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Temperature Sensors: We NEED the ability to customize the sensor schedule beyond the hourly presets

TJR
Community Member

The Nest Temperature Sensors seemed like the perfect add-on to the Nest Thermostat to help me ensure that the right part of the house (i.e. the downstairs) was a comfortable temperature when I wanted it to be. The idea was that a user would place the Temperature Sensors in different rooms/floors, and then select which sensor the thermostat would base its heating/cooling activities on... so I could make sure my downstairs was warmer during the day in winter, but then in the evening make sure my upstairs with the bedrooms were warm. But there's a major flaw that kills my ability to make this all happen:

A user cannot customize or adjust the Temperature Sensor schedule beyond pre-defined hourly blocks. So if your life and schedules doesn't happen to perfectly align with the 4 arbitrary windows of time that Google/Nest defined as Morning (7 AM - 11 AM), Midday (11 AM - 4 PM), Evening (4 PM - 9 PM), Night (9 PM - 7 AM)... you can't make any adjustment at all to the sensor schedule (see image below):

Screenshot_20211015-092047_Nest.jpg

The Problem:

Many homes/townhomes/condos are like mine -- imbalanced heating/cooling of certain areas, and a single zone for the thermostat. For example, my main floor is quite cold in the winter, and by the time the Thermostat has finished heating the main floor, the upstairs (which is always warmer than the main floor) has become uncomfortably hot, like a sauna.

 

My goal is to have the thermostat focus on controlling the temperature on the main floor for certain hours of the day - like the hours that my daughter is awake and playing down there - but then focus on controlling the temperature in her nursery for her nap and when she's sleeping at night by automatically switching which sensor it's operating off of at the time that need it to switch.

 

But my daughter's sleeping/nap schedule doesn't fit with the pre-defined sensor schedule... let's take the cold months of the year as an example (we live in Utah, and it's cold for 4+ months of the year). My daughter always sleeps until about 8:30 AM every day; until 8:30 AM, I need Nest to operate based off of the sensor in my daughter's room. But after 8:30 AM, I need Nest to operate based on the sensor in my living room in order to to be able to start heating the main floor (think of life in the winter in a cold state like mine) so she can play down there, eat breakfast, etc... but right now the only option is to automatically change the sensor is 7:00 AM (the "Morning" block), or we have to wait until 11:00 AM. So we have to manually adjust the sensor at 8:30 AM every day.

 

Then, my daughter takes a nap at 12:30 PM every day - so again, I need to be able to switch to the sensor in her room at 12:30 PM (and my only option right now is 11:00 AM for the "Midday" block), and then switch the sensor again automatically to the one on the main floor at 3 PM when she wakes up. If it has to switch the to main floor sensor at 11:00 AM to heat things up, which is the pre-defined schedule, her room will be too hot for her nap.

As such -- because of these predefined/arbitrary time blocks - I just literally can't use the sensor schedule function. I have to manually adjust the thermostat 3-4 times a day, just to get my home's temperatures more comfortable for my toddler. There's nothing "smart" or automated about that.

 

The Solution:

I simply need the ability to define what hours constitute each of the 4 blocks of time in order to automatically switch to the correct sensor at the right time. Every "dumb" thermostat I've ever used can do this -- from Honeywell to GE -- and most "smart" thermostats that I'm aware of let a user do this as well. Just not Nest.

 

For example, this is what would need to define the 4 blocks of the day as to make this fit my needs and use case perfectly:

  • Morning: 8:30 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Midday: 12:30 PM - 3:00 PM
  • "Evening": 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM
  • Night: 7:00 PM - 8:30 AM

This will be different for each of your users/customers based on their home, their HVAC setup, their families, etc. -- so just let us choose the times ourselves for sensor switching, and this would be perfect.

 

Would someone from Google please let me know if they want to talk this through, and indicate if this is something that can be worked on or will be worked on? 

 

I'd prefer to stay a Google customer... but I just can't justify it when every competitive option I'm looking at does this very simple customization, and we just don't want another uncomfortable winter in our home.

7 REPLIES 7

BinaryJay
Product Expert Alumni
Product Expert Alumni

I completely agree with you and this has been something people have been asking for since day one of the release of the temperature sensors.  Best thing you can do is leave this as Feedback in the app.

TJR
Community Member

@BinaryJay -- the app led me to this forum/site in order to give this feedback. When you say leave this as Feedback in the app, is there an area of the Nest App separate from the Help section that led me to leave this feedback here?

BinaryJay
Product Expert Alumni
Product Expert Alumni

Sorry, I should have been more specific.  You'll have to use the Home app to submit feedback.  I only suggest doing this because we've been told to submit feedback using this method to ensure it gets looked at.  Here are some copy/pasted instructions about how to accomplish that:

Share your feedback

  1. Open the Google Home app.
  2. At the top right, tap your account.
  3. Tap Feedback tap the type of device you'd like to submit feedback for.
  4. To display available emails, in the "From:" section, tap the arrow on the right. Select your email address.
  5. In the feedback summary, write a brief description of your issue.
  6. To submit feedback, at the top right corner, tap Send.

     

    .

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all,

 

I am sorry for any frustrations. We do appreciate the feedback on the product, and I will be sending this to our Team to further review. We are always looking to improve our products and I truly do appreciate the details. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach back out at any time. 

 

Best regards,

Jake

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all,

 

I wanted to follow up and ensure you are good to go. Please let me know if any of you have any questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist further. 

Best regards,
Jake

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

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

hauki
Community Member

Totally agree with the original poster. The advanced settings for sensor time block adjustment is a must feature, and seems fairly trivial. I would love to hear a more technical explanation on why this is not doable if this is not something that is planned.  

Please add this to your roadmap as it has been requested by users at least for the past two years.