warning about nest thermostat

[copyright1997reloaded]

i have three Honeywell WiFi enabled thermostats, model RTH8580WF which I picked up for $69 each (except for one of them which I got on EBAY as an open box even cheaper). I have them in the three zones in my house. I also have them bridged to my Smart Things, along with a number of other temperature sensors around the house. So, I can pretty much see the temperature in every room in the house from my phone.

I do this because in the winter I heat with wood plus my central heating (baseboard H20 fueled via heating oil). While the wood stove is good, I am sometimes concerned if it is really cold that the far away areas/edges of the house may be prone to freezing, so I like to know the temperatures in various portions of the house and can adjust the central heating accordingly if needed, no matter where I am.

[ncbill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinger1457 A little off topic but what's the reasoning for keeping a vacation home cooled to 76 degrees when you're away? Out here in AZ many (including myself) don't keep it that cool when we're home.

Humid climates like mine you are running the A/C for dehumidification so things don't start growing...e.g., mold on the drywall.

So here I don't set my programmable thermostat above 80ºF.

[Texas Proud]

Somebody might look this up, but I saw a teaser that there was something going on with Nest today.... had to leave so did not see what it was...

Did a Google and saw nothing...

[calmloki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Somebody might look this up, but I saw a teaser that there was something going on with Nest today.... had to leave so did not see what it was... Did a Google and saw nothing...

Post 19 link perhaps?

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Post 19 link perhaps?

Could be... missed that post and I only saw a teaser... but I think that was the gist of the teaser...


Thanks.

[joeea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki So you empty nesters all leave your internet turned on while away?

We are at our second home virtually every weekend year round. And we spend pretty much every vacation there as well.

We leave all our utilities on but turn the heat down as we are leaving.

We don't need a security system.

[calmloki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joeea We are at our second home virtually every weekend year round. And we spend pretty much every vacation there as well. We leave all our utilities on but turn the heat down as we are leaving. We don't need a security system.

Ahh - different animal than our 6&6 snowbirding. Good deal being close enough to do weekends.

[hopefullyoneday]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freedom56 I had a similar problem with a Honeywell Wifi thermostat (RTH9580 color touch screen). I installed one in our California home on a Lennox AC/Heating system without any issues. I then installed a second thermostat in our Florida condo on a Trane AC/Heating system and set it too cool with a set temperature of 73 degrees. I noticed that the heat went on. I shut it down and then restarted and the same thing happened. I looked through the manual and found that the configuration setting for the changeover needed to be set. This switches between heating and cooling. Once I did that there were no issues. I believe you are having the same issue with your Nest thermostat.

No, my issue is it works fine then the software somehow switches the mode. We swapped wires and changed the o/b config and no help.

[hopefullyoneday]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki So you empty nesters all leave your internet turned on while away? We are about six and six at the north and south homes and have two different internet providers that charge about $60/month. We've been putting the unused internet provider on vacation hold while gone. We also just winterize and walk away from both places. Down south we do come back to very tired candles, but I don't figure we lose $360 in damaged goods. Up north the house internal humidity goes up, but again, not $360/year in damage - frankly, the idea of our gas furnace coming on and shutting down while we are away scares me a bit. So do you all have wireless security systems and such that make constant internet hookup worthwhile?

My townhouse is half underground so the a/c on helps with humidity.

[hopefullyoneday]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dash man I had two Nest thermostats that gave me problems. One would lose connection to the internet and needed to be manually rebooted to regain the connection, so being away from home we could rarely see the Nest, so having it was worthless. The second Nest would lose power an shut down, again it was useless. I ripped them both out replacing them with HoneyWell Lyric wireless thermostats. No problems with them. Nest security cameras are good, but I avoid their thermostats now.

Having a problem now with one of 2 cameras keeps going offline. Nest has been having problems enough that it was on the stock channel yesterday.

[hopefullyoneday]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinger1457 A little off topic but what's the reasoning for keeping a vacation home cooled to 76 degrees when you're away? Out here in AZ many (including myself) don't keep it that cool when we're home.

humidity and its a rental when i'm not there

[CaptTom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by copyright1997reloaded i have three Honeywell WiFi enabled thermostats, model RTH8580WF which I picked up for $69 each (except for one of them which I got on EBAY as an open box even cheaper). I have them in the three zones in my house. I also have them bridged to my Smart Things, along with a number of other temperature sensors around the house. So, I can pretty much see the temperature in every room in the house from my phone.

I didn't know the Honeywell WiFi stats could talk to anything else. Like you, I have three of them and 3 zones of forced hot water heat.

How do you like the Smart Things stuff? I just looked at their web site, looks like a pretty good setup.

In researching this stuff, I always come up against two brick walls. (1) Most of it seems to focus on home security, rather than monitoring, and (2) the dizzying array of different systems with no clear standards. I'd hate to buy the BetaMax of home monitoring systems.

Also, I have no interest in chatting with Alexa or Google about my appliances or lighting. I'm perfectly content to monitor what's going on with my own eyes, and push buttons on the screen if I want to change something.

[joeea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Ahh - different animal than our 6&6 snowbirding. Good deal being close enough to do weekends.

Yeah, that was kind of the plan.

Our weekend/vacation/retirement home is a little over an hour away from our primary residence, on the beach.

It's wonderful being able to get there every weekend. And we have been lucky enough to pick up our grandchildren on the way Thursday night and watch them on Fridays. We have a great time and save some daycare money for our son and daughter-in-law.

When we are both fully retired in a year or two, we'll sell the current primary residence and move there full time. Really looking forward to that.

I use the Nest to turn the heat on Wednesday night so that the radiant heating in the floor has time to come up to temp. And I can check to see if the electricity is out and if so, a quick trip to the house to make sure things are okay.

It's nice not having to worry about the second home while we aren't there. And still if we need to get there quickly, we can.