Comments on: Nest Thermostat Review, Update #9

By: Ralph

Ralph — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:21:55 +0000

Correction on the above: Nest does NOT have problems with Apple Airport Extreme, Cisco 4410 or Linksys WAP54G. All 3 of my wifi routers are NOT on their list. I’m still losing connection and ping from within my home network. I’m disabling Learning to see if that helps.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:22:24 +0000

I’m having a lot of connection problem with Nest (firmware 2.1.3). I read through their knowledge base where it blames router/firewall problem. My internet router is not one on their list of problem equipment. I also have 3 different wifi routers (Apple Airport, Cisco 4410, Linksys WAP54G). Nest has problems with all 3 wifi routers. I know it’s not a firewall problem because I can’t even ping the Nest device from my laptop on my local network.

I have no idea why Nest is dropping ping like crazy, but I know it doesn’t have anything to do with my firewall or one of 3 wifi routers.

The device is great, but based on wireless connection problem, I can’t seriously recommend this product.

By: Nest Update #10 - WiredPrairie

Nest Update #10 - WiredPrairie — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:47:44 +0000

[…] app. The thermostat that I had set AWAY to was reporting the same error that I’d seen back in January: the giant question mark. Tapping the image resulted in the […]

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:07:58 +0000

Nest customer support informs me that on the same day DST began they coincidentally rolled out a software upgrade (to ver. 1.2). They first thought that might have been related to my problem (which they have never heard of before), but would have expected it to simply delete my set points rather than change them. (I did have all my set points deleted by the previous software upgrade.) So they are stumped too, and they are “working on it.” They say they will get back to me — we’ll see.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:52:55 +0000

In reply to Marc. I feel bad, as I actually laughed out loud when I read what happened to your schedule. It's so crazy that they have these issues. You're right that I may have not seen the problem because they had already rolled out a fix. It's been crazy warm here in Wisconsin, so I wouldn't have probably noticed if the schedule was off by an hour.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:49:05 +0000

It gets even odder, Aaron. When I discovered that Nest had reprogrammed my thermostat to turn on at 8 am and off at midnight, I manually changed the program back to the way I wanted it: on at 7 am and off at 11 pm. The next morning, the heat went on at 6 am! Sure enough, Nest had decided (belatedly) to make my settings an hour earlier (correcting its previous mistake?). The result was that Nest had double-corrected, and my schedule now read: on at 6 am and off at 10 pm. So I once again fixed the set points manually, and it has functioned correctly since. My guess is that when Nest resets its clock to display the new Daylight time (i.e., changes it from 2 am to 3 am), it also changes all the set points in the schedule to read an hour later. (But why does it do this?) Then later (hours later!) it gets around to moving all the set points an hour earlier (i.e., changes them back to what they originally were). If I had just left things alone, Nest would have eventually fixed the schedule on its own. Maybe that’s what happened in your case.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:15:28 +0000

In reply to Marc. Odd, mine didn't have the issue with the Daylight saving time switch (or they had already fixed the problem somehow at their end before I looked?). Did you fix all of the set points manually then?

By: Marc

Marc — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:55:56 +0000

So here’s my latest Nest gripe: Daylight Savings Time. The time change occurred at 2 am today, and I awoke very pleased to see that Nest had automatically reset its clock to display DST. Then I looked at the schedule I had programmed and had to laugh: Nest had gratuitously changed all the settings to be one hour later than what I had programmed them to be. Instead of turning the heat up at 7 am and down at 11 pm, Nest decided it would turn the heat up at 8 am and down at midnight. It’s as if Nest thought that I was really interested in making sure the temperature changes occurred at their usual GMT! Hint to Nest: when I say that I go to bed at 11 pm, I mean 11 pm in the current time zone. The engineers at Nest don’t seem to realize that when DST comes along, we change our behavior (e.g., we go to bed earlier), not just our nomenclature.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:12:48 +0000

In reply to Frank. You heard correct Frank about the enhancement requests. They don't need or want your ideas.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:24:39 +0000

Well, the last Nest guy I spoke with on the phone who told me that set points entered remotely do not have the same effect as setting on the Nest directly seemed to know what he was talking about.

When I told him that they are confusing people in having these differing effects, he was understanding and apologetic but couldn’t really explain all the “whys”.

I suspect the Nest software developers are working to try to make this thing more consistent and predictable, and I certainly hope they are going to modify the software so it’s more intuitive and less apt to just blow away my set points willy-nilly.

Now, if I was a developer, I’d do two things first:

– Make the set point entries in the mobile app/Web have the exact same effect as if you twiddled the knob on the Nest.

– Be able to optionally set any entered set point on the mobile app/Web as a “hard” constraint; that is, Nest may NOT remove or modify that set point in its learning.

What I heard is that Nest refuses to take any enhancement requests like true arrogant Silicon Valley hot-shot programmers. Well, they are supposed to know what we need in their infinite “user experience” expertise, right?