How to Fix Your Nest Thermostat When it Won't Respond

January 18, 2016

If your home is running on the Nest Thermostat you have probably read about the recent issues and may be living in fear of the dreaded technology glitch that is causing many Nest users to lose heat in the dead of winter.

We are here to calm your fears!

Nest Support has published an instructional page with the very convenient title “What to do if your Nest Thermostat has become slow, unresponsive, or won’t turn on.” Obvious, much?

For more detailed instructions, see Nest Support page. For a more basic summary, keep on reading:

Nest Thermostats that were updated at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 to software version 5.1.3 or later may have some issues, including becoming unresponsive, not correctly charging the battery, or turning off completely. Nest recommends recharging and restarting your thermostat to fix the glitch and get it up and working again.

Indications of this issue include the following:

the thermostat not working in the Nest application and disconnected from the Wi-Fi
the thermostat alerts you that the battery is low and it needs to turn off
the thermostat’s animated properties are slower than usual
the thermostat shows a message saying, “Please remove the thermostat from its base, then reattach it;”
the thermostat’s display is black and unresponsive (you may also have a blinking red or green light above the display)
the thermostat can’t control the corresponding HVAC system(s)

If your Nest Thermostat is on but you can’t control it or it’s slow, try manually restarting it by turning the thermostat off and then back on again. If your Nest Thermostat is off and won’t turn on, take the thermostat off the base and charge it using a a USB charger plugged into the wall or a computer.

PLEASE READ: Do not try to restart your thermostat while it’s still connected to a computer for charging. (They didn’t explain why, but if they say don’t do it, LISTEN TO THEM.)

After approximately 10 minutes of charging, unplug the Nest Thermostat from the USB charger. If the component has turned on during this time, shut it down and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the thermostat. Once it has completely restarted, plug it back in to complete charging. After about 60 minutes of charging, unplug the Nest Thermostat and restore it to its base.

You should be ready to rock at this point, but you can't get it to work and want to switch your thermostat, you can see our comparison of common thermostats.

If you have attempted both of these processes and the Nest Thermostat is still having issues, you will need to bring in some backup. Enter us! If Peachtree Service Experts installed your Nest Thermostat, please reach out to us at 678-235-9699 or schedule an appointment online.

And if encounter another problem, such as a warning from Nest that your furnace is shutting down, then your thermostat is likely working as intended. You may need to call Peachtree as one of Atlanta's premier furnace experts to fix your system.

Additionally, do not let this situation worry you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly utilizing Nest, your thermostat is actually saving money for you all hours of the day. When set it up properly, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then adapts your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings daily, which typically results in payback within 12 months. And, Nest is still one of the only thermostats under $300 on the market that does this. So don’t let one incident get you down. You were smart to invest in a Nest, because a smart thermostat is still one of the prime investments in your home that you can make.

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