Provide a fan only mode

[JTBD]

Please provide a fan only mode where I can run the fan without setting it to heat or cool mode. It's amazing to me that the most basic dumb thermostat has this feature and the nest thermostat does not.

It's super annoying to have to alter my temperature preferences just so I can run the fan without worrying that the heat/cool will turn on.

[CoolingWizard]

@JTBD, in the Google Nest Learning Thermostat there is indeed a fan function.  You can turn the fan on for as little as 15 minutes or as long as 12 hours.  The advantage to the Nest Learning Thermostat is you do not have to turn it off as it will run for the length of time you choose. 
Additionally the homeowner can turn the fan on with a schedule.  For example, you can tell the fan to come on for a 10 minutes every hour or every four hours or something like that. This is effective when the system is not in operational mode it can keep moving the air around the house to keep the temperature balanced, and all the areas. 

You cannot do this kind of a feature without having a smart and intelligent thermostat like the Google Nest Learning Thermostats.

AC Cooling Wizard

[JTBD]

@CoolingWizard, thanks for your response. It's good to know that they are least made feature parity with the cheapest hardware store thermostat on the premium Nest Learning Thermostat.

"You cannot do this kind of a feature without having a smart and intelligent thermostat like the Google Nest Learning Thermostats."

I hope this is sarcasm, considering the aforementioned cheapest hardware store thermostat provides this feature. There is no reason that it would need any AI or machine learning to provide a fan only mode. 

Still, I expect feature parity with on the regular non learning Nest Thermostat (which I selected in the product selection dropdown) with again, the cheapest hardware store thermostat which has a functional fan only mode.

[MplsCustomer]

I guess we'll never get a Nest thermostat. We run our fan all the time to circulate and filter the air continually, whether in heat mode, cooling mode, or off. It's a simple, easy-to-change setting on our basic programmable thermostat.

[CoolingWizard]

@MplsCustomer, since there is the ability to create a fan schedule, you can in fact run the fan continuously if you desire.  

AC Cooling Wizard

[JTBD]

That's the problem I am facing. I also run my fan continuously for air quality purposes. I set the fan schedule to run for 1 hour every hour so that it runs continuously. But the Nest thermostat only allows the fan to run if it's either on Cool or Heat mode. It will not allow the fan to run in Off mode, and there is no existing Fan only mode.

So in order to do this I generally set it to the off season mode and change my temperature preferences so that it doesn't actually start. E.g. now that it is cooler in the northern hemisphere, in order to run the fan without either cooling or heating I set the mode to cooling and set my temperature preferences to something very high like 30 degrees. But this is an annoying work around for a product that really should support features parity with a generic hardware store thermostat. 

This all was prompted the other day when I set the temperature too low, thinking it wouldn't actually hit 24 degrees in my house in the evening in mid October and had the air conditioning start up with this October "heat wave" we're experiencing. I had already been annoyed that there is no fan only mode, but this put me over the edge and made me want to provide feedback in hopes that it might be implemented. Should not be hard unless the software developers coded themselves into a corner or something. Either make it so the fan is allowed to run in Off mode or add a new Fan only mode. 

[CoolingWizard]

@JTBD you need to look at the fan schedule capability of the nest learning thermostat. Do you have the ability to set up a schedule to tell her to run for a specific leak of time once every X hours or minutes. So you say you run it every hour the schedule can do that for you on the Nest learning thermostat. 

AC Cooling Wizard