Questions about WWN app for Nest thermostat

[Saltydogg]

I had the old nest app and it was working but I saw the latest beta firmware had a WWN fix so I decided I would try it since I needed the beta upgrade for the Alexa plug in to install.  Well now it appears I've screwed myself because I can't go back, the old nest app is no longer in the app store.  If someone can tell me how to go back I would greatly appreciate it!!  Otherwise I have a couple questions about the WWN app.

It appears that I cannot use the WWN home/away device as a device in a scene, like a door opening sets the home/away device to home. Anyone else notice this?

I keep my Nest in Auto mode but the WWN app only shows one temp setting, this doesn't work for auto mode where you need to set a heat and cool temp.  Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help...I should have left well enough alone.

[Mircea-Ionut Teletin]

Hello,

I can answer for you from the top of my head for both issues.

The scene problem is actually something that Nest specifically requested from us to remove to be compliant. Can't do much about it if we want to have their support (which means access to their API that we all use to talk with the thermostat!). Same reason the other plugin went away from the store. We're closely collaborating with Nest to improve everything but for now this is a real limitation.

The other issue with min/max has to do with us. Right now we display Nest as a standard thermostat and we don't support yet min/max on the UI.
Internally the plugin actually sets those values as per Nest's API. This is a know issue and we have it on our list. We'll have to make UI improvements on our part (this also means our mobile apps and not just the web).

The min max value that we set are now fixed based on the temp you select and you can witness this on your Nest thermostat.

As a side note, for those of you that like to fiddle around in LUA code I'm sure you can spot the place where we do this and change it to your desires to change that envelope that now's fixed, it's not exactly rocket science.

If you have more questions I'm happy to answer them.

[mcvflorin]

We had to remove the old app at Nest's request, because it didn't meet their guidelines.

It's the same thing with the home/away device in a scene: Nest requires that the user is prompted when changing the Home/Away mode. Doing that in a scene is automated and the user can't be prompted, therefore we had to remove that option.

The one temp setting for Auto mode is a limitation of our UI. Currently, changing the setpoint while in Auto mode will set the lower temperature (the heat setpoint) to the shown setpoint -2, and the higher temperature (the cool setpoint) to the shown setpoint +2.

[Saltydogg]

Thank you both for the information.  In case it helps for the future I was using the home/away device for 2 scenarios:

1. The door I use daily is not visible to my thermostat, I had a scene set that if the thermostat was in auto-away/eco mode and the door opened it would change to home

2. If I set Vera to away it would set the Nest to away, keeping me from having to change the mode in 2 places

[vikejriw]

I just installed my new nest thermostat. Got he WWN app installed and authorized and got a thermostat showing up in the dashboard.
Now my issued is that I have scenes that run for night/morning/away/home. And i added a thermostat temp update for all of those modes and it does not seem to work.

For instance, at 10pm each I have a scene that trigger my vera to set night mode. In that scene with some other device actions I also tried to set Thermostat (the new device that showed up after installing/authorizing wwn app) to 62F. But that did not take into effect, meaning no temperature set change occured.
Anyone knows if this is a known issue or what can be done?

[beachboync]

I have been working with Vera tech support for a while now. The only thing that works for me is setting the temp. Modes and fan controls do not work. They are looking into it.

Bob

[Mircea-Ionut Teletin]

Hi guys, we'll be back with a short announcement in no time! I have great news!

[BigE-TX]

The new firmware would not run on my VeraPlus and support rolled me back.  I am in sales and work from home periodically on 2nd floor [far from the Nest] and it goes into Eco mode.
I'm creating a scene that checks for movement in my office aeon 4in1, checks temperature in my office [aeon 4in1]vs threshold, verifies the alarm system is off, & determines if Nest has rolled into Eco or energy savings mode [using the official Nest plugin].  If all the above happen, a scene [office2hot] runs and Nest is set to cool.  Verified this works no problem.   

Question or two:
Is it also possible to change it automatically so it also reduces the temperature by a default amount [say 1 or 2 degrees] by adding a Lua script into the scene?
I did see the following thread, but frankly am a bit confused with all the recent changes in firmware, removal of the old plug in and changes to the new plugin.
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,38570.msg307947.html#msg307947
And I'd rather not re-invent the wheel knowing this has likely been done with more current versions of firmware or Nest App api than August 2016 when the thread was last updated.  Thanks.

[tvipond]

Mircea-Ionut Teletin...the good news you were promising to release...any timing for this good news...or at the very minimum, some hints at what it might be?

As it sits right now, like many other people, the connection between my Vera and Nest is pretty much "view only", which pretty much defeats many peoples purposes of purchasing the said hardware.

[John M.]

@tvipond . What do you mean view only ? Nest should be fully controllable from Vera's web UI, and also from the iOS mobile app. There are indeed some limitations currently, on the Android mobile app but other than that Nest is integrated by manufacturer API and specs.


If you do have any particular issues or discovered any bugs, don't hesitate to involve our support team (see my signature)

[tvipond]

Unless I am missing something or some announcement, there is still a lack of availability to adequately control Nest with the scenes or programmatically. I have a simple timer scenario that turns off the airconditioner or heater when people arbitrarily leave doors and windows open and leave them open for a few minutes, and then return the system to it's previously operating mode once the doors and windows have been closed for a few minutes. This scenario has worked for literally years. Then I upgraded to your Nest Secure product and to my surprise, the only option to control Nest was your plugin...which, after reading everything I could find, I totally understand what Vera and Nest are doing and it will take time. I have tried everything I can to get a reliable setup but the majority of the time the Nest gets stuck in the OFF mode after windows and doors are closed because the Plugin is "Blocked"...assumably from too many other users attempting to use your app and bombarding the Nest servers. So, although I only am attempting to control the Nest ON / Off Function once or twice a day, I think the entire Plugin for all users is getting compromised for all users? Do all user activity get summed up and the total sum is used by Nest to determine whether to block activity? Or is the activity of a single user logged separately. The summing up of all user activity in my mind is the only thing that I can think of as to why I am blocked more than 95% of the time.

Sure, we can click the buttons on your Plugin and have the nest change, however, most people don't have smart home controllers so they can sit at a computer and click buttons. The intent is to automatically control things with scenes and programming.

[John M.]

@tvipond


From the description of your issue, you may be running a very old version of nest plugin /vera firmware. For example, the described "blocked" limitation was only during the beta phase of the plugin. Since then, Vera WWN has been officially approved by Nest and it should work by Nest specs. And yes, you should be able to automate through scenes, the heat/cooling/modes/on/off commands of the thermostat. If you're not sure about the version you are running or still having issues, don't hesitate to log a ticket with our support team, and I'm sure a solution will be found.