate a complaint which I would have liked to pursue. 

ArchStanton
Community Member

Problem still persists in that the NLT is stuck in eco mode and rarely responds to a change in Home/Away status. However we have found out that using Samsung Smart Things app solves this issue and has much better geofence functionality. Would be better if we could have only one app that did controlled everything on NLT.