How to turn off your nest thermostat
David Richardson
Published Mar 29, 2026
@lordravenscraft
Mar 28, 2017, 12:34 pm EST | 3 min read
The Nest learning thermostat can tell when you leave the house and save energy by turning off the heat or A/C. If you’re leaving home for vacation, however, you can save a lot more by turning your thermostat off entirely.
Normally, when you leave your house, the Nest will turn on Eco Mode. In this mode, the Nest will let the temperature get a little outside your normal comfort range before turning on the heat or air conditioning. So, for example, if you like your house between 69 and 72 degrees, Eco Mode might let your house get down to 65 degrees before turning on the heater. This wastes less energy while still keeping your home a reasonable temperature. Plus, it will take less power to get back to a comfortable temperature when you get home.
If you’re leaving the house for several days, however, you don’t need the Nest to maintain a remotely comfortable temperature. In that situation, Nest recommends turning off your thermostat entirely. When it’s off, the thermostat won’t enter Eco Mode while you’re away. Instead, the heat or air conditioning will only kick on if you fall outside of your safety temperatures. These ensure your house never gets too hot or cold and helps avoid things like freezing pipes or damaging any wood in your home.
We’ll demonstrate how to turn the thermostat off on the web, but the steps are largely the same on the device itself or the phone app. To start, head to Nest’s website and log in.
Next, click on the thermostat you want to turn off.
At the bottom of the screen, click the current thermostat mode button. It should show which mode it’s currently set in.
From the list of modes in the menu that pops up, choose Off.
At this point, your Nest will not adjust your home’s temperature unless it exceeds your safety temperatures.
If you’re going to be gone for a long time, it’s also a good idea to run your fan every once in a while to keep the air circulating. Otherwise, even within your set temperature ranges, you could build up moisture which can warp wood or cause mold to grow. Fortunately, Nest can run your fan every day, even if it’s not heating or cooling your home.
To turn this on, open your thermostat’s page like you did before and click the settings gear icon at the top.
Next, scroll down and click Fan Schedule.
Turn on the toggle under “Every day.” This will make sure that the fan runs for at least part of the day, even if the Nest never needs to turn the heat or air conditioning on. You can also set how long you want the fan to run every hour, in increments of 15 minutes.
While you’re tweaking your settings, you may want to check on your safety temperatures. You would’ve set these when you first installed your Nest, but it couldn’t hurt to check them again before you go on vacation. To find these, once again click on the settings gear icon from the thermostat page, then click Equipment.
At the bottom of the settings list, you’ll see Safety Temperatures. Your chosen temperatures are on the right side. If you’re fine with these, leave them. If you want to edit them, click on Safety Temperatures.
To edit your safety temperatures, drag the handles for each temperature until it’s where you want it. Keep in mind things like pets when choosing a safety temperature. Animals like cats and dogs can usually survive most temperatures that humans can, but pets like birds and lizards have very specific temperature needs. If you’re leaving your animals behind, make sure they—as well as any humans who will drop by to care for them—can be comfortable at the temperatures you choose.
For some shorter vacations, Eco Mode may be a better idea, since it will keep your home comfortable while you’re away. If you’ll be gone longer, though, these precautions should help you save some cash on your energy bill without harming anything in your home.
@craigelloyd
May 17, 2016, 3:00 pm EST | 1 min read
The Nest Thermostat is pretty easy to use, but it isn’t so apparent how to turn off the thermostat when you don’t need heating or air conditioning on.
Sure, you could just set the Nest to “Away” to stop it from heating and cooling, but that won’t work very well if you have Home/Away Assist enabled. Luckily, there’s a really easy way to simply turn off the Nest Thermostat. It’s not directly out in the open in the Nest app, but it’s easy to get to, and you can also do it from the Nest unit itself.
From the Nest App
Open up the Nest app on your phone and select your Nest Thermostat on the main screen.
Down in the bottom-left corner, tap on “Heat”. It also might say “Cool”, depending on the weather in your region at the time.
When the pop-up menu appears, select “Off”. This will turn off the Nest Thermostat until you turn it on manually again.
On the Nest Thermostat
Click on your Nest Thermostat unit to bring up the main menu.
Using the silver scroll wheel, navigate to “Thermostat” and select it.
Use the wheel to select “Off” and push on the unit. Your thermostat will now be turned off.
How to Adjust the Nest’s Safety Temperatures
Keep in mind that even though it’s off, the Nest Thermostat still has safety temperatures that it will act upon. So if the temperature in your house reaches a certain level (the default is 40 degrees Fahrenheit), the Nest Thermostat will automatically turn on and begin heating the house to prevent pipes from freezing. This is great if you ever forget to turn the thermostat on while you’re away from home for a significant period of time.
