Please read before you buy Nest Gen 3.

 I had Nest Gen 2 since Aug 2013. No failures at all. I did not bother with self learning mode.

5 years later in Aug 2018, I decided to replace it with Nest Gen 3 and 3 sensors to better control the temperature in my house. 2yr warranty.

Mar 29 2019 Battery stopped charging.

Mar 31 2019 Google shipped Nest replacement. I received it in 2 days and shipped the bad unit immediately. I kept getting reminders that they did not receive the return even though I had proof that it was delivered. Finally they acknowledged the receipt of return on Apr 22nd.

Aug 29 2020 11pm. I saw that Nest was offline on the App on my phone. I went and saw that it was not connecting to wifi. Battery was low. According to instructions from the previous experience of bad battery, I charged it not for 1hr but 9hrs using micro USB and at 8am next morning battery was only 3.75V which was supposed to be enough to connect to Wifi. The unit would not see any wifi networks including hot spot on my phone inches away. Apparently Nes gen 3 has a known issue of failure in wifi chip on top of draining battery.

Aug 30th Sun 4pm. I received return label for the bad unit and I was promised a replacement to be shipped in 1 business day. Warranty was expiring on that day! They took another week to let me choose how I want the replacement. 1. Return the bad unit and wait till they receive it and then they would ship a replacement. Note that it took them 3 weeks after I shipped the bad unit for them to receive and then few more days to get replacement. 2. Ask for Advance Exchange and they would send me a link to order replacement unit for $190 at put a hold on my Google Pay account to that extent. I asked for Advance exchange. They took another week to send me a link to order using Advance exchange and then another week for me to receive the replacement unit. The return is expected by Sep 23rd back at Google and I have no idea when they will actually remove the hold on my Google Pay account based on previous experience when I get too many reminders to return the bad unit if though I did immediately.

No replacement shipped even by Friday Sep 4th. We had 3 days of 110 deg weather forecast Sat to Mon. I went to Home Depot and bought Nest gen 3 and it was working perfectly. I asked Google if they can give me credit for the unit I bought. They would not.

Sep 19th I received the replacement unit from Google and warranty would be extended for 90 days.

I returned the unit I bought at Home Depot because Google asked me to "work with the retailer".

If you do not use the so called learning capability of Nest you have other choices from real thermostat manufacturer Honeywell Lyric T5+ if you do not need additional room sensors. It $70 cheaper than Nest gen 3. There is Honeywell with 1 remote sensor $200 and 2 more sensors can be added for $65 vs $220 for Nest Gen 3 and 3 pack of sensors for $100. $320.

There is also Ecobee and I know people who are very satisfied with Ecobee and Honeywell. If my Nest gen 3 dies after 90 days, it will be replaced by Honeywell.

Summary: Google Nest has reliability as well as very poor support and you have other choices now.

One final thing I did not really with any support from Google. A 24V transformer connected between C and Rh provides 200mA to keep the unit always powered rather than depend on 20 or 40mA provided if you do not have C wire connected. There are other ways to connect C wire you can find on youtube.

Also, you can find videos on youtube how to replace the battery on Nest. I ordered one. You get the idea? If you buy Nest, better be prepared to fix it yourself or just by some other brand.

Hopefully we will come out stronger after Corona Virus. We all can do a lot.

Governments:

1. Hopefully realize that the old saying health is wealth. Health of people is as important as the borders and security of the country.
2. Important to health is climate/environment, quality of food which can prevent diseases.
3. Healthcare must not be linked to job so that people are free to change jobs without concern for medical care as it is in the US.
4. 24/7 Internet is as important as electricity as proven by the need and ability of the people to work without overcrowding cities and creating the need for huge office space.

Large Corporations:

1. Identify the most productive employees who did better working from home than in the office.
    Allow them to work from home and save office space and cost. Ensure that all employees who can work remotely are trained and ask that they work from home for 1 day a week and save on office space. Provide ergonomic furniture to employees working from home. Pay for high speed internet at home.
2. Identify suppliers closer to the demand and use more than one supplier in different geographical regions to avoid supply chain disruption.
3. Conserve cash and cut back stock buyback and give bonus dividend based on profits but not increase or decrease regular dividend to encourage share holders to hold stock.
4. Increase Hygiene and continue to maintain more social distance than earlier.
5. Replace landlines with cell phones for all employees and use wifi onsite.

Small Businesses:

1. Focus as much as possible on delivery or takeout and save retail space.
2. Make hygiene and health of employees higher priority. Offer more sick time in exchange for working remotely or coming to work during peak requirements.
3. Follow as much as possible what the large companies are doing.
4. Where there are a series of restaurants one the same street, create a common outdoor and indoor dining area as in a food court in a mall which can be smaller than the total outdoor and indoor dining space in each restaurant. That saves on rental cost and utilities. Some supplies for takeout and paper napkins, salt, pepper, sauces can be bought in bulk in Individual packs. Linen can be also handled in bulk.

Individual Employees:

1. Set aside time and space to work from home and maintain hygiene.
2. Prepare meals at home from simple ingredients instead of ordering food or buying frozen dinner to cut costs and eat healthier.
3. Dress as if going to work to be presentable on video conference even to customers.

People in General:

1. Follow as much as possible from above.
2. Depend less on disposable supplies and cleaning supplies.
3. Maintain more social distance than earlier.
4. Get to know your neighbors. We need each other more than we think.
5. Minimize shopping trips and trips to doctor's office by using online services.
6. If you have 401k account, realize that now is the best time contribute max by cutting costs
    - Buy a decent certified used car good enough for local driving and reduce loan.
    - Make your coffee at home, pack lunch. Socialize at a coffee shop instead of dinner.
 
Colleges and Universities:

1. Offer more classes online and cut costs in classrooms, facilities on campus.

Students:

1. Unless labs is required, enroll in as many online classes as possible and see if at least 1 yr of 4yr college can be from home. Use the savings to create proper ergonomic space to study at home.

Very difficult to buy a Tesla Certified car

3 days ago on Friday morning at about 9AM I saw 2 Tesla certified cars about 400 miles away. There was no phone number to call. Only 2 choices.

1 pay a deposit
2 Request a call back with your name, email address and phone number.

I had questions and so I submitted a request for call back.

As of now, no acknowledgement even by email that I wanted call back. No call back.

Is this typical?

Here is update. At about Noon on Monday I received a voice mail regarding the car. By then I had my car repaired and I was wondering if I should delay buying another car given the slow response by Tesla and new models such as Ford Mach E, Rivian R1s looking very attractive.

On Wednesday night almost 4 full working days from the time I contacted Tesla, I received email with phone number to contact.

As a sharp contrast, when I bought Lexus certified car last time, I saw the car was available 1hr away. Called at 9AM on a Saturday. Paid cash and drove home the car by lunch time. In this case if Tesla answered on phone all my questions on Friday morning and followed up with email immediately, I could have flown on Friday and if I liked the car, I would have driven back 6 hr 400 miles.

Is your Vizio smart TV suddenly turning on at night?

My setup was Vizio M 558 TV and Onkyo Avr TX-NR-626.

I enabled ARC only on the Vizio TV. Connected a Roku box, a bluray player to the TV.
On the Onkyo Avr I had to enable CEC AND ARC AUTO.

TV was suddenly turning On at random during the day or night. I called Vizio support and the only suggestion was to toggle power mode from Eco to Quck Sar and back to Eco. It did not help.

I found out that using chromecast built into Vizio or linking Vizio to Google Home requires power mode to be Quick Start.

Now there is no random turn On of the TV.