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

A Nest Thermostat is the perfect way to keep your home comfortable, no matter what the season or weather. With features designed around maximizing efficiency, convenience and comfort, a Nest Thermostat is an excellent choice to help you manage your energy use — lowering your monthly bills in the process.

That’s why more homeowners are considering adding devices like a Nest to their HVAC system. If you want to put in a Nest for your own home, call your nearest expert for smart thermostat installation in Goshen.

From automated scheduling to energy efficiency monitoring, Nest is designed to make controlling the climate of your home effortless.

Ready to learn more? Take a look at 12 things you need to know about your Nest Thermostat.

1. How to Reset a Nest Thermostat

A key piece of information to know about resetting a Google Nest Thermostat is that resetting is different from restarting.

• Restart: Similar to restarting any electronic device, including your phone or computer, restarting your Nest Thermostat turns it off before starting it right back up again. This maintains all your settings and is a step to take if your Nest is frozen or not connecting to Wi-Fi.
• Reset: A more drastic function, a reset should restore your Nest to its original settings from the manufacturer. In most cases, people resort to 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 their personal information from the Nest before leaving it behind for the next resident.

To reset, it helps to record existing temperature settings so you have them if they get erased. Next, find Settings -> Equipment and record your system wires, heating type and safety temperature settings.

After writing down this information, go to Settings, select Reset and press. You will be presented with five options:

• Restart: Shuts your Nest down before rebooting it with your settings. Another method is to 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 setting clears any info about your temperature schedule—including for your hot water, if you've connected it to your Nest. With this option, you’ll need to create a new schedule or wait while your Nest learns your schedule.
• Away: An Away reset 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: With a network reset, it erases connection info and your Nest will no longer be connected 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 clears all your personal settings and learning.

2. How to Connect Nest Thermostat to Wi-Fi

Staying connected to your Wi-Fi is important to getting the most out of your Nest.

To connect your Nest to the internet:

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

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

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

4. Shutting Off a Nest Thermostat

If you plan on being away for a couple weeks, you can set your Nest Thermostat to Off mode, though Eco mode is another solid choice. Using Off mode will turn off all of your regular heating and cooling schedules, although the Nest will still use your Safety Temperatures to keep your home from getting particularly 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. Will Alexa Work with a Nest Thermostat?

Yes, you can use Amazon Alexa to control a Nest Thermostat. Alexa can also be integrated with with Nest doorbells and cameras. And of course, you can use Google Assistant to control your Nest.

6. Does a Nest Thermostat Work Without Wi-Fi?

In short, yes. Your Nest Thermostat will still be able to adjust the temperatures without Wi-Fi. At the same time, without Wi-Fi a Nest doesn’t have the ability to use the smart functions that most people enjoy.

7. Are You Able to Lock a Nest Thermostat?

If different members of your family can't agree on the ideal temperature, Nest offers a handy feature that keeps things simple.

Nest has a locking feature that allows a user to keep it from making any adjustments outside of a preset range. This won't mean you have to make do with just one temperature—a locked Nest continues to use existing program settings—but simply prevents other users from constantly changing the settings.

To lock a Nest:

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

When you're ready to unlock the Nest, 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

A Nest Thermostat is controlled by the Google Home app, which can be accessed from your phone as well as a computer. Other versions of Nest, including the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat, are also compatible with remote control via the Nest app.

Before you can control 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, with premium Nest models, the Nest app to your phone.
• Connect your Nest Thermostat.
• Open the Google Home app on your phone and select the account, 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.

As soon as you've connected the Nest to your Home app, you can access it by clicking Thermostat on the home screen. Once you do that, you can make changes to the temperature 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 before selecting Settings. At this screen, press Temperature Preferences and then Temperature Presets. This will display your preset Comfort, Eco and Sleep temperatures. Choose the appropriate setting to change the temperature for that preset.

9. Creating 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.

There are two ways you can set up a schedule on your Nest:

• Quick Schedule: The Quick Schedule feature is based on the national average schedule for energy efficiency. As you complete your Nest's setup process, the Google Home app allows you to change the temperature with a schedule. If you select this feature, it displays a preset schedule and allows you to make changes. Once setup is complete, that’s the schedule it will use.
• Temperature Presets: If you prefer other basic preset options, open the Google Home app and press Thermostat. Then, tap Presets and select Edit. Once you’ve made the changes, select Done.

For anyone wanting to edit their schedule, open the Google Home app, select Thermostat and then tap on Schedules. Choose the day of the week where you want to make changes. 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

You can set a temperature range on a Nest Thermostat in the Eco mode. Your Nest will adjust the temperature depending on if you're at home or away.

To access Eco mode for customized temperature ranges, 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. Once you're finished, select Done.

11. What to Do if a Nest Thermostat Is Not Compatible

A Nest Thermostat is compatible with most heating and cooling systems. Google, Nest's manufacturer, offers a compatibility tool that presents a few questions related to your location and current setup to see which Nest model would be compatible with your system.

If you have a Nest and believe it’s not compatible with your system, consider reaching out to professionals for smart thermostat installation in Goshen. 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. Can I Manually Control My Nest Thermostat?

Nest Thermostats come with many features designed to make life more comfortable and save money. However, you have the ability to turn off the smart features if you want to control a Nest manually like a normal thermostat.

Take into account, by doing this you're eliminating your temperature schedules and letting the Nest work like any other thermostat—it will display the temperature and let you change the temperature, 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, before selecting Done.
• Home/Away Assist: From the main screen, go to Settings and select Home/Away Assist. Then, select Stop Using and click Done.
• Reset: After you've cleared 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.