How do I programme my Nest?

[RetroFair]

We had a new boiler fitted a couple of days ago and chose to get a Nest thermostat as a controller. I thought this would be great as we could easily programme it and tweak it whilst out the house if our normal pattern was going to change. I am now seriously regretting this as I can not make head nor tail of how the blooming thing works.
All I want it to do is switch on the heating at 5.30am off at 7am and then be on again in the evening from 5.30pm to 9pm with a max temp in these periods of say 19C. I don't need to it to be 19C at 5.30am but just switch on and start heating up the house. I'd then like to be able to occasionally switch the heating on during the day if I was at home. There seems to be no simple heat on/off functionality to it at all. Please can someone help.

There is a section called ‘pre heat’ which tries to get it to your required temperature at the start of the time period. I think the default is something ridiculous like 4 hours. I went in and reduced the preheat time to the minimum 1 hour allowed which helped (I was waking up at 4 am because I was so hot).

I have’t found a way to just get it to turn on at a specific time - I will be watching this thread with interest.

I forgot to say that for manual on / off I just turn the dial on the thermostat from the ‘off’ temperature which for me is 9 degrees to a temperature that switches it on.

Alternatively, you can use the app and move the temperature indicator to the desired temperature with your finger.

Watching with interest... we’ll be getting our boiler replaced next year and I was considering a Nest,.. gobsmacked to hear that it’s not easy to set a schedule 😲😲😲

Can I ask whether you used a local or national company for your boiler replacement? If national, were they any good?

Ah OP I was going to start a Nest thread last night. We've just inherited one and I'm struggling to figure it out too. When I tried to set my own schedule it didn't seem to work, so now I've reset the schedule and put it on auto learning mode. I still can't seem to get the mornings right though, and although mine is set to 'true radiant' it doesn't actually seem to come on until I manually set the temperature. It's a bit confusing!

Do you have auto learning on? If you want to use it as a traditional thermostat you might want to try turning it off and just setting a fixed schedule. You may also want to turn off home/away assist as that will affect when your heating comes on and off.

It looks fun but I'm yet to be convinced by Nest, although the app is quite handy for turning the heating on when I'm heading home.

We have a nest system. We turned off auto schedule, time to temp and all the functions that are supposed to make it learn! We found early on as we have no set schedule that programming it was the only way we could get the heating on when we wanted it to be on!

We’ve had it for three and a half years and are very happy with it. The home away functions is great as I can leave the house and not worry that I’ve left the heating on and I can also turn it up from wherever I am which is brilliant.

Thanks, I've managed to set the True Radiant setting to 0 hours so hopefully tomorrow it will not be on for hours in the night... The problem with the home / away assist is that it seems to track the location of your phone as to whether or not your in the house before it'll turn the heating off. I'd like to turn it off before we leave as it doesn't bother me that the house starts to slightly cool down for the last half an hour before we leave. I switched auto learn off and have set a manual schedule but that doesn't switch the heating off. The only thing I can think to do is set it to be say 14C for say an hour after I want it off so that it switches off to start cool down

It doesn’t really work in terms of an on/off schedule - you need to get used to thinking in terms of the temperature you want, and then let it do it’s thing and adjust it if it’s not right (or let it auto adjust for you).

So for example I have my heating set to 16 degrees over night and a schedule of aiming for 19 degrees by the time we get up. If I look at the history in my app, some nights this means it won’t go on at all, other nights it will do short bursts of 10-15 mins that keeps it at 16 degrees overnight and then it starts heating around 30 mins before we get up.

If you really want to force it on/off you can use artificially low/high temps - e.g. 9 degrees for off, 23+ for high? - but honestly it works best for us if we just fiddle with it as we walk past, if anyone is feeling too cold/hot. We’ve had ours 3 years and haven’t had to adjust it manually after about the first 6 months/change in seasons really. The ability to adjust it when we’re out and on the way home is great though!

Also we may have an earlier model, but our home/away is based on whether it can sense anyone moving around rather than linked to a phone, so depending where you place your thermostat it may switch to ‘away’ before you leave the house - mine sometimes thinks we’re out if we shut all the doors to the hallway for a while.

@gothicsprout thanks. How do you set it to be 16C at night? I've set it to be 19C at 5.30pm but would like come 9pm for the house to cool down slightly before we go to bed. Do I set it to be 16C at 9pm or will it start cooling down ahead of that time to achieve 16C at 9pm? Do I instead have to set it to be 19C at 9pm and 16C at 10pm? Thanks

@Wildcate it seems very difficult to set a schedule and at the moment I think our gas bill is going to rocket... Due to our inability to programme the blooming thing our hearing was on for 18.5 hours yesterday rather than it's more normal 5 hours. So far I would not recommend one. We had our boiler replaced my a local company.

It's very irritating to start with, but there are ways to make it more like a conventional thermostat to start with until you work out which of its smart features you will find useful. I've found that their customer service on the phone is very helpful.

I HATE MY NEST!
I'm glad it's not just me Retro, it seems such a great idea but in reality - nope.
It heats up then turns off - and if I dare feel a bit chilly once it's got to temperature then just tough luck, it's not going to reheat again until it's good and ready.

@RetroFair it depends really on how well your house holds heat, as the Nest can’t directly cool things down, only heat up (unless you’ve got it linked up to an air con system too). If you have it set to 19 degrees it will keep switching on every time it drops a little below that until it hits 19 again. So if you definitely want it at 16 degrees by 9pm, I would try setting it to go down to 16 around 8pm and then adjust it earlier if that’s still too warm.

We’ve found that we’ve nudged all our temperatures down over time and got much better at knowing when it just needs a quick boost of 0.5 degrees either way (which takes about 30 mins in my house). I have a draughty Victorian house so it also depends which room you’re in compared to the thermostat - upstairs holds heat much better, so if we’re going to bed early we can adjust it down much earlier in the evening for example.

I love my nest! I had a cheaper, crappier internet thermostat before the nest came out which was handy, but the nest wasn't much more expensive and is loads easier to use and get along with.

My routine is quite varied as I share the care of my kids with their mum, so the auto learning schedule didn't really work for me.
That's fine though as I set a manual schedule, and the home/away assist keeps the heating off if I'm not at home. I set the app up on my eldests child's phone too so when he gets in from school the heating is on for him.

I did find sometimes the nest thinks I'm home when I'm not, but after telling it manually I'm away it seems to have got the message and been a lot more reliable lately.

I've also got the nest protect smoke/carbon monoxide alarm, which is handy. It doubles as a motion detecting nightlight which is good for when the kids go to the loo in the middle of the night.