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

January 18, 2016

If you purchased the Nest Thermostat you have probably read about the recent issues and may be living in fear of being left without heat in the dead of winter.

We are here to calm your fears!

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

For additional information, go to their Nest Support page. For a quick overview, 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 problems, including becoming unresponsive, not correctly charging the battery, or going down completely. Nest says to try recharging and restarting your thermostat to resolve the issue and get it up and going again.

Indications of this problem include the following:

the thermostat being offline in the Nest App and disconnected from Wi-Fi
the thermostat notifies you that the battery is low and it needs to turn itself off
the thermostat’s animated properties are slower than usual
the thermostat shows an alert that says, “Please remove the thermostat from its base, then reattach it;”
the thermostat’s display won’t light up 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 turned on but you can’t control it or it’s running slow, try manually restarting it beginning with 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.

IMPORTANT: Do not try to manually restart your thermostat while it’s still connected to a computer for charging. (They didn’t elaborate why, but if Nest Support says don’t do it, DO NOT DO IT.)

After approximately 10 minutes of charging, unhook the Nest Thermostat from the USB cord. If the component has turned on while plugged in, shut it down and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the Nest. Once it has fully restarted, plug it back in to finish charging. After an hour of charging, disconnect the Nest Thermostat and reconnect it to its base.

You should be be ready to go at this point, but if you're done with Nest and want to change your thermostat, you can view our comparison of common thermostats.

If you have attempted both of these processes and the Nest Thermostat is still showing signs of problems, you will need to bring in some backup. Enter us! If Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning installed your Nest Thermostat, please give us a call at 321-428-7635 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 could be functioning as it's meant to. You may need to call Service Experts as one of Melbourne's premier furnace experts to fix your system.

Additionally, do not let this matter panic you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly operating Nest, your thermostat is actually saving money for you daily. When set it up properly, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then alters your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings constantly, which typically results in payback within the first year. And, Nest is still one of the only thermostats under $300 on the market that does this. So don’t let one problem 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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