To adjust these safety temperatures, you can do so from within the Nest app. From the main screen, select your Nest Thermostat.
Tap on the settings gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
Select “Equipment” from the list.
Tap on “Safety Temperatures”.
From here, you can adjust the safety temperatures a bit.
By default, your house can get down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and there’s no default maximum temperature that will trigger the AC to kick on. However, by holding and dragging on the dots, you can set these to specific temperatures, but you can only go as high as 45 degrees for the heating and as low as 95 degrees for AC. You can also turn off both if you want, but it’s always a good idea to set these so that you don’t cause any trouble in the future.
@craigelloyd
May 10, 2016, 3:00 pm EST | 2 min read
Warm weather is on its way, which means that air conditioning units are firing up. However, there are some days when the temperature actually drops to a pleasant level. Here’s how to make your Nest Thermostat automatically shut off whenever the outside temperature gets cooler.
Using a neat online service called IFTTT, you can tell your Nest Thermostat to automatically turn off if the weather ever reaches a specific temperature, that way you can open windows and save money by not running your AC when you don’t need to.
For example, if the outside temperature reaches 73 degrees (which is good enough for opening windows and cooling your house), but the inside of your house is still pretty hot and the AC is still cranking, this is where something like this would come in handy. You don’t need the AC on when the weather is that nice outside, so being able to automatically turn off your thermostat when the weather gets cool can not only save you money, but can also be a great convenience to have.
If you haven’t used IFTTT before, check out our guide to getting started for info on how to create an account and connect apps. Then, come back here to create your Nest Thermostat IFTTT recipe.
For your convenience, we’ve created the recipe in its entirety and embedded it here–so if you’re already well versed in IFTTT, just click the “Add” button below and off you go. You’ll need to connect the Weather channel and the Nest Thermostat channel if they aren’t already.
If you want to customize the recipe, here’s how we created it. Start by heading to IFTTT’s home page and click “My Recipes” at the top of the page.
Next, click on “Create a Recipe”.
Click on “this” highlighted in blue.
Type “Weather” in the search box or find it in the grid of products and services below that. Click on it when you find it.
After you connect the Weather channel and get to the “Create a Trigger” page, select “Current temperature drops below” from the options.
Enter in the outside temperature that you want it to be in order for your Nest Thermostat to turn off and then click “Create Trigger”.
Next, click on “that” highlighted in blue to set up the action that happens whenever the trigger fires.
Type “Nest Thermostat” in the search box or find it in the grid of products and services below that. Click on it when you find it.
After you connect the Nest Thermostat channel and get to the “Create an Action” page, click on “Set temperature”. Since IFTTT can’t turn off your Nest Thermostat, you’ll simply be setting the thermostat to a higher setting so that the AC turns off.
On the next screen, select your Nest Thermostat under “Which device?” and enter in the temperature that you want to set your Nest Thermostat to. Something high like 80 degrees should be fine. Click on “Create Action” to continue.
Give the recipe a custom name if you want and then click on “Create Recipe”.
From now on, whenever the weather outside drops below the temperature you specified in the recipe, your Nest Thermostat will be set to a higher setting, thus the AC will turn off and you can open windows.
If you want, you can even set up another recipe that will send you a text message alert whenever this happens. Simply create the same trigger as before, but the action will be sending a text message. You could even just create that recipe and turn off your Nest Thermostat manually whenever you get the notification.
You can also create another recipe that notifies you when it gets hotter out so that you can turn your Nest Thermostat back on, but that’s really up to you.
What exactly is Auto-Away and Nest Sense?
For those unfamiliar, the Nest Learning Thermostat includes a feature called Auto-Away. Auto-away is a mode that the Nest thermostat enters when it detects that your home has become empty.
Auto-Away relies on another Nest feature called Nest Sense. Nest Sense relies on a motion sensor on the front of the thermostat. If the sensor doesn’t detect motion after a period of time, Nest Sense considers the house to be empty and will enable Auto-Away. Conversely, if Auto-Away is engaged and the sensor picks up activity, Auto-Away will be turned off and the Nest will resume to usual operation.
Nest Sense has an interesting capability. It will calibrate itself over time. If it enables Auto-Away and then, later realizes through user intervention that it was wrong, it will wait for a longer period of inactivity next time before enabling Auto-Away. Similarly, if it feels that it’s generally right, it will decrease the period of inactivity required before enabling Auto-Away. Nest has previously reported that this inactivity timer can range from as short as 15 minutes all the way to 2 hours.
