Nest Thermostat keeps thinking im away when im not

[pross537]

I recently bought a Nest Learning thermostat 3rd Gen. There has been multiple occasions where i'll be home and the thermostat goes into away mode because it thinks no one is there. I have tried multiple combinations of settings in the "What decides if youre home" screen. My phone location, thermostat as primary and the nest protects throughout the house as well. Does not seem to make a difference. What can I do to fix this problem? I'm about ready to rip the thermostat off the wall and go back to a standard.

[Jenelyn_O]

Hi pross537,

Thanks for reaching out and for being a step ahead of us. I'm sorry for the trouble this may have caused you. To confirm, in what country are you located? Your phone's settings can affect how well your home switches between Home and Away. For example, if Wi-Fi is turned off on your phone, your home may not be able to tell when you leave home with your phone. Troubleshoot phone location for routines by following the steps provided in the article. 

For additional reference, you can visit this link about Nest Home and Away not working. 

Please keep me posted.

Best,

Jenelyn

[pross537]

Jenelyn,

 I am in the United States. I have tried all steps in that link, except for step 4 as that seems to be android specific (i'm on iphone) and they dont seem to make a difference. I have precise location enabled and set the nest app to always allow.

[zoeuvre]

Hi folks, 

@pross537, chiming in—were you talking on the phone at the time they got home? If you were, this may be expected behavior because some phone carriers won’t allow for phone calls and data transfer at the same time. You can end the call and open the app to trigger the home mode change. Also, try these additional steps: 

1. Check if there are multiple devices signed into the same account.
   • Being signed into multiple devices at once can cause issues with Home and Away behavior.
   • You should invite trusted home members to share access to the home with your own account in the app instead of sharing the same account.
   • After accepting the home invite, each home member can contribute your own phone’s location to Home and Away to prevent unexpected behavior, like the thermostat going into Eco mode while someone’s still home.
   • Refer to Learn about Family Accounts and how to share access to your Nest home for more information about sharing home access using the Nest app or refer to Share a home and devices in the Google Home app for how to do this in the Google Home app.
2. Check to see if the app recorded any activity in history view.
   • Any recorded activity This should provide an explanation of when and why the home state changed over the previous 10 days. For example, the note "Home: Activity in the house. Living Room Thermostat 7:30 P.M." means that the home switched out of Away mode because the customer’s thermostat saw activity. Go to Settings > Home/Away Assist > Activity History and select the date that Home and Away did not work as expected. 

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Zoe

[pross537]

Zoe,

 While there are multiple devices signed into my google account, I have my settings to only allow location information from my iphone. I have not invited any trusted home members to my google account. I reviewed my history and went back to Dec 10 and it did not have any matches for this criteria.

[zoeuvre]

Hi there, 

Thanks for letting us know. Let's dig more into this (you may skip the ones you already did): 

1. Check for any devices within the home that the customer has installed and signed into the app, such as iPads or tablets — these are common devices to be left in the home.
   
   • If any device is logged in, still present in the home, and contributing to Home and Away, remove it as a contributing device.
2. Check that phone locations can contribute to Home and Away and that the customer’s phone location is enabled in the app:
   1. Settings > Home/Away Assist > What decides if you’re home > Use phone location set to Yes
   2. Settings > Home/Away Assist > What decides if you’re home > You > Phone location on
      • Note:  If you recently switched phones or re-installed the Nest app, you'll see a prompt to Switch to this phone. If you're sharing phone location from the Home app, it’s expected that Use phone location in the Nest app will be set to On but the setting next to you're phone (labeled as “You”) will be set to No.
3. Check that your home address and pinned location are correct in the app:
   • Settings > Home info > Address > type in the address then drag the map so that the pin is on your home.
4. Check your app settings from the phone OS settings:
   1. Privacy & security > Location Services > Nest or Google Home > Precise location on
   2. General > Background app refresh > turn on for Google Home and Nest
5. Check your signal strength at the time (how many bars do you have).
   • If low signal strength, home status should switch once the signal improves.
6.  Check  if you've recently been at home for an extended period of time like a week or more.
   • Home and Away may ignore a phone if it hasn’t left home or reported any geofence crossings in a while. Toggle the phone location in the Home or Nest app off, wait 60 seconds, toggle it back on, and wait 60 seconds before going back to the app’s main screen.
     • Note: The Nest app shows a yellow triangle warning near your phone name in Home/Away Assist settings letting you know that we haven’t heard from your phone in a while.
7. Some phone manufacturers may have optimization apps or settings that can impact geofence reporting from the Google Home and Nest apps.
   • These settings may have names such as battery saver mode, battery optimization, performance mode, app launch, or app locking. Consult with your phone manufacturer’s support to find out how to disable these optimization modes for Google Home or Nest apps to see if that improves Home and Away geofence reporting.
8. You can also restart their mobile phone or clear their cache.

Regards,

Zoe