Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

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lthenderson
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Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by lthenderson »

When we moved to our latest house two and a half years ago, I replaced the 1970's vintage thermostat with a Nest thermostat. Although I still like the design and functionality of accessing the menus, it seems a log buggier than any other thermostat I've ever owned. I thought I would list some examples and see if anyone else has had issues like myself.

When I first got it, it would disconnect itself from the wifi signal all the time which pretty much left programming it by phone a hopeless endeavor. It wouldn't connect back up to my wifi signal until I got home and manually reconnected through the menu only to have it drop out again a few hours later. Despite my router being on their approved list, they always told me that it was the router's fault and not theirs. I would tell them that every other thing that has wifi in my house has no issues, just the nest but it fell on deaf ears. Eventually after perhaps a year, it began to get better I'm guessing through Nest software upgrades. It would reconnect itself but was still disconnected quite often when I would check it on my phone. Another year has gone by and now when it is a rare event I can't access it with my smart phone.

The thermostat would occasionally display that it couldn't be used due to insufficient battery and to wait until the battery charged up and try again. Since it is hooked up to a powered feed from the furnace and we never had power outages, I don't see how this can be an issue. I assume this too was something they corrected because after six months it also went away and hasn't been an issue since.

The smart programming seemed like a waste of time to me. When I installed it, I initially adjusted it to the temperature that I thought would be comfortable but it took several adjustments to get it right. That night, I turned it down while we would be asleep and then got up early to turn it back up when we normally get back up. That next day, the nest accurately adjusted the temperatures the same number of times as the day before despite me really only wanting two temperatures, one for daytime and one for night time. After a few days and always having to go back to the thermostat to adjust it to where I wanted it, I gave up and turned the automatic learning feature off and manually programmed it like I would any other thermostat. That part worked great until recently.

Somehow, my Nest thermostat decided to disregard the programmed temperatures that it has been following the last two years. In fact, it was doing completely opposite. When I went into the program settings, the time was correct there and the time on the Nest unit was also correct. But when I got to the schedule menu, before I pressed down to select that menu, the time was twelve hours off on the display. No amount of trying various things would fix it so after a couple days, I reset the thermostat schedule erasing it completely and programming it from scratch. It has worked fine this past week after that.

Overall, I like it but it certainly wasn't like previous programmable thermostats that I've owned where I've installed, programmed once and other than changing the battery every couple years, never looked at the things. My favorite feature is the phone app so I can return it to home mode a few hours before I get home from vacation and arrive to a comfortable home (at least the last year and a half after they got the software fixed). Other than that, I don't use the other features nor really need them. I would probably buy another one hoping the problems I have had are all software and fixed now because I find them sexy as hell on the wall, but I would certainly think twice about recommending them to others.
joebh
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by joebh »

I've had a Nest for about 1.5 years.

So far, it's lost connection to wifi once. Not sure why that happened.
It has stayed charged, even though it's only using a 2-wire connection. That was my original worry before I purchased it.

So far so good.
Mingus
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by Mingus »

The nest certainly is pretty.

But I really question the logic of society of disregarding the downsides of having everything connected to wi-fi.
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lthenderson
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by lthenderson »

Mingus wrote:But I really question the logic of society of disregarding the downsides of having everything connected to wi-fi.
I've come to ponder that question myself after watching a news program on what hackers can do to cars these days.
NorthDakota
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by NorthDakota »

Mingus wrote:The nest certainly is pretty.

But I really question the logic of society of disregarding the downsides of having everything connected to wi-fi.
Personally the cost savings and convenience of an automated thermostat outweigh the negligible risk of being hacked. Living in a cold weather climate the ability to check on the house to ensure everything is operating while on vacation is worth the price tag alone.

The only issues I have ever ran into was the phone app not working well with the nest from time to time showing it is disconnected. This is usually resolved within 10 minutes and is not the nest itself but rather the app.
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lthenderson
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by lthenderson »

NorthDakota wrote:The only issues I have ever ran into was the phone app not working well with the nest from time to time showing it is disconnected. This is usually resolved within 10 minutes and is not the nest itself but rather the app.
In my experience, anytime my phone app said it was disconnected, my nest itself also said it was disconnected so I think the problem was with the nest software.
PowDay
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by PowDay »

I've found that auto away, and the learning function provide no value, but I love the ability to control the schedule on my phone.