Nest Sense and the Auto-Away feature was failing me at my home.
For one, I work from home some days. In the winter, I frequently would come to realize that the house was getting cold because Auto-Away had activated without me knowing. Second, I am in and out of the house quite a bit, without a set schedule. I didn’t like that it would take up to 2 hours for Auto-Away to turn off my furnace each time I left my house. My furnace is underpowered for the size of my house. In the dead of winter, it often works pretty hard to keep the house cold. It’s more likely than not, at any given point during the day, that the furnace is running. If I leave, that’s potentially 2 extra hours of burning natural gas.
This was frustrating. I had ran out and purchased a $250 thermostat in hopes of reducing my utility bill and also automating the climate control of my home. It seemed like I was close with Nest, but this Nest Sense / motion sensor business just wasn’t cutting it. I considered other sensor options:
- Turn off the thermostat when I lock the front door: My housemate likes to keep the front door locked when she’s home during the day for security, so this isn’t an option.
- Turn off the thermostat when the garage door opens/closes: It’d be difficult to know whether a car is leaving or arriving.
- Tether off of the home/away status of some other smart device at home: Somewhat by choice, I’ve kept most of my house ‘dumb’. No good options here either.
- Rely on phone technology to determine if I’m home: Now we’re talking!
I came across a discussion thread regarding this issue on the Nest Community site. I learned that many users were having the same problem as me. Nest even has an official page addressing the issue. It turns out I’m not so unique after all! Some solutions were proposed. One member had created a PHP or Python script to continually check for their mobile phone’s MAC address on their wireless home router, but as mobile phones often ‘sleep’ when not in use, it was tough to verify if the phone was reachable or not. Other shoestring solutions were proposed, but generally also lacked reliability or only worked for tracking a single person in the house, not the whole family.
The Google Nest is neat and smart, but sometimes it can get out of hand. Furthermore, the Nest fan can sometimes work even if you don’t want it to work. Don’t worry, because we’ll show you how to turn off the fan on your Google Nest.
There are two methods, you can either use the Nest app, or you can use the Nest Thermostat. Also, you should mind the specifications from Google regarding system fans compatible with Nest. Read on for the detailed tutorial, with easy to follow steps and guidelines.
Important Notes from Google
Your system needs to have a separate fan wire installed to use the Nest thermostat for fan options. Otherwise, your fan will only run while the system is actively heating or cooling your home.
The Nest E thermostat is compatible with single system fans, while the Nest learning thermostat supports system fans with up to three speeds. In case you have multiple fan wires, you need to use a Nest Pro for your Nest thermostat installation. Neither of the Nest thermostats is compatible with high voltage forced-air system, or fans with variable speed.
Logically, if you run the fan on your Google Nest all the time, it will increase your electricity bill and consume a lot of energy. It will also use up the air filter more quickly. Running the fan at higher speed will not speed up the heating, it will only increase the energy consumption.
So, you should keep your fan off when you don’t need it. Let’s see how you can do that.
How to Turn Off Fan Using Nest Thermostat
If you don’t like using apps, don’t worry. You can control your Nest Thermostat manually. Here is how:
- Start the Nest Thermostat to access the main menu.
- Tap the thermostat ring to bring up Quick View.
- Select Fan.
- Set up a timer for when you want the fan to stop, or you can select Stop Fan to turn it off instantly. If you see a spinning fan on the Nest thermostat display, it means that the fan is still on.
You can also set up the daily schedule for your fan using the Nest thermostat. Follow the steps:
- Start the Nest Thermostat and open the Quick View.
- Tap on Settings, and choose Fan Schedule.
- Adjust the fan speed and working schedule to your liking.
- Press Done when you finish setting things up.
That will automate the fan for everyday use, but you can change these settings whenever you like.
How to Turn Off Fan Using Nest App
You can also control the fan via the Nest app for Android or iOS. That’s relatively easy too. Follow these steps:
- Open the Nest app on your device.
- Select the thermostat you want to control.
- Choose Fan and select for how long it should run. You can also adjust fan speed here.
- Either press Start to run the fan or press Stop to turn it off.
You can use the app to set up the daily schedule as well. Here are the steps:
- Open the Nest app.
- Choose the thermostat you want to use.
- Select Settings, and then tap Fan Schedule.
- Tap the slider switch on the Every Day setting to turn it on or off.
- Choose the time when your fan should run and adjust the speed.
That will automate the fan, but again you can disable the schedule whenever you please, using the same steps.
