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

January 18, 2016

If you purchased 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.

But fear not!

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, please visit 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 problems, including becoming unresponsive, not efficiently charging the battery, or going down completely. Nest says to try recharging and restarting your thermostat to fix the problem and get it up and running again.

Indications of this glitch include the following:

the thermostat being down on the Nest’s mobile app and disconnected from the Wi-Fi
the thermostat tells you the battery is low and it needs to turn itself 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 observe a blinking red or green light above the display)
the thermostat can’t control the corresponding heating and cooling system(s)

If your Nest Thermostat is turned on but you can’t control it or it’s performing 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.

PLEASE NOTE: Do not try to manually 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, DON’T.)

After approximately 10 minutes of charging, disconnect 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 system. Once it has fully restarted, plug it back in to complete charging. After about 60 minutes of charging, detach 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 read 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 reinforcements. Enter us! If Matz-Rightway put in your Nest Thermostat, please feel free to call us at 631-406-9220 or schedule an appointment online.

And if you've got another error, 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 Long Island's premier furnace experts to fix your system.

Additionally, do not let this incident concern you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly using Nest, your thermostat is truly saving money for you daily. When set it up correctly, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then modifies your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings constantly, which typically results in payback within a 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 best investments in your home that you can make.

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