Taking Ownership of Thermostats Remotely

[Keithturbo]

I have a home that we are newly renting out and managing from across the country. We have three nest thermostats which we have connected to our account and want to give our new tenants complete control of the thermostats once they move in. When they eventually move out, we'd like to regain control of the thermostats and as we are living across the county, would like to do so without physically being there.

Understanding that the wifi will need to be updated when they take over and leave which will require us to have someone onsite to perform, what is the best way for us to achieve the goal of granting complete control of the devices to the tenant while they rent the home and resume control once they move out ? Can we save the device information in our account and retake control once the devices have been factor reset ?

[David_K · Accepted solution]

It's not possible to do this without physically being with the thermostat, unfortunately. Whilst setup with your account, you can remove it from your app remotely so that the tenant can set it up as theirs, but once they leave, you can't take control again without physically being there to set it up with your account again, regardless of whether they reset it or not. We often see in the community that tenants don't remove their account or factory reset the thermostat as well, meaning you'd likely need to visit to reset it anyway so you can link it back to your account.

[Keithturbo]

Thank you for the response.  I have a handyperson who will be at the house and could factory reset the devices, but I'm not sure configuring it to my account is something that is within their skill set.
If the thermostats were factory reset, and configured to connect to the wifi in the home by my handyperson, could I reconnect to them with my existing Google Home account remotely if I saved the device info / QR code?

[David_K]

No, the setup device has to be in range of the thermostat.