Save Energy
That’s it. You can finally take full control of your Google Nest and adjust the fans as you please. Fan running non-stop is a common issue with Google Nest, but you can easily avoid it if you turn off the fan manually. Now you know how to do it.
Did you set up a daily fan schedule on your Google Nest? Do you control the fan manually or via the app? Tell us more about it in the comments section below.
Smart devices are making it easier than ever for homeowners to control the efficiency of their home, and Nest thermostats are no different. The Nest thermostat uses your home’s internet and powerful sensors to provide users with advanced smart heating and cooling control features. But do these features go away in the event Nest is disconnected?
The Nest thermostat can work without an internet or Wi-Fi connection. Users may be limited in their access to its smart and remote features but will still be able to control their home temperature like a traditional thermostat by toggling the small screen on their Nest thermostat.
In this article, you’ll learn more about what happens to your Nest when it is disconnected from Wi-Fi or the internet, as well as what you can do to get things back online.
What Happens to Nest When the Internet Goes Out?
While it’s recommended that you connect your Nest thermostat to a Wi-Fi internet connection to take advantage of its unique features, Nest can still function in the absence of one.
Without a Wi-Fi internet connection, your Nest Thermostat will only function as a traditional thermostat. You can still manually control your HVAC systems using the interface on your thermostat.
Most Nest thermostats will work with your existing settings and schedules you implement even without an internet connection. However, using your Nest thermostat without the internet does mean that you will not be able to access its remote control feature or use its Nest algorithm that helps you save energy.
You’ll also no longer have access to security updates or live updates and will not be able to connect Nest with the mobile app.
What Features Are Still Available without Internet?
As previously mentioned, once your internet goes out, your Nest Thermostat will continue to function as a traditional thermostat, but it may not be as efficient as it would be with an internet connection.
Below are some of the Nest features that can still be available without internet:
Scheduling
If your Nest thermostat is without internet, you will still be able to schedule your home’s temperatures. While you will be unable to do this remotely or through the Nest mobile app, you should be able to set it via the dial-in interface of your thermostat.
Check History
You will still be able to access your thermostat history, which allows you to view your home cooling and heating patterns over the last three months. This makes it easy for you to evaluate why your energy bill is high and which temperature setting works best in saving you money on energy.
Nest Eco
Even without Wi-Fi, you will still be able to access the Nest Leaf feature on your thermostat. The Nest thermostat displays a green or yellow leaf when you choose an energy-efficient temperature for your home; this teaches you to learn how to create energy-saving strategies for the long run.
However, note that with the Nest Leaf feature, it has more accurate reports when connected to internet.
Nest Temperature Sensor
You can use your Nest temperature sensor even without a readily available Wi-Fi connection. A Nest temperature sensor enables your Nest thermostat to program different temperature profiles for each of your rooms at different times of the day.
How to Reconnect Nest to Internet
There are several reasons why your Nest may no longer be connected to the internet besides power outages. Before resetting your internet connection, try troubleshooting with these tips:
- Check the Nest service status to see if it is active or down. If the Nest service is down, your thermostat will be offline until the service resumes. Most of the time, you will see the message “The Nest service is unavailable at this time” in the Nest mobile app.
- Review the battery level of your thermostat to confirm its status. Most recent models of the Nest thermostat will automatically disconnect from your home Wi-Fi once the battery is low.
- Confirm that your Wi-Fi internet connection is active and working, and working at the appropriate speeds to support the device. You can try connecting to another smart device in your home using your Wi-Fi network and not cellular data.
- You can also try restarting your router. Restarting your Wi-Fi router connection will help you reset your internet connection. You can restart your router by disconnecting your modem and reconnecting it after 30 seconds.
Reconnecting your Nest thermostat is easy. If your Nest becomes disconnected from your Wi-Fi for any reason, try the following steps to reconnect it:
- If you want to reconnect your Nest to the internet, you will need to do it in-person; this means that you will need to access the Nest thermostat physically. You won’t be able to reconnect it remotely (via the Nest mobile app).
- You will need to restart your Nest thermostat to refresh your Nest wireless connection. To restart your Nest thermostat, Press the thermostat ring to bring up the Quick View menu > Settings > Reset > Restart > Turn the ring until you can select Ok.
- Finally, reconnect your thermostat to your home Wi-Fi. To reconnect your thermostat to an internet connection, go to Settings > scroll down to Network > select your Wi-Fi network name > input your dedicated password.
- Your Nest thermostat should now be reconnected to your Wi-Fi and ready to be controlled via the Nest mobile app.
