warning about nest thermostat

[hopefullyoneday]

I installed a nest 3rd gen thermo a week ago and what a nightmare. I installed it in my vacation home 2 days before I left to come back home which is 6hrs away. Anyways install was kind of easy and everything worked as it should. 2 days after getting home I just looked at the app on my phone to see what the temps were there inside and out. I had it set to cool at 76 degrees but the inside house temp was 95 . I tried to shut it off thru the mode tab but the safety kept it on and running. Called nest support on how to shut it off and they said you cant. I figured out how to shut the safety to off which in turn shut the nest completely off but by that time my place was at 101 degrees. Nest said they need to trouble shoot the system but someone had to be there.
I thought this thing was smart but apparently not, as nest did not know how to shut it off and there is no safety switch for it to shut off if temps get out of whack. And you cant remotely troubleshoot it. Anyways, I had my neighbor go to my place and he verified it was 101 inside so he opened the windows to cool it down and he called support to troubleshoot it. They verified all wires were correct and my hvac system was not at fault. They had him do a reboot of the nest and cool air was coming out once again. Nest said it was a software glitch and we should be fine. Well the next day it happed again, I caught it when inside temp was 85 but set on cool for 76. I had my neighbor go over to my place again and he verified the thermo was set to 76 and cool but hot air blowing out of vents. I called nest again and they said they will send out a new unit.
So be careful as who knows how hot a house could get and if a fire could start from a heatpump continuously running indefinitely.

[athena53]

Wow- thanks for the warning! I have a Nest and I love it but clearly you got a lemon. And you'd think it would be the perfect solution for a seasonal home because it can be controlled remotely but not in your case. They really need an ironclad way to shut the system down remotely.

Maybe I've got the second generation- had it about a year. I won't be upgrading!

[hopefullyoneday]

You can tell if it is a second generation by removing the front face and if the elect conn is rectangle it is 2nd, 3rd is a oval. I am not going to use the new one, I will just sell it and get some of my money back. I went old school round dial as it is a rental when I am not there. I think the concept of the nest is good but just no safety features and not very user friendly for new users like renters.

[Z3Dreamer]

My Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat has been Flawless for 6 or 7 years

[NW-Bound]

I am reminded that one of my nieces gave me a Nest thermostat for Christmas 2017. Or was it 2016?

I still have not installed it. Perhaps I should open the box and look to see what gen it is.

[Just_Steve]

I have 2 nest third gen's installed since they came out in 2015, flawless operation.

[joeea]

Have had a 2nd generation for over 4 years now. Easy to install. Never a problem.

[COcheesehead]

My neighbor went through 2 of them that were defective. The third was as well, but Nest wouldn’t send another. He removed it and went back to a regular low tech programmable.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Z3Dreamer My Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat has been Flawless for 6 or 7 years

I had that one before the Nest. My electric company gave it to me for free. They then offered a Nest as a replacement and I took it; this time I got a $25 statement credit. What they get in return is the right to cycle my A/C on and off at 15 minute intervals during periods of peak demand. They let you know beforehand and you can opt out of a particular period but I've never noticed any effect in the house.

I really like the features that show your usage history and the part of the Web site that compares your usage to neighbors'. My usage has gone down a lot- I'm the competitive type and I like saving money.

[ponyboy]

I have a dumb honeywell thermostat. Never had any issues. Never wanted to control my heating/ac from a remote location...and never wanted a thermostat to determine what I want the temp set at.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ponyboy I have a dumb honeywell thermostat. Never had any issues. Never wanted to control my heating/ac from a remote location...and never wanted a thermostat to determine what I want the temp set at.

In our previous house, DH and I had a thermostat (the dumb kind) so darn complicated we couldn't program it. It had just a few tiny buttons and you had to page through a non-intuitive menu. I never touched the darn thing and I consider myself pretty good with technology. I'm wary of all the "smart home" devices- probably will never have Alexa or the equivalent- but this was one area where I really welcomed the improvement. It's particularly nice when coming home from a long trip- I kept the temperature at 55 degrees during most of March because I was gone, and warmed up the house while I was on my final leg of the trip on a flight from DFW!