I plan to downgrade to a simpler $100 Wi-Fi thermostat, vs the $250 Nest.
Cheryl604
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by Cheryl604 »

I have a Honeywell WiFi thermostat that I love. Not as pretty as the Nest, but just as functional.

Cheryl
wander
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by wander »

The Nest does not work without wifi. For me, this does not make sense since it should still give users control just like a regular thermostat when it does not have internet connectivity.
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SanityCheck
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by SanityCheck »

Go to Amazon.com and look up the Nest and the reviews. Pay attention to the 500 + "One Star" reviews !
(is it really that hard to turn down an old fashioned thermostat ?? ! )
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

wander wrote:The Nest does not work without wifi. For me, this does not make sense since it should still give users control just like a regular thermostat when it does not have internet connectivity.
That's an amazing design failure.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by joebh »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:
wander wrote:The Nest does not work without wifi. For me, this does not make sense since it should still give users control just like a regular thermostat when it does not have internet connectivity.
That's an amazing design failure.
It would be a design failure - except it doesn't actually work that way.

When the nest cannot connect to your wifi, it works just fine using manual control - just like any other thermostat. If you have any doubts, just disconnect your wireless router, watch, and learn.
slick_dealer_05
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by slick_dealer_05 »

Nest is great in marketing but poor in responding to customer issues.
As another poster said, read the 1-star reviews on Amazon...
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

joebh wrote:
dolphinsaremammals wrote:
wander wrote:The Nest does not work without wifi. For me, this does not make sense since it should still give users control just like a regular thermostat when it does not have internet connectivity.
That's an amazing design failure.
It would be a design failure - except it doesn't actually work that way.

When the nest cannot connect to your wifi, it works just fine using manual control - just like any other thermostat. If you have any doubts, just disconnect your wireless router, watch, and learn.
However, reading the Amazon one star reviews, it seems that the Nest can fail for other reasons, and leave the heat AND AC on simultaneously and so forth. I certainly would not buy this device.

http://www.amazon.com/Nest-T200577-Gene ... ewpoints=0
wander
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by wander »

joebh wrote: It would be a design failure - except it doesn't actually work that way.

When the nest cannot connect to your wifi, it works just fine using manual control - just like any other thermostat. If you have any doubts, just disconnect your wireless router, watch, and learn.
I didn't know why it acted like that before. But I did disconnect the network connection and the Nest worked normal. Cheers :sharebeer
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by reneeh63 »

Cheryl604 wrote:I have a Honeywell WiFi thermostat that I love. Not as pretty as the Nest, but just as functional.

Cheryl

Me too - I looked into the Nest but figured the price wasn't worth it - I've had Honeywells in both homes I've built and had the savings from being able to program daytime and weekend temps for 20 years.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by runner9 »

We've had this one for about 7 years, like it a lot. Consumer Reports had it #1 then, I believe a similar Lux model is currently their #1. Controlling from outside the house would be nice, but otherwise we really like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Lux-TX9000TS-Seve ... 000I7MANA/
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by LeeMKE »

I'm a Nest fanboy.

Installed two at our last place and was impressed with the auto learn feature that tweaked my schedule nicely.

At our current place, I have three Nest thermostats. I'm using one as a Kitty Haven, a room that I keep at a higher temperature when we are away, so the cats can retreat to that room while the rest of the place floats to the lowest/highest temperatures to save energy. It didn't take the cats any time at all to figure out where to go to sleep when we are away.

I also schedule the thermostats to encourage me to behave better. Let the home office get cold so I don't stay at the computer late into the night, etc.

Any problems I've had have resolved in a few hours or were user error.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by Valuethinker »

LeeMKE wrote:I'm a Nest fanboy.

Installed two at our last place and was impressed with the auto learn feature that tweaked my schedule nicely.