Reconnecting your Nest thermostat to your Wi-Fi or internet system is as simple as that. For more detailed information on reconnecting your Nest thermostat, consult your Nest manual or reach out to the Nest customer support team for further assistance.
Conclusion
Without internet, the Nest thermostat loses most of its smart features and continues to function like a standard thermostat. So, in the event you have a power outage or dropped internet signal, there’s no need to worry; you can still control the basic functions of your Nest. However, when possible, follow the above steps to reconnect your device to regain access to all the features the device has to offer.
@craigelloyd
May 20, 2016, 3:00 pm EST | 2 min read
With the warmer weather finally arriving, many households are switching their thermostats from heating to cooling. Here’s how to do it on the Nest Thermostat.
The Nest Thermostat allows you to control and manage the device remotely from your smartphone, and it even comes with learning capabilities that can learn your habits and patterns and eventually automatically adjust the thermostat for you. However, sometimes it can be the littlest of features that are hard to find.
Case in point: how do you switch the Nest Thermostat from heating to cooling, or from cooling to heating at the turn of the season? It’s actually really simple and you can do it from either the Nest app or on the Nest Thermostat unit itself.
From the Nest App
Open up the Nest app on your phone and select your Nest Thermostat from the main screen.
Down in the bottom-left corner, tap on “Heat”. It may also say “Cool” depending on what you already have it set at.
A pop-up will appear, giving you several options. If you want to switch to your air conditioning, tap on “Cool”. If you want to switch to heating, tap on “Heat”. You can also turn off your Nest Thermostat from here, and there’s even a setting where you can choose both Heat and Cool at the same time. (We’ll discuss that more in a minute.)
When you switch from Heat to Cool, the thermostat’s set temperature will automatically jump to a higher setting, and from there you can adjust it as needed. It will do the opposite when you switch from Cool to Heat, going down to the last temperature you had it set at before you switched it to Cool.
When you switch to “Heat-Cool”, the Nest Thermostat will automatically turn on the furnace or the air conditioner whenever either is needed, rather than only having one or the other enabled at any one time.
Using this setting, you can set a temperature range that you want to keep your house between, and the Nest Thermostat will take care of it all automatically without needing to manually switch back and forth between Heat and Cool.
On the Nest Thermostat
Switching from Heat to Cool and vice versa uses the same method in the app, but obviously it’s a bit different on the smaller screen of the Nest Thermostat.
Press on your Nest Thermostat unit to bring up the main menu.
Use the silver scroll wheel and go to “Thermostat”. Push on the unit to select it.
From there, scroll and select either “Heat”, “Cool”, “Heat-Cool”, or “Off”, just like you would in the Nest app.
The “Heat-Cool” setting can be great for when the seasons are just changing, meaning that it’s getting warmer outside, but there are still days where it can get cold (and vice versa in the fall). Because of this, the Heat-Cool setting keeps you from having to constantly switch back and forth between heating and cooling when the weather is kind of unpredictable.
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The Nest Thermostat, or Nest Learning Thermostat, is a smart thermostat that you can use to keep the temperature in your home exactly how you like it throughout the day. Once you’ve installed your Nest Thermostat, it’s time to learn how to use all of its features. Using the basic controls is simple to do by spinning the ring around the thermostat and clicking the thermostat in to make selections. Use it to schedule different temperatures throughout the day, as well as change the many different settings of the Nest Thermostat. You can also use the app on your smartphone to operate the thermostat remotely.
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Tip: This menu is known as the “Quick View” menu and lets you access the features you will most commonly use. Different models of the Nest Thermostat may have more or less icons in the Quick View menu.
Likewise, can you set up a Nest thermostat without WiFi?
Running a Nest Thermostat without WiFi Whether a Nest won’t connect to WiFi or there is no WiFi signal currently active in your home, you can run the thermostat using the interface on the Nest Thermostat.
Secondly, can you use nest camera without WiFi? The Nest Cam, in particular, doesn’t let you do anything from within the Nest app—it pretty much acts like the camera doesn’t even exist by giving you a “your camera is offline” message. You can‘t even go in and look at past video recordings.
Considering this, will a nest work without WiFi?
4 Answers. Yes, if the Nest goes offline, it will continue to function as usual. You will not be able to adjust settings with your phone or computer, but adjustments can be made manually on the Nest itself. When you say the NEST occasionally cannot be reached by WiFi, that’s another matter.
Does the Nest thermostat have to be connected to WiFi?
You don’t need to connect your thermostat to Wi-Fi to use it. Your thermostat will still be able to heat or cool your home and can still help you save energy. However, you won’t have access to all your thermostat’s features, and some of the energy saving features on your thermostat won’t work as well.
