12 Things You Should Learn About Your Nest Thermostat

A Nest Thermostat is the perfect way to keep your home comfortable, regardless of the season or weather. With a number of innovative features meant to maximize efficiency, convenience and comfort, a Nest Thermostat is an easy way to manage your energy use — lowering your monthly bills in the process.

That’s why more people are looking to add devices like a Nest to their HVAC system. If you want to put in a Nest for your own home, get in touch with an expert for smart thermostat installation in Des Moines.

From auto scheduling to energy efficiency monitoring, Nest helps make home climate control effortless.

Curious to learn more? Take some time to review these 12 things you need to know about your Nest Thermostat.

1. Resetting Your Nest Thermostat

The first thing to know about resetting a Google Nest Thermostat is that there's a difference between a restart and a reset.

Restart: A common feature in consumer electronics, including your phone or computer, restarting your Nest Thermostat means a quick off / on cycle. This preserves current settings and should be attempted if your Nest is frozen or not connecting to Wi-Fi.
Reset: Conversely, resetting eliminates most if not all of your preferred settings. For the most part, homeowners will perform a reset when they’re moving to a new home and bringing the thermostat with them, or if they're moving out and prefer to erase all personal info from the Nest before leaving it for the next homeowner.

If you want to perform a reset, it doesn't hurt to write down current temperature settings so you have them if they get erased. Next, go to Settings -> Equipment and write down the details about your system wires, heating type and safety temperature settings.

Then, to manually restart or reset your Nest, go to Settings, select Reset and press. You can choose from five options:

Restart: Deactivates your Nest and starts it back up while remembering your settings. Another method is to press the outside of the Nest and hold it there until it goes black, and then pull your hand away.
Schedule: This reset setting clears all scheduling information—including for your hot water, if you have that programmed into your Nest. If you choose this, you’ll need to create a new schedule or wait while your Nest learns your schedule.
Away: This kind of reset gets rid of any programming your Nest has picked up about how often you walk by, so that it can update the temperature on its own.
Network: By selecting a network reset, it erases connection info and your Nest will no longer be connected to Wi-Fi. Use this option if you want your Nest to forget your Wi-Fi password.
All Settings: This reset clears all your personal settings and learning.

2. How to Connect Nest Thermostat to Wi-Fi

Connecting to Wi-Fi is important if you want the most use of its online features.

To connect your Nest to the internet:

Open the Quick View menu by turning the thermostat ring.
Select the Settings icon.
Press Network.
Once your Nest is finished scanning for local networks, select your Wi-Fi and, if needed, enter your password.

3. Does a Nest Thermostat Use a Battery and How Long Does It Last?

Nest thermostats get the power they need directly from your HVAC system, but also have a rechargeable lithium-ion battery for backup power in case of an outage. According to Google, who manufactures the thermostat, a Nest Thermostat battery will generally last several months. Recharge it with the USB cord that comes included.

4. How to Turn Off a Nest Thermostat

If you aren’t going to be in your home for a long time, it's a good idea to set your Nest Thermostat to Off mode, though Eco mode would be another option. Off mode shuts down all your regular heating and cooling schedules, while maintaining existing Safety Temperatures to keep your home from getting dangerously hot or cold.

To select Off mode on the thermostat:

Press and hold the touch bar until it displays “Turn Off” and then slide the bar to highlight Turn Off, and then touch the bar to select.
You can also go to Mode from the main menu and select Off.

Off mode can even be accessed from your Google Home app:

Select Thermostat from home screen
Tap Temperature mode
Select Off

5. Will Alexa Work with a Nest Thermostat?

Yes, you can use Amazon Alexa to control a Nest Thermostat. Alexa can also be integrated with with Nest doorbells and cameras. You can even operate a Nest Thermostat with Google Assistant.

6. Can a Nest Thermostat Function Without Wi-Fi?

The good news is that a Nest Thermostat will still be able to adjust the temperatures without Wi-Fi. That being said, without Wi-Fi a Nest doesn’t have access to all the key features that most people enjoy.

7. Can You Lock a Nest Thermostat?

When family members can't stop bickering over temperatures, Nest offers a handy feature that keeps things simple.

Users can lock the Nest to keep it from making any adjustments outside of a preset range. This won't mean you have to make do with just one temperature—a locked Nest still has access to programmed settings—but simply prevents other users from constantly changing the settings.