At our current place, I have three Nest thermostats. I'm using one as a Kitty Haven, a room that I keep at a higher temperature when we are away, so the cats can retreat to that room while the rest of the place floats to the lowest/highest temperatures to save energy. It didn't take the cats any time at all to figure out where to go to sleep when we are away.
They say that to find the warmest place in a room (or a house) go find where the cat is napping. Ours likes to be off the floor (we have very cold floors- Victorian house with no basement). Back of sofa or on the bed. In the morning where she can watch the birds in the garden, and in the afternoon in the sun.
I also schedule the thermostats to encourage me to behave better. Let the home office get cold so I don't stay at the computer late into the night, etc.
Studies seem to suggest computer screens (and iphone screens are worse) stimulate melatonin (?) production, thus making you more awake. Best practice is no computer or phone screens for an hour at least before lights out time (makes me wonder about my Kindle-- but I do turn the brightness down).
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by tbradnc »

I installed a Nest, used it for a week or so and sent it back. I replaced it with an Ecobee SmartSI and love it.

There's a long thread on it here somewhere.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by bertilak »

Perhaps if I bought and installed one I would see the benefit, but my current thermostat is already programmable:
  1. Each day of the week can be programmed separately. You can also select multiple days to apply settings to all the selected days.
  2. Each day can change the target temperature 4 times: wake, leave, return, sleep. Each of these has both heat and cool targets.
  3. It switches between heating and cooling automatically.
  4. At any time I can hit the up or down arrow to change the target temperature until the next "shift" change (see number 2, above).
  5. I can hit "hold" to make the current target temperature permanent (ignore "shift" change) until I manually cancel it (hit "follow schedule").
  6. It has a humidity sensor and will change the target temperature by up to 3 degrees to keep the system running a bit longer to reduce humidity (if the sensor says it is needed).
It is pretty easy to program although I do admit the interface could be better if done on my computer over wifi but that seems like massive overkill for a set-and-forget application.

Am I missing something?
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by Epsilon Delta »

bertilak wrote:It is pretty easy to program although I do admit the interface could be better if done on my computer over wifi but that seems like massive overkill for a set-and-forget application.
As an embedded system designer it's not always that using the computer (or cellphone) is a better interface. It's that it's a cheaper interface. We can put in Wi-Fi for less than $15 a pop. This can be quite a bit cheaper than a dozen keys and a 20 character display. The keys and display add extra assembly steps, and large non-recurring engineering costs. Bluetooth, Zigbee or a bare USB connector are even cheaper.

Of course the trade offs depends on the niche the product will be sold in. I'm usually working on industrial or commercial products that will sell 1,000s or 10,000s. A thermostat probably sells more units and is less tolerant of a generic case.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by bertilak »

Epsilon Delta wrote:
bertilak wrote:It is pretty easy to program although I do admit the interface could be better if done on my computer over wifi but that seems like massive overkill for a set-and-forget application.
As an embedded system designer it's not always that using the computer (or cellphone) is a better interface. It's that it's a cheaper interface. We can put in Wi-Fi for less than $15 a pop. This can be quite a bit cheaper than a dozen keys and a 20 character display. The keys and display add extra assembly steps, and large non-recurring engineering costs. Bluetooth, Zigbee or a bare USB connector are even cheaper.

Of course the trade offs depends on the niche the product will be sold in. I'm usually working on industrial or commercial products that will sell 1,000s or 10,000s. A thermostat probably sells more units and is less tolerant of a generic case.
That all makes sense.

So, the company finds a way to use technology to reduce costs. Since it provides only a minor benefit to the end user and is prone to a whole new class of problems due to its newness and its complexity -- software bugs -- they make it super flashy in the hopes that it will sell anyway, and even do so at a higher price!

(My fix of cynicism for the day! Felt good.)
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by just frank »

I had a nest for 18 mos on my HP heating system. I was very active in the Nest forum, and participated in Nest Labs conf calls between users and mgmt, etc. I know the thing backwards and forwards. NestLabs was rather 'shady'...when the forum turned into a months-long hate-fest of frustrated users rather than fix the product (i.e. very simple programming bugs) they set the forum so it could not be indexed by search engines...so no negative material could show up in web searches. :annoyed

The Nest itself was both buggy and its HP control algos were very primitive---identical to $15 HP tstats in the hardware store....in contrast to the advertising. IMO, they are liable for false advertising (which has now been altered), and there is a class-action suit pending (which will likely go nowhere).

