Nest Thermostat (4th gen, basic one) not controlling Home/Away mode

[MDinAZ]

Have two thermostats controlling two separate heat pumps in same home.

In the google app, under presence sensing:   I have phone location set to "off" and I have home devices both thermostats set to "on". This is because there are people at home even when I am not so tying location to my phone makes little sense.

If we are at home, but downstairs, the thermostat downstairs determines sees up, turns on the cooling downstairs but the home stays in "Away" mode. This means that the other thermostat (the one upstairs) assumes no one is home and stays off resulting in the upstairs becoming very warm. 

The old Gen 2 thermostats we just ripped out because Google wouldn't support them always switched the home to "Home" mode if any one thermostat detected motion. But the new Gen 4 E ones don't seem to do the same.

Bottom line:  how do I get the home to switch from "Away" to "Home" mode based on the termostat sensing motion rather than based on phone location. 

[EduardoN]

Hi @MDinAZ,

Thank you so much for reaching out to this community! I completely understand that you have two Nest Thermostats that control two heat pumps, one for each floor of your home. You have the location feature on your phone turned off because there are usually other people at home to control the temperature.

Regarding what you're experiencing: your downstairs thermostat is detecting the temperature and activating the cooling as you want it to, but the upstairs thermostat isn't working because it remains off. No worries, I'm here to help!

To provide you with the most appropriate information, I'd first like to ask you a few questions:

• What is the model of your Nest Thermostat? Learn how to tell which thermostat you have.

• Are there any Auto-Schedules set on your Nest Thermostat?

• Are there any other schedules set on your Nest Thermostat?

Regarding what you mentioned about the screen changing on previous generation thermostats, that feature is called Farsight. However, if your goal is to switch from "Away" to "Home" mode based on detected motion, the best recommendation would be to share this thermostat with other people who are in the house. You can do this in the following way:

• Open the Google Home app.
  
• If you have more than one home, tap Favorites.
  
• At the top, select the home you want to edit.
  
• Tap Settings > Household & access > Add > Home member.
  
• Enter the name or email address of the person you want to invite to your home.
  
• Tap Next > choose what access level you want to give between Admin or Member.
  
  • If you tap Admin > tap Invite to send the invitation.
    
  • If you tap Member > you can toggle on Activity or Settings permissions > tap Next > tap Invite to send the invitation.
• If your Google Family Group isn’t full and the person you’re inviting isn’t already in one, you should get the option to invite them to your Family Group.
  • To invite them, tap Invite.
  • To skip this step, tap No thanks.

Please feel free to share any additional details you think might be relevant.

Best regards,
Eduardo

[MDinAZ]

If I understand your suggestion, I should just add everyone in the household as a user and then the home/away will switch automatically. However, the assumption here is that everyone in the home has a smartphone and everyone in the home wants to share their location with Google. Otherwise the motion detection won't work. Is that correct?

[EduardoN]

Hi @MDinAZ,

What you're mentioning is completely correct. This way, it won't affect the thermostat's ability to work as you'd like while you're away, and you'll still have access to all of its features.

Keep me posted.

Best regards,
Eduardo