If you want to lock your Nest:

Select the Settings icon, scroll to the bottom and locate the function listed as Lock.
Enter a 4-digit pin number you can remember, and do so twice.
If locking in Heat or Cool mode, fine-tune your maximum and minimum temperature range and then tap Lock at the bottom of the screen.

To unlock a Nest, open the settings and choose Unlock. Once you enter your 4-digit pin, your device will be unlocked.

8. Adjusting a Nest Thermostat from a Phone

You can control the Nest through your Google Home app, which can be accessed from your phone as well as a computer. Other versions of Nest, including the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat, are also controllable through the Nest app.

Before you can make adjustments for a Nest on your phone with Google Home or the Nest app, you need to follow a few steps:

Download the Google Home app or, with premium Nest models, the Nest app to your phone.
Connect your Nest Thermostat.
Open the Google Home app on your phone and complete the setup process, link to your new device and connect to Wi-Fi.
Google offers a more in-depth setup tool, if you would like more assistance in connecting.

As soon as you've connected the Nest to your Home app, it's accessible by clicking Thermostat on the home screen. Once you do that, making adjustments is done by dragging your finger along the screen or tapping on a plus or minus sign.

The app also allows you to change the Nest's preset temperatures. From the home screen, find your Thermostat before selecting Settings. Once there, select Temperature Preferences and then Temperature Presets. Current presets for Comfort, Eco and Sleep modes will be displayed. By selecting one of those three options, you can change the temperature for that preset.

9. How to Set a Nest Thermostat Schedule

Your Nest allows you to schedule temperature programming either on the device or on the Google Home app. More advanced versions of the Nest, such as the Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat, can also be adjusted by using the Nest app.

The two easiest ways to schedule your Nest are:

Quick Schedule: Quick Schedules are based on the national average schedule for more energy-efficient use. When you are setting up your Nest, the Google Home app gives you the option to change the temperature with a schedule. If you choose that option, it presents a preset schedule for you to customize as you wish. After you've made all your choices, that’s the schedule it uses.
Temperature Presets: To change the temperature presets on your Nest, open the Google Home app and press Thermostat. Then, tap Presets and choose Edit. After the changes are complete, select Done.

To make tweaks or changes to your current schedule, open the Google Home app, select Thermostat and then tap on Schedules. You can then pick the day of the week that you want to add a temperature. After the day is selected, tap Add and select the preset you want. Finally, select Time before touching and dragging the numbers to change the time. Select Done to save changes.

10. Setting a Temperature Range on a Nest Thermostat

Your Nest's Eco mode is great for setting temperature ranges. Your Nest will adjust the temperature depending on if you're at home or away.

To customize the Nest temperature range in Eco mode, go to Settings and select Eco. The display will show any current “Heat to” and “Cool to” temperature settings. You can select each and make your preferred changes. Once you're finished, select Done.

11. What Should I Do If My Nest Thermostat Isn't Compatible?

A Nest Thermostat is compatible with most HVAC systems. The maker of Nest, Google, has an online compatibility checker that shares questions concerning your location and current setup to determine which Nest model works with your system.

If you have a Nest and believe it’s not compatible with your system, you should get in touch with local pros for smart thermostat installation in Des Moines. An experienced technician will be able to evaluate your system and, if your Nest is compatible, install it quick so you can jump right into the savings and convenience.

12. How Do I Manually Control My Nest Thermostat?

Nest Thermostats are packed with features designed to improve comfort while keeping costs low. However, you have the ability to turn off the smart features if you prefer to control your Nest like it's a normal thermostat.

Bear in mind, by doing this you are turning off all of your temperature schedules and your Nest will work like any other thermostat—it will display the temperature and allow you to make changes, but that’s about it.

You can achieve this by disabling the settings in a series of steps:

Auto-Schedule: From the main screen, go to Settings and then scroll to Nest Sense. Go to Auto-Schedule, select No and click Done.
Eco: From the main screen, go to Settings, scroll to Eco. Once in Eco, select Off for both the Heat to and Cool to temperatures, before selecting Done.
Home/Away Assist: From the main screen, go to Settings and select Home/Away Assist. Then, select Stop Using and click Done.
Reset: Once you’ve turned off the settings, reset your nest. From the main screen, go to Settings and select Reset, highlight Schedule and then select Reset to clear out any saved scheduling data.

12 Things You Need to Know About Your Nest Thermostat