9 hours. I was on the phone yesterday for over 9 hours trying to get my Nest replaced (for the second time) under warranty.

When they work, they are great, but for the second time since purchase, it has failed on me and absolutely refused to recognize my wifi network (or ANY wifi network).

Just like last time, it says it needs to be removed from the wall and charged via USB, weird since it charges from the wall.

Either way, after charging it, it will say it is disconnected from teh wifi. Even weirder is that the other devices, 3 phones, 3 tablets, 2 laptops, one desktop, 2 smart TV's, 3 fire TV sticks, the robot vacuum, RING cameras, alarm system, and EVERY OTHER WIFI device in the house all work just fine. Not only can it not locate our network, but it can't see ANY OTHER network, even my phone hotspotted.

So the saga begins when i call customer service and have to spend a half hour on hold just to talk to the tech "Ricky" who obviously is not named "Ricky" and is certainly not in this country and seems to have only a basic command of the English language making communication difficult.

After going through the myriad of troubleshooting where i have to reboot everything and try the same things I've already tried... They tell me what I already know and the unit is broken. JUST LIKE LAST TIME WHERE THEY REPLACED IT 6 MONTHS AGO.

So instead of just sending me a new one, I have to be transferred to a "Level 2 specialist" to get an exchange. It takes over an hour of me on hold again to get transferred... WHere I get hung up on.

So i repeat the process. And after holding, and troubleshooting AGAIN, i get transferred to another "Level 2 specialist" Or so I think because after another hour and a half on hold I get hung up on.

So i call back again... Get another guy after the initial half hour hold and he at least stays on the line with me. It takes ANOTHER 2 hours to actually talk to a level 2 specialist.

Then they decide the only way i can get an advance exchange (and avoid having to take my thermostat off the wall and be without one while I ship it back, and wait for the new one to arrive) is to sign up for a google pay account and let them charge my credit card for the cost of a new one, which will be refunded sometime in the future when they get the old one back and get around to it.

I could have literally gone out, signed up for a part time job, worked an 8 hour shift and paid for a new one out of pocket with the time i spent on hold.

Never again will I buy a Nest product or if i can avoid it, a Google product.

Beware friends, beware.

Kevin

Are you serious about the hold times? If so, you must be a saint.

15 minutes is my upper limit. I might try once more at an earlier or later time of the day, but that's it.

What's the point of an expensive, finicky networked thermostat anyway? Other than spiking your blood pressure?

You know they sell these things at HomeDepot and Lowes that you hook up and set the temperature you want by gong over to it and actually manually setting it....

I know it's not what you want but they have worked pretty well for 60 years or so.

How much does one of these nest thermometers cost? Must be a small fortune to have invested that much time in getting a replacement. Sounds to me like they are designed to fail and most people will just go out and buy another one.

Do you have a 4 wire or a 5 wire system?

I had to add the 24v 5th wire to get mine to work right. It comes off the power supply on the air handler.

Since then, it's been flawless.

The wireless network needs the voltage to operate.

No offense to the OP....

But I have yet to understand why everyone and everything must be connected to the internet 24/7.

I damn sure dont need my Fridge, Stove or Wash/Dryer connected. That's ridiculous.

AC Unit....don't see the point. I set the thermostat and move on. If it's not comfortable, get up and adjust.

Just don't see the need to connect everything.

Andrew

We just use the honeywell programable. It floats between an upper and lower setting (like 69 and 72) kicking on AC or Heat as needed depending on the season. And it has about 4 or 5 settings per day and can be tuned for each specific day of the week. So it knows to go down a few degrees right at bedtime, come up a degree when time to wake up, and maybe have a bigger float width during the day when we are all out of the house. And I can set it so it knows I sleep late on Saturdays and get up a little later on Sunday than I do on weekdays, etc.

Set it all up when I got it, and haven't messed with it since then.

Also has an input for a thermistor that tells it the outdoor temp so it can decide if heat pump is sufficient or if it needs to turn on the propane furnace.

quote:

Originally posted by El Cid 92:
No offense to the OP....

But I have yet to understand why everyone and everything must be connected to the internet 24/7.

I damn sure dont need my Fridge, Stove or Wash/Dryer connected. That's ridiculous.

AC Unit....don't see the point. I set the thermostat and move on. If it's not comfortable, get up and adjust.

Just don't see the need to connect everything.

Andrew

I suspect it's generational

Our house had a Nest already installed when we bought it, and I can't say I'm a big fan. In order for it to learn and adjust to your rhythms, the Nest needs to be placed so that the motion sensor can properly track your coming and going. The Nest in our house is installed facing an area of the house that we seldom go into, resulting in it "learning" that we are away when we are actually home. Combine that with our typically unpredictable schedule and it is wrong more often than it is right. A simple programmable thermostat would serve us better.

