Nest connectivity and charging problems solved
Nest connectivity and charging problems solved:
I have two NEST thermostats; one first generation and one second generation. I experienced intermittent connectivity issues with my gen1 Nest soon after I installed it. Initially I determined that it was not charging properly so I brought out the “C” (AC Common) wire from my furnace control board to the NEST and the charging problem was solved. When I installed the gen2 NEST, I made sure the “C” wire was available at installation. I have no charging problems with either NEST now.
Connectivity problems would come and go, sometimes going many weeks or months between incidents. I tried many solutions (port forwarding .lease times, static ip, etc) with varying degrees of success. The connectivity problems were irritating rather than debilitating; most of the time the NEST worked fine. The same pattern occurred after I installed my gen2 NEST. In particular, the NEST itself would indicate that it was connected to the internet, but the web or mobile app would declare it as offline. For other reasons, I decided to change my router from Netgear to ASUS. Since I did that, I have had no connectivity issues. The very worst connectivity problem I have had to deal with lately is restarting (not resetting) both NEST units after I did a firmware upgrade on the ASUS router. But this is trivial.
What this boils down to: If you want trouble free operation of your NEST thermostat make sure that you have the “C” wire available if needed and be prepared to change your router if you have ongoing connectivity issues.
I am awaiting the arrival of the 4.3 software!
Shaun M
