New Home/Away Assist problem for experienced user

[RQQQQ]

Hi, 

I've had Nest thermostats since they first came out. I've used them in three houses now. I've had it working well for all that time. I have a new problem with Home/Away Assist.

I use the Nest app and Home/Away assist is set up to use the phone location of my wife and I (2x iPhones) plus the motion sensor in the thermostat.

This has worked pretty flawlessly for years. The thermostat never switches into Eco mode as long as one of us is home (with our phones), but if we have a guest staying then the motion sensor mostly makes sure the HVAC doesn't switch off if they're home alone.

A couple of days ago, my system started switching into Away mode (and therefore Eco thermostat mode) while I was home and hadn't moved from my desk for an hour. I go into my Nest app settings and check that my phone is still set up and it is. My current status in the app is "[HOME NAME] = Here". So, my location is working, and Nest thinks my phone is home.

I check the Home/Away Assist Activity History and it's curious. It notes the last time I returned home earlier in the day with "YOUR PHONE WAS AT HOME" followed by "Home — Set by Home/Away Assist because a phone came home." But then, exactly an hour later it says "Away — No activity in the house."

I've been monitoring it for the last couple of days and sure enough, every time I notice Nest has switched to Away the Activity History shows that it thinks my phone is at home, but if there's an hour I don't trigger the thermostat sensor then it ignores that my phone is at home and switches to Away.

Each time I verify that the Nest app shows it thinks my phone is at home (it always does) and I've checked Location Settings in iOS and everything else related. I've disabled all the relevant Nest features and re-enabled. Finally, because I did try using the Google Home app a couple of years ago, I re-downloaded it, and went set up the Presence Settings there, then deleted it, switched back to Nest and re-activated my phone location there. (Just in case some infrastructure change has caused a glitch.) But, nope, it continues ignoring that my phone is here.

BUT, the one thing that is different from when this all worked perfectly, is that my wife (and her phone) have been traveling for work for the last few days! Her phone is set up in the Nest app for Home/Away Assist too. I can only see if her phone is still listed in What Decided (it says "Yes") and not her status, but her phone NOT being here shouldn't affect anything, but I wonder if her absence is triggering some weird bug. 

In summary: When my wife's phone is NOT home, Nest seems to ignore that my phone IS home, and only uses the thermostat motion sensor. Even though it shows my phone as being home in Current Status and Activity History.

[aperezdeleon]

Hello RQQQQ,

Thanks for reaching out to our community.

Figuring out why your thermostat switches to eco mode can be confusing, but don't worry, let's get to the bottom of this together.

It sounds like you've already done some troubleshooting, which is great! This helps us narrow down the possible causes why your thermostat or Nest app are switching to away mode.

First, let's determine if Home and Away is causing the problem. A Nest Learning thermostat can also switch to eco mode based on a schedule. If you haven't set a manual schedule and are relying solely on the learning feature, the thermostat might be copying previous sudden changes. To rule this out, I recommend resetting the schedule for a fresh start.

You can reset the schedule on your thermostat by going to Settings > Reset > Schedule.

Once you notice a sudden temperature change, can you tell me what happens when you manually switch your thermostat from Away to Home mode? It would also be helpful to know if you have any other Nest devices that could affect Home and Away mode.

Please also double-check that your home address and pinned location are correct in the app. A mismatch could lead to unexpected Home and Away behavior.

Let me know how it goes.

Regards,
Angel.

[RQQQQ]

Thanks for your reply.

I have a manual schedule and Auto Learning is turned off. It's not that.

When the thermostat switches to Eco mode when I am home and I manually switch it back to Cool, then it stays in Cool for 60 minutes then reverts back to Eco mode, unless I walk past the thermostat in this time.

My home address is in the correct location.

I have Nest Protects (battery) and a Nest Hello and three Nest Outdoor IQ Cameras.

To re-iterate, the Nest app correctly detects when my phone is at home or is not at home. The problem is that it's ignoring this status when determining if it should switch to Away.

[ByronP]

Hi RQQQQ,

Thank you for your post. I really appreciate all the details about your issue. Let me check other options.

I just want to make sure and check which devices are set to contribute to Home and Away; this includes sensors from Nest devices and phone locations from home members. Please try the following: 

• Nest App: Settings, Home/Away Assist, What decides if you’re home? This determines which device has control over the thermostat when you're away.

Also, I just want to check if every member has their own account or it is signed in using the same account information that causes confusion with Home and Away behavior. If you share your own account with your wife, try to create a new account and invite her.

After accepting the home invite, each home member can contribute their own phone's location to Home and Away to prevent unexpected behavior, like the thermostat going into the Eco mode while someone's still home.

Let me know if you need more assistance.

Regards,

Byron

[RQQQQ]

Hi Byron,

The only things contributing are the Nest Thermostat and the two phones I mentioned. Both phones are on different accounts. 

As I said, I've been using Nest Thermostats for over ten years. I'm pretty familiar with their quirks and how to use them. What I'm describing here seems like a bug in the software rather than my error.

