12 Things You'll Want to Know About Your Nest Thermostat

A Nest Thermostat is an excellent tool for keeping your home comfortable, regardless of the season or weather. With features designed around maximizing efficiency, convenience and comfort, a Nest Thermostat is an easy way to manage your energy use — lowering your monthly bills in the process.

That’s why more people are looking to add devices like a Nest to their homes. If you want to put in a Nest for your own home, get in touch with an expert for smart thermostat installation in Monroe.

From automated scheduling to monitoring your home’s energy efficiency, Nest is designed to make home climate control effortless.

Ready to learn more? Take some time to review these 12 things you should know about your Nest Thermostat.

1. How to Reset a Nest Thermostat

One of the first things to know about resetting a Google Nest Thermostat is that resetting is different from restarting.

• Restart: A common feature in consumer electronics, including your phone or computer, restarting your Nest Thermostat simply turns it off and then back on. This maintains all your settings and is a step to take if your Nest is frozen or not connecting to Wi-Fi.
• Reset: Conversely, resetting eliminates most if not all of your preferred settings. For the most part, homeowners will perform a reset as they're moving into a new house and bringing the thermostat with them, or if they're moving out and prefer to erase any personal details from the Nest before leaving it for the next homeowner.

If you want to perform a reset, it doesn't hurt to write down current temperature settings so they're still available if you forget or erase them. Next, find Settings -> Equipment and record your system wires, heating type and safety temperature settings.

Once you have recorded your preferences, go to Settings, select Reset and press. You will be presented with five options:

• Restart: Deactivates your Nest and reboots it while saving your settings. You can also press the outside of the Nest and hold it down for a few seconds until it turns black, at which point you can remove your hand.
• Schedule: This reset clears your entire temperature schedule—including for your hot water, if you've connected it to your Nest. If you choose this, you’ll have to input a new schedule or wait until the Nest learns your schedule.
• Away: Choosing this reset option gets rid of any programming your Nest has picked up about how often you walk by, so that it can update the temperature on its own.
• Network: By selecting a network reset, it erases connection info and your Nest can no longer connect to Wi-Fi. Use this option if you want your Nest to forget your Wi-Fi password.
• All Settings: The most far-reaching option, using the All Settings reset option strips away all your personal settings and learning.

2. How to Connect Nest Thermostat to Wi-Fi

Connecting to Wi-Fi is important for making the most of your Nest's features.

To connect your Nest to the internet:

• Access the Quick View menu. This is done by turning the thermostat's outer ring.
• Find the Settings icon.
• Press Network.
• As your Nest scans available networks, select your Wi-Fi and, if you have one, put in your password.

3. Does a Nest Thermostat Use a Battery and How Long Does It Last?

Nest thermostats receive power from your HVAC system, but also have a rechargeable lithium-ion battery for backup power in case of an outage. According to Google, Nest's manufacturer, a Nest Thermostat battery last an average of several months. Recharge it with the USB cord that comes included.

4. How to Turn Off a Nest Thermostat

If you aren’t going to be in your home for a long time, you can set your Nest Thermostat to Off mode, though Eco mode would be another option. The Off mode option deactivates your regular heating and cooling schedules, while maintaining existing Safety Temperatures to keep your home from getting dangerously hot or cold.

To choose Off mode on the thermostat:

• Press and hold the touch bar until it displays “Turn Off” before sliding the bar to highlight Turn Off, and then touch the bar to select.
• Or, from the main menu, go to Mode and select Off.

Off mode can even be accessed from your Google Home app:

• Select Thermostat from home screen
• Tap Temperature mode
• Select Off

5. Can Alexa Control a Nest Thermostat?

Yes, your Amazon Alexa can be used to control a Nest Thermostat. Alexa can also be integrated with with Nest doorbells and cameras. Google's own voice control technology, like Google Assistant, can be used to operate your Nest.

6. Will My Nest Thermostat Function Without Wi-Fi?

The good news is that a Nest Thermostat will still be able to adjust the temperatures without Wi-Fi. That being said, being disconnected from Wi-FI means the Nest doesn’t have access to all the key features that most people enjoy.

7. Are You Able to Lock a Nest Thermostat?

When family members can't stop bickering over temperatures, Nest can help you bring a little order back to your household.

Users can lock the Nest to keep it from making any adjustments outside of a preset range. This doesn’t lock in a specific temperature—a locked Nest still has access to programmed settings—but simply prevents people from changing the settings.

