schedule overriding away settings

[SF100]

I saw threads on this but with no useful responses.  Here is my situation:

1.  I have a schedule set for every day of the week

2. I have presence sensing turned on

3. When away, I have it set to go to ECO mode which is set to 53F

4. Looking at activity, I see the system is heating while I'm away!! (I checked home/away settings and it says I'm away).  In the activity, it is clear it is following the scheduled temperature even though the system indicates I'm away.

5.  I've turned off Smart Schedule, Adaptive Comfort, Natural Heating and Cooling as part of debugging this but no success.

As a hack, I've put the temperate on hold to 53F but will need to remember to turn that off when I get home. 

This is a pretty expensive thermostat (I upgraded from 2nd gen which worked fine) and now I'm wasting energy and have to do everything in an "old school" way.  

[Derickf]

Hi @SF100,

Thanks for reaching out to the community. I'm sorry to hear that you are having trouble with the Home and Away routines not activating the Eco mode in your Nest Learning Thermostat 4th (Gen) even if you have the presence sensing option on. Don’t worry; help is here.

To gather all the necessary information and provide you with the best assistance, please answer the following questions:

• Does the Google Home app have permission to use your phone's location?
• Have you checked the Away routines in your Google Home app? If not, please take a look at the following article: Change Home & Away Routines settings.

I’ll be waiting for your reply.

Best regards,

Derick.

[SF100]

Hi Derick 

Thanks for your reply.

* yes, the Google App has permission to use my phone's location and you can see in Activity / Events when the system is switched to AWAY

* yes, in automations, I checked for Away, the action is set the thermostat to Eco

The second part is what is NOT happening.  Even though in Automations it indicates that, the Nest is never set to Eco when scrolling through the activity log.

[Derickf]

Hi there!

Thanks for your reply. Usually the Eco mode does not turn on immediately when the presence sensing is on; it usually takes up to 1-2 hours to change to the Eco mode. Let's try disabling the presence sensing and only using your phone location to tell if you are at home or not.

Let me know how it goes.

Best regards,

Derick.

[SF100]

That is weird (or illogical) .. sounds like a bug.   In any case, how do you do that ?  I'll try to figure it out too.

[SF100]

so in presence sensing .. leave on phone location, turn off thermostat, turn off google home and turn off nest protects ?

[Derickf]

Hi there!

Thanks for your reply. In this case, it is important that you turn off the presence sensing of them all, and then the Google Home app will use your phone’s location to determine when you are at home or not.

I'll be waiting for your reply.

Best regards.

Derick.

[SF100]

So turn off presence sensing of everything including the phone ?  If so how will the app know the phone's location if that is turned off ?   After an hour of reading this looks like a pervasive bug.   Essentially my Nest, by turning all the "smart" things off is like a $50 thermostat.  I should have kept my Generation 2 as it worked fine.   Here are some links to others echoing the same issue:

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Nest-thermostats-switching-to-Home-when-no-o...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Activity-detected-in-the-home-but-there-isn-...

​https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Hom-Away-Nest-Thermostat/m-p/670594#M131119

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Thermostat-turns-on-even-if-both-phones-are-...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Thermostats/Thermostat-shows-Home-on-app-even-when-manua...