Russell

[jenniffert]

Hi RQQQQ,

Thanks for following up. I apologize to hear that your Nest thermostat is showing "Away" when you’re at home. I understand how frustrating this can be.

I appreciate your efforts to resolve this situation. Here are some additional steps you can try:

• Ensure you have the latest versions of the Google Home app and your mobile software.
• Check the activity history to see if any actions were taken from another device. For more information, please refer to this article: Learn more about Home/Away Assist.
• If a family member has been at home for an extended period, Home and Away might ignore a phone that hasn't left home or reported any location changes. To fix this, toggle the phone location off in the Home or Nest app, wait 60 seconds, then toggle it back on. Wait another 60 seconds before returning to the app's main screen.
• Restart your mobile device and clear the Nest app cache.
• If these steps don't resolve the inconvenience, consider performing a factory reset on the Nest thermostat and setting it up again through the Nest app. Monitor the thermostat for at least 48 hours to see if the inconvenience persists.

Please let me know how it goes.

Best regards, 

Jenniffer

[RQQQQ]

Ok, sounds like you don’t know. Thanks for trying. 

[pereztzum]

Hi there!

I completely understand how frustrating that is. Dealing with a thermostat that doesn't work as it should can be incredibly stressful.

If you want to keep just one temperature the only thing you need to do is turn off all the thermostat features like:
Home away, Schedule, ECO mode.

If you want to get more information about Home Away not working please take a look on: Nest Home and Away not working.

If after turning all features off the issue persists:
First, let's give it a fresh start.Performing a factory reset can often resolve unexpected behavior. Think of it like rebooting your computer – it clears everything and starts anew. I know this might sound complicated, but I'll provide you with the necessary steps to do it.
Second, let's set it up again. This will give you a chance to customize your settings and make sure everything is working as it should. We can turn off Eco mode, which seems to be causing the temperature jumps, and set your preferred temperature.

Regards,

Brandon.

[RQQQQ]

Nah, it's a bug in the Nest software. If an engineer wants to fix it, let me know.

[flyinghour]

This used to happen to me when I was working from home (in a spare upstairs room). Even if the phone was on the premises, the thermostat used to switch off the heating if it did not detect movement after a period of time. In a way, this is not a terrible idea, because the heating will switch off if you leave the building and forget to take your phone with you. At the time, I'm pretty certain this used to be documented somewhere, but I can't for the life of me find any setting to control this behaviour. I'm actually having the opposite problem at the moment (using the nest app), whereby it is logging my phone "away from home" when I set off for work, but it does not turn off my heating until an hour later when there is no movement detected. I have been turning off my heating manually in the app for over a year now.

Should @RQQQQ  be using the Nest App or Google Home? The OP (like myself) states he is a long time user of the Nest app, but @jenniffert speaks of the Google Home App. Which one should we be using? I'm wondering if my troubles stared when I was railroaded into migrating my Nest Account to Google.

[RQQQQ]

Hey, I think the behavior you're describing (it taking a while to turn off after you leave) is expected. Nest doesn't just switch off heat or A/C immediately when you leave. You might be popping to the store and back. There might be someone left in the house without a phone location tied to your Nest account. Turning it off and on for 30-minute absences probably isn't economical, so it tries to be smart about it. (I believe it builds up a history of you leaving at different times of day to make more accurate guesses about how quickly it should turn off.) So, I'd just let it do its thing.

The problem I'm describing is a little different. If a registered phone is present in the house, it shouldn't switch to Away (I know a phone might get ignored if it hasn't left the house for an extended period, but this happens about an hour after the ofter phone leaves). It used to work correctly and still does work this way with my wife's phone. It's just mine that causes the problem, even though my Nest account shows that it correctly knows both phones are at home.

I'm only using the Nest app, but I did migrate to a Google account a few years ago and tried the Google Home app briefly. This home/away bug didn't start until a while after that. Unfortunately, there's no way to actually report bugs to the team, you just get stuck with reply-bots who offer surface-level "solutions," so…  we make our peace and start working out how to get out of this ecosystem. 

In the meantime, I handcrafted a solution. I have a Starling Home Hub, which adds your Nest devices into HomeKit, then I created a shortcut that runs whenever Nest switches to Away. This shortcut checks to see if any phones are in the house (using Apple HomeKit's data about phone locations) and then switches Nest back to Home! It's been working pretty well. It runs alongside the Nest Home/Away assist. If both my wife and I are out, but we have a guest in the house, then Nest will keep running. But, if the bug happens, my shortcut catches it.

[flyinghour]

Many thanks.

I agree about the  heating turning on / off because of a simple trip to the shops would not be desirable. However (throughout last winter), I discovered that the heating was still firing when I checked the nest app after my commute to work. The experience I have is that (irrespective of the location of my phone), the heating will turn off after about an hour if it does not detect any movement in the house. So, I don't understand the purpose of the home / away assist on my phone. It doesn't seem to learn my daily pattern of leaving the house at 6:30 each weekday morning. 

I guess what I m trying to say is that both of our systems will turn off after an hour (irrespective of the location of the phone). 🙂