If you want to lock your Nest:

• Select the Settings icon, scroll to the bottom and find Lock.
• Enter a 4-digit pin number you can remember, and do so twice.
• If locking in Heat or Cool mode, fine-tune your maximum and minimum temperature range and then press Lock at the bottom of the screen.

For unlocking it, open the settings and choose Unlock. As soon as you've provided your 4-digit pin, your device will be unlocked.

8. Controlling Your Nest Thermostat from a Phone

You can control the Nest through your Google Home app, accessible through your phone or desktop computer. Other versions of Nest, including the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat, are also controllable through the Nest app.

Before you can make adjustments for a Nest on your phone with Google Home or the Nest app, you need to follow a few steps:

• Download the Google Home app or, if you have an advanced model, the Nest app to your phone.
• Connect your Nest Thermostat.
• Open the Google Home app on your phone and complete the setup process, link to your new device and connect to Wi-Fi.
• Google has created a more comprehensive setup guide, if you would like more assistance in connecting.

Once you’ve added your Nest to your Home app, it's accessible by clicking Thermostat on the home screen. Once you do that, making adjustments is done by dragging your finger along the screen or tapping on a plus or minus sign.

The preset temperatures on your Nest can also be changed from the app. From the home screen, find your Thermostat and then select Settings. Once there, select Temperature Preferences and then Temperature Presets. The display will show your preferred Comfort, Eco and Sleep temperatures. By selecting one of those three options, you can change the temperature for that preset.

9. Setting a Nest Thermostat Schedule

A Nest allows you to set temperatures schedules either on the device or on the Google Home app. Newer and advanced models of the Nest, such as the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat, are also controllable with the Nest app.

The two easiest ways to schedule your Nest are:

• Quick Schedule: Quick Schedules are based on the national average schedule for more energy-efficient use. When you are setting up your Nest, the Google Home app gives you the option to change the temperature with a schedule. If you choose that option, it presents a preset schedule for you to customize as you wish. Once setup is complete, that’s the schedule it will use.
• Temperature Presets: For changing the Nest's preset temperatures, open the Google Home app and press Thermostat. Then, tap Presets and choose Edit. As soon as you're finished making updates, select Done.

To make tweaks or changes to your current schedule, open the Google Home app, select Thermostat and then tap on Schedules. Find the time of week you want to add a temperature to. Once you pick the day, tap Add and select the preset you want. Finally, select Time before touching and dragging the numbers to change the time. The changes won't save unless you select Done.

10. Setting a Temperature Range on a Nest Thermostat

The Nest features an Eco mode ideal for setting custom temperature ranges. Your Nest will adjust the temperature depending on if you're at home or away.

To create a custom temperature range in Eco mode, go to Settings and select Eco. The thermostat's display should list existing “Heat to” and “Cool to” temperature settings. You can select each and make any and all adjustments. When complete, select Done.

11. What Should I Do If My Nest Thermostat Isn't Compatible?

Nest thermostats are compatible with most HVAC systems. The maker of Nest, Google, offers a compatibility tool that shares questions concerning your location and existing setup to learn which Nest model would be compatible with your system.

If you have a Nest and believe it’s not compatible with your system, you should get in touch with local pros for smart thermostat installation in Monroe. Experienced technicians evaluate your system and, if your Nest is compatible, get it installed and on the road to saving you money in no time.

12. How Do I Manually Control My Nest Thermostat?

Nest Thermostats are loaded with innovative features designed to increase comfort and decrease costs. However, you have the ability to turn off the smart features if you want to control a Nest manually like a normal thermostat.

Bear in mind, by doing this you're eliminating your temperature schedules and your Nest will work like any other thermostat—it will display the temperature and allow you to make changes, but that’s about it.

You can achieve this by disabling the settings in a series of steps:

• Auto-Schedule: From the main screen, go to Settings and then scroll to Nest Sense. Go to Auto-Schedule, select No and click Done.
• Eco: From the main screen, go to Settings, scroll to Eco. Once in Eco, select Off for both the Heat to and Cool to temperatures, and select Done.
• Home/Away Assist: From the main screen, go to Settings and select Home/Away Assist. Then, select Stop Using and click Done.
• Reset: Once you’ve turned off the settings, reset your nest. From the main screen, go to Settings and select Reset, highlight Schedule and then select Reset to clear out any saved scheduling data.