New home consistent power issues

[ARSmith]

Hi - I just moved into my home and replaced all batteries in our nest thermostats. I reset everything to factory settings and things were working fine. They all set up fine, however they continually say “low power” and the error code that’s generated took me to a page that suggested needing a c-wire or a nest power connector. I have a really hard time thinking that the previous owners of the home had this same issue. Given that we don’t have a c wire and I don’t see a nest power connector, are there any other possible problems and/or solutions for this issue? I’ve been getting so frustrated to deal with this that I’m almost considering getting a traditional thermostat because this product doesn’t seem worth it. 

[laurentbourg]

is this the nest thermostat with the mirrored face place? Why did you replace the batteries in the first place?

[ARSmith]

Yes mirrored face. When we first moved in a few weeks ago, the thermostat read that there was a low battery, so I replaced them. 

[laurentbourg]

Ok. It is possible that without the C wire your system has limited charging capabilities, it can maintain the charge but not provide a good charge from scratch. Pull out the display units from their wiring base and you should see a micro usb on the back, try charging them for a few hours and put them back on the wall. Then monitor the battery from the google home app in the settings, device info section. 

[ARSmith]

Will do- appreciate it! If this works, that would just be a necessary thing to do every once in awhile? If that isn’t helpful, a cwire would likely be needed, right?

[laurentbourg · Accepted solution]

If that works, hopefully the batteries will be leaking so slowly in conjunction to the weak charging process that “once is a while” will be rare enough not to occasion inconvenience. Otherwise yes you will need a C wire or a C wire adapter.