Shabbat Mode

[MMarcus]

It would be really helpful if the Nest accommodated Sabbath observant customers by having a Shabbat mode. All this means is that you'd have the ability to pre-program the nest so that the motion sensors automatically turn off from 20 minutes before Sunset every Friday until about an hour after sunset every Saturday. Having this option would greatly accommodate the Sabbath observant community and would give them a very good reason to join the Nest community. 

[Ashepherdson]

So I am speaking as an outsider, but this question really intrigued me.  I did some quick searches, and came across countless articles , most of them with differing opinions.  

Bottom line is, speak to your rabbi, and see what their thoughts are.  Some are of the belief that a motion sensor would be "indirect work" and would not go again the Sabbath, and some believe that it would.  There are even further debates about this, as most lights these days are LED and not incandescent , and therefore there is no combustion, so again it would not go against Sabbath.   Very interesting indeed.  

My suggestion is to send feedback to Google about this, many appliance manufacturers have Sabbath mode (I know my oven does), and this may be able to be worked into a future firmware update.  Saying this, in the meantime if you want to be careful, you can disable your motion sensors during those times manually.  

[MMarcus]

It is common practice in the discourse of Jewish law (Halacha) to present lots of reasons why something would be ok and lots of reasons why something would not. There is a gap between what you may read in a scholarly article online and what an article presenting practical instructions will tell you. The bottom line is that Shabbat observant consumers will NOT allow an electrical display to light up every time they walk into their home on Fri night/Saturday. (They may not always consider it a TOTAL violation of Shabbat, but they definitely would not buy a product with such compromising functions). For this reason you can see  very popular Jewish consumer blogs recommending people avoid the Nest Thermostat entirely.... (Example: https://www.dansdeals.com/more/dans-commentary/smart-thermostat-get-cyber-monday-experiences-trying-...).

What makes this frustrating is that the workarounds are so simple. All that's needed is the optional setting of an always-on display or, even better, the option to schedule one day a week when the sensors are not activated.

Not sure how to send feedback to Google about this though...

[Jake]

Hey all,

It has been a few days since the last reply, and I am going to lock the thread at this time. If you have any questions, please feel free to create a new post. 

Best regards,
Jake