[Music Lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 I had that one before the Nest. My electric company gave it to me for free. They then offered a Nest as a replacement and I took it; this time I got a $25 statement credit. What they get in return is the right to cycle my A/C on and off at 15 minute intervals during periods of peak demand. They let you know beforehand and you can opt out of a particular period but I've never noticed any effect in the house.

I'm not interested in letting someone else decide when my AC should be cycled.

I have an Emerson Wi-Fi thermostat...it was half the price of a Nest and works perfectly.

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Z3Dreamer My Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat has been Flawless for 6 or 7 years

Mom has a thermostat that is 49 years old. Just like yours: Flawless all that time!

[Cobra9777]

DW and I keep talking about getting a Nest. Our local electric utility offers a 50% rebate up to $50. So that helps. There is no control of the thermostat by the utility. It's just an incentive. We have 4 HVAC units but only two get used regularly. So if we like it, we'll probably get a second one as well.

The old school programmable units worked fine when we were both working. We had programs that worked well for our schedules. Now that we are both retired, we're all over the map, especially with our main unit. I set it to hold at a certain temp (79 summer, 68 winter) and then we manually adjust depending on what we are doing. We are constantly adjusting and readjusting. So I think Nest will work well for this new scenario, especially the linkage to Alexa for voice control.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko Mom has a thermostat that is 49 years old. Just like yours: Flawless all that time!

Until we got the Honeywell version, I really missed the one I'd had in a house in 1978. It had little plastic pegs that you arranged around a clock face and you then specified two temperatures (we didn't have A/C). The face rotated with the time and every time it hit a peg it flipped to the other temperature. So, we kept it at 55 at night and 65 during the day in the winter. Easy-peasy.

[Freedom56]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hopefullyoneday I installed a nest 3rd gen thermo a week ago and what a nightmare. I installed it in my vacation home 2 days before I left to come back home which is 6hrs away. Anyways install was kind of easy and everything worked as it should. 2 days after getting home I just looked at the app on my phone to see what the temps were there inside and out. I had it set to cool at 76 degrees but the inside house temp was 95 . I tried to shut it off thru the mode tab but the safety kept it on and running. Called nest support on how to shut it off and they said you cant. I figured out how to shut the safety to off which in turn shut the nest completely off but by that time my place was at 101 degrees. Nest said they need to trouble shoot the system but someone had to be there. I thought this thing was smart but apparently not, as nest did not know how to shut it off and there is no safety switch for it to shut off if temps get out of whack. And you cant remotely troubleshoot it. Anyways, I had my neighbor go to my place and he verified it was 101 inside so he opened the windows to cool it down and he called support to troubleshoot it. They verified all wires were correct and my hvac system was not at fault. They had him do a reboot of the nest and cool air was coming out once again. Nest said it was a software glitch and we should be fine. Well the next day it happed again, I caught it when inside temp was 85 but set on cool for 76. I had my neighbor go over to my place again and he verified the thermo was set to 76 and cool but hot air blowing out of vents. I called nest again and they said they will send out a new unit. So be careful as who knows how hot a house could get and if a fire could start from a heatpump continuously running indefinitely.

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.

[JoeWras]

For those of us who work in software using the agile CI/CD model, we know how these "glitches" happen.

I really find it distressing how software development has changed and been deployed on what I'd consider "mission critical" projects. It is one reason I'm getting out.

I don't know if Nest/Google does their development that way, although I suspect so since it is the hot thing. Hopefully not. But really, there should not be this kind of "software glitch."

[MichaelB]

We use Nest thermostats. We've had a few issues and agree there is a learning curve that is probably steeper compared with a typical programmable unit. OTOH, if it is needed, the Nest product offers more functionality. If the functionality isn't needed, it probably doesn't make sense to install is.

[calmloki]

Just ran across this Nest glitch article:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/1...cameras-alarms

While Nest tempted I'm pretty old school on/off via manual action.

[Music Lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki While Nest tempted I'm pretty old school on/off via manual action.

I don't use programming on my Wi-Fi thermostat as my schedule is too erratic, but it's nice having the ability to adjust the temperature when not home as quite often I'll be out for an undetermined period of time and like being able to pre-heat or pre-cool the house.