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

January 18, 2016

If your home is running on the Nest Thermostat you probably heard about the recent issues and may be living in fear of being left without heat in the dead of winter.

But fear no more!

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 additional information, go to their Nest Support page. For a more basic overview, keep on reading:

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

Indications of this issue include the following:

the thermostat being down on the Nest application and disconnected from the Wi-Fi
the thermostat alerts 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 won’t light up and unresponsive (you may also have 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 will turn on but you can’t control it or it’s acting sluggish, try manually restarting it by turning 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 power on or off 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, LISTEN TO THEM.)

After approximately 10 minutes of charging, unhook the Nest Thermostat from the USB cord. If the component has turned on during this time, shut it down and then turn it back on again, manually restarting the Nest. Once it has restarted completely, plug it back in to fully charge. After another hour of charging, detach the Nest Thermostat and restore it to its base.

You should be be ready to go at this point, but if you're done with Nest and want to swap your thermostat, you can read our comparison of common thermostats.

If you have attempted both of these processes and the Nest Thermostat is still showing signs of problems, you will need to bring in some backup. Enter us! If Midland Air Service Experts set up your Nest Thermostat, please give us a call at 803-399-7208 or schedule an appointment online.

And if encounter another issue, such as a warning from Nest that your furnace is shutting down, then your thermostat is likely working as intended. You may need to call Midland Air as one of Columbia's premier furnace experts to fix your hvac.

Also, do not let this experience scare you about your Nest’s reliability. By owning and properly utilizing Nest, your thermostat is actually saving money for you daily. When set it up correctly, Nest intelligently learns your lifestyle, then modifies your heating and cooling use to optimize energy savings constantly, which typically results in payback within a year. 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 prime investments in your home that you can make.

Back to blog