I tracked my elec usage and figured it was costing me about $100 more per year than the honeywell it replaced, and with a big comfort hit...a 4-8 degree temperature swing that could not be adjusted. (Non-HP users might have a better experience)

I replaced it with an EcoBee Si and haven't looked back. Today, I would get the EcoBee3...a much better engineered unit with more functionality that costs the same.

The outfit is basically the Keystone Kops with excellent PR. They launch their smoke detector with a $$ ad campaign saying that unlike other units it will not wake you up in the middle of the night with chirps (it texts you when the battery is low). Turns out, design flaws lead to units waking many users up with full (false) alarms synchronized across all the units! Units designed to make it impossible to remove batteries! Many stories of frustrated users smashing their units to bits in the middle of the night to get them quiet. Much better than 'chirps'. And then all units recalled.

After my experience, I will never buy another Nest product.
Last edited by just frank on Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by lthenderson »

just frank wrote:They launch their smoke detector with a $$ ad campaign saying that unlike other units it will not wake you up in the middle of the night with chirps (it texts you when the battery is low). Turns out, design flaws lead to units waking many users up with full (false) alarms synchronized across all the units! Units designed to make it impossible to remove batteries! Many stories of frustrated users smashing their units to bits in the middle of the night to get them quiet. Much better than 'chirps'. And then all units recalled.
I admit I looked into the smoke detectors too but it didn't seem like they offered any features that were an improvement on the ones I had. After reading this, I'm glad I didn't get one. Sometimes more technology isn't better.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by stupidkid »

I like my Nest. And FWIW, my HVAC guy said that some of the other service guys at his company carry one just for diagnostics since it's so easy to hook up and can tell you a lot about a furnace without crawling under a house to get to it.

I travel a lot for work and it's nice to be able to check on the temp of the house remotely, make sure pipes won't freeze and such. Plus, while I'm gone it's fun to turn down the temperature when my girlfriend is in the house...
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by sschullo »

I like my nest too. No unusual problems. Sometimes it kicks itself off of the network, but a simple logging on was all that it took to get back on track.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by obgraham »

First off, for those who question why anyone wants a Wi-Fi thermostat: You don't, if you are there all the time. But I travel around a lot, and right now appreciate that I can check the functioning of my system in the cold climate while sitting here in the Arizona sun.

However, it seemed to me the Nest was just over-engineered for what I needed. I went with the Honeywell Wi-Fi model which is a direct swap-out for the Honeywell programmable I had in place. Works like a charm, and I'm very pleased with it.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by Epsilon Delta »

obgraham wrote:First off, for those who question why anyone wants a Wi-Fi thermostat: You don't, if you are there all the time. But I travel around a lot, and right now appreciate that I can check the functioning of my system in the cold climate while sitting here in the Arizona sun.
For checking the functionality of a system remotely I prefer a separate monitoring device. Suppose the Nest temperature sensor fails by reading 30F high. That may be a single bit flip in the sensor calibration table, so one cosmic ray away. It will happily report that the temperature is 60F while controlling the furnace to keep the house at 30F and all your pipes freeze. You'd have to correlate furnace duty cycle with weather reports to detect this. If you have an independent monitor then if either the thermostat or the monitor fails you'll notice and can send somebody to take a look to see which one failed.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by ERISA Stone »

I have a Nest and haven't had any issues with it. I'm not sure it's worth the $$ over a standard thermostat but no problems. Our only issue is it lights up in the middle of the night when I walk past it, which in turn, wakes my wife up.
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Re: Anyone Else Think Nest Thermostat is Buggy?

Post by lthenderson »

ERISA Stone wrote:Our only issue is it lights up in the middle of the night when I walk past it, which in turn, wakes my wife up.
You can turn that function off in the settings.
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