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

January 18, 2016

If your home has the Nest Thermostat you 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 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 complete instructions, please visit their Nest Support page. For a more basic overview, keep on reading:

Nest Thermostats that were updated recently to software version 5.1.3 or later may have some issues, including becoming unresponsive, not effectively charging the battery, or shutting down completely. Nest suggests recharging and restarting your thermostat to fix the issue and get it up and running again.

Symptoms of this glitch 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 shut itself down
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 is dark and unresponsive (you may also see a blinking red or green light above the display)
the thermostat can’t control the corresponding HVAC unit(s)

If your Nest Thermostat will turn on but you can’t control it or it’s acting sluggish, 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 go into detail why, but if Nest says don’t do it, DON’T.)

After around 10 minutes of charging, detach the Nest Thermostat from the USB cord. If the unit has turned on while plugged in, power it off and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the thermostat. Once it has fully restarted, plug it back in to reach full charge. After another 60 minutes of charging, detach the Nest Thermostat and reattach it to its base.

You should be ready to rock at this point, but if you're done with Nest and want to change your thermostat, you can read 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 experts. Enter us! If Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning set up your Nest Thermostat, please reach out to us at 352-414-4006 or schedule an appointment online.

And if you've got another problem, like 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 Ocala's premier furnace experts to fix your unit.

Finally, do not let this situation panic you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly using 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 alters your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings daily, 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 complication get you down. You were smart to invest in a Nest, because a smart thermostat is still one of the top investments in your home that you can make.

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