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

January 18, 2016

If you have a Nest Thermostat you 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 no more!

Nest Support has published an informative page with the very convenient title “What to do if your Nest Thermostat has become slow, unresponsive, or won’t turn on.” Obvious, much?

For complete instructions, see Nest Support page. For a quick summary, keep on reading:

Nest Thermostats that were recently updated to software version 5.1.3 or later may have some issues, including becoming unresponsive, not efficiently charging the battery, or going down completely. Nest recommends recharging and restarting your thermostat to resolve the issue and get it up and running again.

Symptoms of this glitch include the following:

the thermostat not working in the Nest application and disconnected from the Wi-Fi
the thermostat notifies you that the battery is low and it needs to shut down
the thermostat’s animated properties 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 turned on but you can’t control it or it’s performing 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.

CAUTION: Do not try to manually restart your thermostat while it’s still connected to a computer for charging. (They didn’t explain why, but if they say don’t do it, DO NOT DO IT.)

After around 10 minutes of charging, unhook the Nest Thermostat from the USB cable. If the thermostat has turned on while plugged in, shut it down and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the system. Once it has fully restarted, plug it back in to complete charging. After about 60 minutes of charging, unhook the Nest Thermostat and reconnect it to its base.

You should be be ready to go at this point, but you can't get it to work and want to swap your thermostat, you can view our comparison of common thermostats.

If you have tried both of these processes and the Nest Thermostat is still showing signs of problems, you will need to bring in some experts. Enter us! If Church Services put in your Nest Thermostat, please reach out to us at 713-396-3760 or schedule an appointment online.

And if you've got another issue, like a warning from Nest that your furnace is shutting down, then your thermostat may not be the problem at all. You may need to call Church Services as one of Houston's premier furnace experts to fix your hvac.

Also, do not let this issue panic you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly operating Nest, your thermostat is truly saving money for you daily. When set it up properly, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then alters your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings every day, 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 problem get you down. You were smart to invest in a Nest, because a smart thermostat is still one of the leading investments in your home that you can make.

Back to blog