Nest 3rd gen Thermostat low battery issue after several years

[ErnieC6720]

After about 4 years, my NEST is now going to low battery and disconnecting from WiFi.  I can recharge with usb but doesn't seem to be charging on the wall.  Nothing has changed in my home.  Can these rechargeable batteries be replaced?  Could it be something else?  It hasn't happen before.  Maybe once after a power outage but never again.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

[Shabellabu]

I need help the Same is happening it doesn’t stay charged in the wall 

[Jeff]

I'm happy to hear it's working for you cedds1. Thanks for letting us know.

Before I mark this as resolved, is there anything else you might need?

Thanks,

Jeff

[cedds1]

I’m good, thanks. I am so relieved to have found this support, however! Thanks again to all.

[-MBS]

I must have missed your response, but what did you do to fix your unit?

[mutaylor]

I am having the same issue.

[EdwardT]

Hi mutaylor,

Thanks for posting. Could you tell us more about what's happening? I'd love to know more about this and I have a few questions:

• What type of Nest Thermostat do you have?
• How is your Nest Thermostat wired?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

Thanks,

Edward

[AHanneman]

Hey EdwardT,

-I have a Gen 3.4

- Y1, G, W1, Rh

- charged my nest manually and after a couple hours it said my battery was low. HVAC Tech came out and said the power was coming through properly and said it was a Nest issue. 

[Craigdd1]

Jeff I have the c wire permanently connected and still have low power rebooting failure on mine any help would be appreciated 

[MrK2023]

I’m having the same problem as described above. After a couple of years, all of sudden it started having low battery warnings. It’s not the wi-fi and I don’t have the black cable connection. 

[cedds1]

Thank you so much for everyone’s help! It seems to be working fine now and I have not yet connected the C-wire. I have that in my back pocket (not literally) in case it happens again. Thank you again to everyone!

[Cbeau7]

Same issue. Installed a new 3rd gen nest thermostat in our house at the beginning of September. No C wire. It worked great for 3 months until last week when it offline randomly and now I have to manually charge it every day or 2 to keep it functional. Zero changes to HVAC system or wiring and no power outages. 

[lrankine]

I'm having the same issue.  Nest has been working fine for about 1.5 years and now it's doing the same thing as everyone else here has described.  Sure would be nice if Google Nest people would answer this thread.

[TheTomasN]

I had nest since their backers times. So since gen 1. I had the hen 2 and gen 3 even with the best logo on the back. All work he’s great for so many year and now about few weeks ago I am getting the same offline/no battery issue just like everyone else. The odd is that I have 2 thermostats but I only have big this issue with 1. 

[TXRick]

Has anyone here tried replacing the battery?

[TheTomasN]

I replaced the thermostat and same issue.  

[ErnieC6720]

I did. Same behavior. I think it may have to do with change or update to software for connectivity to other devices draining power. 

[geneswain]

i think you are right to many are failing now with same issue some kind of software up date screwed it up

[Frustrated220]

Can’t for the gen 3

[Paddyboy2519]

Yes you can

[2JMillers]

I have replaced the batteries 3 times in the last 2 months. A furnace tech tweaked the connections yesterday. Waiting to see if it will fail. 

[Jay20]

Did it work?

[Paddyboy2519]

You need a c wire. We had extra wiring buried in the wall, I used one of those wires, connected it to the customer terminal on the furnace/ac unit, then connected that same wire into the c  terminal on the nest. Issue solved

[lrankine]

Might be time for all of us to look for another brand of thermostat.........

[Paddyboy2519]

Try running a jumper wire from the G terminal to the C terminal 

[jungliebeats]

Exactly the same issues as everyone above. 

[ErnieC6720]

It must be some update to the software. I recently got a new phone and when I connected I got a message that asked if I wanted Nest to communicate to other devices and I replied NO. I haven’t lost connectivity again. Not sure if it is coincidence. 

[Cbeau7]

I replaced my my Nest all together. Still unsure why it worked perfectly for 3 months and then suddenly wasn’t getting enough power from my HVAC system. If that was truly the problem I think there would be issues during installation or at least a few days later, but not months or even years later like some people here are experiencing.

[ampfever]

It's because Google cannot fix or fails to ignores the issue.

[Jumanji2023]

I did get ahold of google support and a replacement was sent to me. There is a select few nests that they know of with the software issue. They even offered to pay for a inexpensive one until the replacement nest arrived. 

[ampfever]

Please give me more info

[WillBrad]

It is best if you contact Google support for help.

[ErnieC6720]

Back to not enough power. Definitely something changed with these. Recently. Perhaps some software update or something. That requires more power usage. I wish Nest would say something about this. 

[KChicago]

Same thing.  Woke up this morning and stating not connected to the internet low battery.  Furnace is working fine and has power.

[DHAndreotta]

Mine is also having the same problem with the battery.  I do not think that it has to do with a software update because mine has never connected to the internet.  I charge mine up via USB and it lasts for about six hours and then I have to charge it again.

[Lgsmith15]

Same problem with me. I charge the battery but it doesn’t last. How do I change the battery? 

[EdB]

Doesn't seem like that would be a solution. I've charged the battery for 24 hours and it lasted 6-7 days before needing a recharge. If I charge it for 4-5 hours it lasts about 2 days. Seems like the battery is discharging faster then it can charge on 20-40mA.

One post discusses how it appears that after an update they noticed this issue. Best guess is an update is causing the unit to need more power to sustain the charge and the voltage is dropping to low. Have not received any helpful advice from Google/Nest.

Seems like they want us to install a dedicated power source for the Smart Learning Thermostat. Which will probably run you at least $200-300 for an electrician to install the unit and run the wires to the Thermostat. That would be labor and parts. But just guessing.

[TXRick]

Changing the battery also doesn’t help. I’m throwing mine in the trash and going back to a cheap lcd screen Honeywell thermostat that I know works

[endicott65]

There is a YouTube video showing the procedure. Others have stated this no longer solves the issue. Looks like Google wishes Nest would just go away 

[endicott65]

Same issue. Always charged from AC in summer. No longer. Nest has replaced this unit twice so I believe it's an unacknowledged software issue.

[fireflye10]

Google replaced my 3rd generation nest that had this issue after one year.