A mechanical glitch with the Nest that came hidden in the gadget’s December update has seen some users reporting their thermostat has recently died completely.
Nest owners were quick to head to the product forums to vent their frustration, with pages of comments describing experiences of waking up to a chilly bedroom and fruitless technical support calls right after.
Writing for the New York Times, author Nick Bilton shared some Nest problems of his own. He explained:
“The Nest Learning Thermostat is dead to me, literally. Last week, my once-beloved “smart” thermostat suffered from a mysterious software bug that drained its battery and sent our home into a chill in the middle of the night.”
“Although I had set the thermostat to 70 degrees overnight, my wife and I were woken by a crying baby at 4 a.m. The thermometer in his room read 64 degrees, and the Nest was off.”
Since news of the glitch has reached the masses, Matt Rogers, co-founder and vice president for engineering at Nest, has confirmed the issue to waves of annoyed customers. The Nest boss said:
“We had a bug that was introduced in the software update that didn’t show up for about two weeks.”
Ironically, we shared the news back in November that the Nest’s then-new update meant the device was able to maintain a home’s temperature ‘up to 20% closer to the original temperature set’. Essentially, this meant the gadget was to be more efficient than ever at maintaining a set temperature.
Nest’s makers offer a possible solution to the December bug over on the official website, although it’s not the quickest fix around, taking at least an hour to sort out, reports say.
Nick Bilton points out that this whole situation raises questions over our reliance on smart technology when it comes to running our lives. Considering the cold households across America affected by the Nest glitch, perhaps he has a point.
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