NEST Thermostat Update

Winter is certainly here now, and the NEST thermostat has been performing well. I have had some issues with my ISP and DSL modem which have prevented the NEST thermostat from connecting to the web for 12 or more hours, but local control has been maintained throughout. This is a good sign, and indicative of well thought out design. I have a V1 Nest, which does not include humidity control. However, I think that my solution: a dedicated humidity controller with an external temperature sensor is probably superior anyway. In my cold climate, we absolutely need an air intake temperature sensor to regulate the humidity. Think about this at -25C….

My gut feeling is that my house is more evenly warm now that in was with the conventional programmable thermostat (Honeywell) that I … Read More »

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my NEST Gen 1 thermostat updated itself to the latest software (V3) last week. This added a couple of new features like filter change reminder based on hours of use(forced air heating), energy use comparisons to similar house builds, Early On, Auto Schedule in Heat/Cool mode and several other new features. This is the same software that was rolled out with the Gen 2 Nest Thermostat, so I am not feeling left behind.

There were no issues transitioning from cooling season to heating season. We typically have 4-6 weeks in the fall and again in the spring where heating and cooling is not required, and we are just now getting into the heating season. I have had no issues at all with the NEST: Network connectivity has been … Read More »

The NEST thermostat has been operating faultlessly since I did the wiring reseat and SSID fix. We have had some very hot weather and I have been using the AWAY/AUTO AWAY modes, so I really appreciate being able to remotely cool the house down before arriving home. I also received an email from NEST showing me my cooling usage for the month of June. In aggregate, over time, this information will be very useful.

I am just finishing up the installation of a digital humidistat as the NEST has no provision for controlling humidity. I knew this before purchasing it, of course. I needed to upgrade my old wall mounted mechanical humidistat to a digital unit with a remote sensor on the fresh air intake in any case. This is particularly important in a cold … Read More »

Further updates on my experiences with the NEST thermostat:

Although it is possible to enter a Canadian Postal Code using the NEST itself, I found that I could only change the geographic location ( City, Province) using the WEB app. The geographic location could not be changed using the iOS NEST app either, as that option is not made available. Having said all of that, once I made the changes using the WEB app, the proper location appeared on my NEST thermostat.

Had a problem earlier in the week with the NEST dropping my wifi connection and the battery not recharging. I did two things which solved the problem: first I reconnected all of the thermostat wires by pulling them out of the base plate (while pressing the release) and then pushing them back (not touching the release) to make sure … Read More »

I installed a NEST learning thermostat (www.nest.com) this weekend.  No issues with the installation on my 2 stage heating 1 stage cooling, forced air HVAC system. I tested both heating and cooling and all worked fine. There are several problems which I have solved which may help other people who decide to install the NEST themselves:

1) The NEST will not behave as expected if the battery voltage is <3.7 volts.  For example, I thought that the proximity sensors were not functioning, and that I had some obscure network connectivity issues upon first installing the NEST. The NEST would not dectect me as I approached it (approach detection enabled) and kept dropping my network connection.  It turned out that ALL of these problems were related to the battery voltage being < 3.70 volts.

2) I could have waited several hours for the … Read More »