PSA: Your Nest Thermostat may lose all smart features tomorrow

If you have an ageing Google Nest Learning Thermostat, we have bad news. It only has a day of full smart functionality left.

Back in May, the company announced that it would be pulling support for older Nest thermostats. The date for that termination is now right around the corner on 25 October, this Saturday.

From this date, Google says that 1st and 2nd gen Nest thermostats “will no longer connect to or work in the Google Nest app or Google Home app”.

As of 25 October, older Nest thermostats will be unpaired and removed from your Nest and Home apps – and you have no choice in the matter. Third-party assistant interaction and other connected features like Home/Away Assist and Nest Protect connectivity will also be lost.

This means that you’ll no longer be able to control or check the status of your Nest thermostat remotely. Direct control of the Nest Thermostat itself (including adjusting the temperature and modifying schedules) will be your only option, just like a traditional non-smart thermostat.

Here’s the full list of Nest Thermostats about to be decommissioned. Note that the Nest Thermostat (2020) isn’t affected as it’s not a ‘learning’ model.

• Nest Learning Thermostat (1st gen, 2011)
• Nest Learning Thermostat (2nd gen, 2012)
• Nest Learning Thermostat (2nd gen, Europe version, 2014)

What options are there for Nest customers?

That primarily leaves just the Nest Learning Thermostat 3rd gen as a viable Google smart thermostat product for most customers, including those in the UK. This launched a decade ago, in September 2015. There’s also the Nest Thermostat E, which is available while stock lasts, but Google doesn’t sell either in the UK or Europe official store any longer.

You can also get a 50% discount on the Tado Smart Thermostat X – Starter Kit and you should receive this deal via a personalised email. Be sure to look at what is and isn’t included without a subscription – Tado has closed off more features behind its paywall and you might find that functionality is limited if you don’t want to subscribe.

Its replacement, the Nest Thermostat 4th gen (above), launched a little over a year ago. However, it still hasn’t been made available outside of North America, where older-gen owners can get $130 off to “ease the transition”.

We’ve sought comment from Google on the future wider availability of its current thermometer, but the refusal to comment in response doesn’t leave us confident that it’ll ever make its way to wider territories.

What’s more, Google says on a help page that it will “no longer launch new Nest thermostats in Europe”, citing “unique” and “challenging” heating systems, so this may well include the UK. So, this seems to clinch it.

Given that the Nest Thermostat gen 3 only launched three years after the now-obsolete gen 2, we’re a little worried that there’s soon going to be no smart Google thermostat provision for most people. Again, we’ve asked Google to comment on its ongoing support plans for the Nest Learning Thermometer gen 3, and will report back if we hear from them.

The help page mentioned above says it, along with the Thermostat E, “will continue to receive security updates and you can control them via the Nest and Home apps”. But it doesn’t say for how long. Presumably, though, not forever.

It’s not all bad news for Google Home users though, as Gemini is on the way along with new devices such as the Home Speaker and likely a new Nest Hub.