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

January 18, 2016

If you purchased the Nest Thermostat you have probably heard 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 more detailed instructions, see Nest Support page. For a quick overview, keep on reading:

Nest Thermostats that were recently updated to software version 5.1.3 or later have been having some issues, including becoming unresponsive, not efficiently charging the battery, or shutting down completely. Nest suggests recharging and restarting your thermostat to rectify the problem and get it up and going again.

Indications of this problem include the following:

the thermostat being offline in the Nest’s mobile app and disconnected from the Wi-Fi
the thermostat notifies you that the battery is low and it needs to shut down
the thermostat’s animations are slower than usual
the thermostat shows an alert that says, “Please remove the thermostat from its base, then reattach it;”
the thermostat’s display is dark and unresponsive (you may also see a blinking red or green light above the display)
the thermostat can’t control the corresponding heating and cooling unit(s)

If your Nest Thermostat is on but you can’t control it or it’s running slow, try manually restarting it and turn 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 USB cord plugged into a wall charger or a computer.

IMPORTANT: Do not try to power on or off your thermostat while it’s still connected to a computer for charging. (They didn’t go into detail why, but if Nest says don’t do it, DON’T.)

After about 10 minutes of charging, unhook the Nest Thermostat from the USB cord. If the thermostat has turned on while charging, power it off and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the thermostat. Once it has fully restarted, plug it back in to complete charging. After about 60 minutes of charging, unplug the Nest Thermostat and restore it to its base.

You should be be ready to go at this point, but if you've had enough and want to switch your thermostat, you can see our comparison of common thermostats.

If you have attempted both of these processes and the Nest Thermostat is still having issues, you will need to bring in some backup. Enter us! If Broad Ripple Service Experts put in your Nest Thermostat, please feel free to call us at 317-527-0271 or schedule an appointment online.

And if you have another problem, 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 Broad Ripple as one of Indianapolis's premier furnace experts to fix your system.

Finally, do not let this incident concern you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly utilizing Nest, your thermostat is actually saving money for you every day. When set it up appropriately, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then modifies your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings constantly, which typically results in payback within 12 months. 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 prime investments in your home that you can make.

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