Emerson Sensi and done. I've never understood the fascination with Nest and have been trying to talk folks out of them for nearly 8 years.

I can program this to do exactly what I want, and can set several different profiles of settings for each unit, separated by heat, air or auto and a complete set or more under each. For example we have a normal setting for Cool, one for Heat, but also have one for Cool - Georgeair only, etc. Those are used when wife is out of town and it's just me, and I'm out of house for work, etc.

I don't want a thermostat trying to "learn" what I want it to do based on analyzing anything, just to do what I tell it to and when.

Programming takes under 10 minutes after an easy install.

quote:

Originally posted by jaaron11:
A simple programmable thermostat would serve us better.

That was my takeaway, after installing a Honeywell "smart" thermostat (a cheaper Nest competitor) at my last house.

I don't need internet connectivity, or schedule learning, or the ability to control it from my phone, or whatever. A basic programmable thermostat is sufficient.

quote:

No offense to the OP....

But I have yet to understand why everyone and everything must be connected to the internet 24/7.

Preach!

I just spent a month living in an AirBnB waiting on the closing of my new house. The AirBnB had a ring doorbell that never worked right, never not ever. I missed a delivery because the man standing on my stoop pressing the doorbell button was actually ringing the homeowner's cell phone 2000 miles away in California. What an unnecessary overcomplication of a simple device.

The Ring thermostat had to be the most tempermental bitch of an electronic ever produced by man. Again, overcomplication of a simple device. Give me the old Honeywell knob any day. What exactly do you gain by having all of this crap? Wifi connected refrigerators and shit? Do you save $20 per month if the thing works right?

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Are you serious about the hold times? If so, you must be a saint.

Indeed. I would've tolerated the first half-hour hold and that would've been that. That Nest thing would've been headed for the landfill and I'd have been out purchasing something different. (Like the $65 Honeywell 7-Day programmable thermostat we've been using for... I dunno... 10-12 years?)

quote:

Originally posted by El Cid 92:
No offense to the OP....

But I have yet to understand why everyone and everything must be connected to the internet 24/7.

"Everything" and "the Internet": No. But many things can be made much handier with network connectivity. E.g.:

quote:

Originally posted by El Cid 92:
I damn sure dont need my Fridge, Stove or Wash/Dryer connected. That's ridiculous.

Your opinion, but the stove being connected means you can get notification when something's done wherever you are in the house. Same with the clothes washer/dryer.

I haven't gotten around to playing with the new stove, yet, but I probably will eventually. The clothes washer and dryer I won't bother with. They're Samsungs and work only with Samsung mobile devices. (Cannot wait to replace those. No more Samsung appliances ever.)

Appliances, though, will not have access to, nor be accessible from the Internet. They'll be blocked at the border router. And if their connectivity to mobile devices is dependent upon them being able to communicate with the mothership, then we'll do without it.

quote:

Originally posted by El Cid 92:
AC Unit....don't see the point. I set the thermostat and move on. If it's not comfortable, get up and adjust.

I agree with this one.

Now... if I was still working, and if nobody else lived in the house and I had no pets, and if my schedule was wildly erratic: Then I could see the benefit. Raise the temp in the wintertime before getting out of bed or when beginning the ride home, for example.

Everyone in the trade knows Nests are junk. Can’t tell you how many I’ve replaced and my company has replaced.

If you don’t have a 5 wire hookup meaning common wire it’s not going to charge. Same as other put a plain Jane tstat on set your temp and leave it alone except for changing the batteries!

Honeywell for the win. Mine is 8-9 years old at this point and still works flawlessly. It's a PITA to set up when I change routers, but I've been nothing but happy with it. It's not smart or anything, but I can adjust the schedules from my phone, and that's all I need. I don't want my t-stat to learn my preferences and auto adjust temps based on what it thinks I want.

Put me in the "9 hours?" camp. That's 9AM to 6PM on the phone. You should contact Guinness and be immortalized. .

Oh yeah, and Honeywell for me, too.

I shopped smart thermostats and ended up with an Ecobee Lite. I’ve been very happy with it.

-Rob

Same here. As a matter of fact, a member here gave it to me. Now, we're building a new house and I'd like to take it with us. The new house will have two thermostats, one up and one down. So, I either have to get another one or just use the ones that will be installed. First world problems.

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
I shopped smart thermostats and ended up with an Ecobee Lite. I’ve been very happy with it.

-Rob

^^^^ I bet his thermostat is always set to sub-zero.