Nest Thermostat Batteries LOW on a new ORBI AX setup

[FURRYe38]

Current readings on my 3rd gen NEST:

This is up from 3.71 from last nite when I made the changes. 

[Bosjoe65]

Now I have 1 thermostat.  The device I linked is similiar. At the thermostat they have you a wire that converts it 2 wires. At the controller they have a box about the same size as the power connector from nest. The video they have shows how to do it. took me less then 15 mins. The other options you have if you have a 4 wire system you can remove the fan control wire and use that for your constant power. The fan control wire on my system just controls the fan if you just want to circulate the air without ac or heat. It totally woked that way for me too, but we wanted to keep the option of running just the fan once in awhile. 

As you mention 2 thermostats, you would have to read on the reviews. you might have to buy two. Honestly this has worked great after pulling my hair out for a week trying to find out what was going on after adding the new Orbs to replace my old ones. Never thought it was the new orbs causing the issue till I searched it out. 

[FURRYe38]

My one 2nd Gen NEST has never had a problem with Orbi AX. Only the 3rd Gen NEST. 

[turbojimmy2]

I went back to the defaults. I'll have to download the v223 beta and try it.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

What channels and values are you using? 

Do you have the v223 beta loaded? If so, give my settings a try and see. Try power at 100% on yours however change channels and CT

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[FURRYe38]

Try 2347 on v223...Let us know.

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@turbojimmy2 wrote:

I went back to the defaults. I'll have to download the v223 beta and try it.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

What channels and values are you using? 

Do you have the v223 beta loaded? If so, give my settings a try and see. Try power at 100% on yours however change channels and CT

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[FURRYe38]

If my NEST keeps working, I'll revert my changes back to 64 and 25% and see if I see the voltage drop on the NEST. If it does, then I would presume that maybe most of the cause is the CTS value. 

[FURRYe38]

@turbojimmy2 

So just FYI, something I noticed this past week ever since I setup another Orbi system in my house and it's main router at my desk. Two other RBS located in the bedroom downstairs and the other in the room were the NEST is mounted on the entrance to this room. Even though running far different channels on this other Orbi system and running at 25% lower power, I noticed this 3rd Gen NEST started dropping battery power. After I turned OFF the RBS in this room near the 3rd GEN NEST, the battery maintained power levels, however got low enough, it seemed to slowly drain down to where it reported low battery. I recharged the NEST up again last nite and it was at 3.74v at 10pm and checking a few minutes ago, it still at 3.74v. Wondering if 3rd gen NESTs are impacted by other wifi signal noise. I had first noticed that after I made the change to CTS to 2347 and channel 11 and 48. I had my RBR50 online at at desk and removed it from service and put a SXR30 series online. After I had played with this and got it up and running on channel 1 and 36, after an hour of messing around with this and adding it's satellites, I checked the NEST and found the volts had dropped and that very same night it reported low battery and fell off the connection to the Orbi 8 series. Wondering if 3rd GEN NEST are more sensitive with wifi signals. I may swap NEST locations with my 2nd gen downstairs in the bedroom and see if the problem follows. Really starting to hate these controllers. But they work well with other MESH systems including my RBK50. 

[FURRYe38]

Hey @turbojimmy2 

What is the distance between your RBR and NEST controller(s)??

I found something with mine. Normal distance between my 3rd gen NEST and any router placement where I keep mine is about 4-5 feet in between. I noticed that when I moved my RBR850 over to my desk thats about 25-30 feet away, the NEST connected here, the controller has been to spec on voltages and has not dropped any since I moved the RBR850 farther away. 

I also noticed that my SXR30 router that was put in the normal place thats close to the NEST controller also causes the NEST to loose power and eventually see the low battery. I'm wondering if there is a problem with NEST being too close to wifi signals or at least, too close to Orbi AX systems. What bothers me is that other non Orbi AX systems and Orbi AC RBK50 placed in same close location near this controller doesn't cause this problem. I only see this with the Orbi RBK8 series and SXK30 series in this location. 

[turbojimmy2]

One Nest is about 15 feet from the RBR. The other is about 20 feet from the RBS. The one 15 feet away does die faster. The one near the RBS lives longer now that I put the RBS further away from it.

Still, the only sure way to fix it for me was to put the Nest thermostats on their own, non-Orbi WiFi network. Voltage has been consistently 3.87-3.88 on both of them.

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

Hey @turbojimmy2 

What is the distance between your RBR and NEST controller(s)??

I found something with mine. Normal distance between my 3rd gen NEST and any router placement where I keep mine is about 4-5 feet in between. I noticed that when I moved my RBR850 over to my desk thats about 25-30 feet away, the NEST connected here, the controller has been to spec on voltages and has not dropped any since I moved the RBR850 farther away. 

I also noticed that my SXR30 router that was put in the normal place thats close to the NEST controller also causes the NEST to loose power and eventually see the low battery. I'm wondering if there is a problem with NEST being too close to wifi signals or at least, too close to Orbi AX systems. What bothers me is that other non Orbi AX systems and Orbi AC RBK50 placed in same close location near this controller doesn't cause this problem. I only see this with the Orbi RBK8 series and SXK30 series in this location. 

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[FURRYe38]

Ok. Not sure if this is a problem with these 3rd GEN NEST at some closer distances or combination of distance and Orbi AX FW. 

Since I moved the RBR850 over to my desk, the NEST has been stable at 3.86volts. I'm going to let it run into the weekend.

I'll send this info to NG. 

Please try as far as possible between the RBR/RBS and NEST if you can. 25-30 feet. 

Thanks for the feedback. 

[FURRYe38]

@turbojimmy2 

Just FYI, past couple of weeks I have tested my 3rd gen NEST connected to the RBR850 and a SXR30 while located at my desk 25-30 feet away from where the NEST is located. Both routers and distance seem to not impact the NEST battery levels. I do noticed that when I'm fiddling around with wifi signals or bringing RBS online afterwards, the NEST battery level seems to be effected some, however once everything is left alone, the NEST and battery stablizes. As of this past weekend I swapped in my 8 series at my desk for the 30 series router and the NEST has been connected to it and battery is stable. I thought I saw a minor drop yesterday in battery voltage at 3.77v however checking today it's at 3.86v. Have seen no low batteries when at this distance. I did have to do a reset on the NEST and setup from scratch as I had seen low batteries after a day or two and forgot that something caused the NEST to disconnect from the router at my desk and reconenct to the router nearest the NEST thus would cause the low battery to be seen. After I reset the NEST fully to forget all prior SSID profiles, the NEST has remained connected to the router at my desk and seems to work well. NG has also mentioned some duty cycle information regarding NEST activity during the day and controlling the environment. Were looking into this for additional information. Not sure where this duty cycle information is on NEST. Will find out. However just from these simple distance configurations and working between two different Orbi AX systems, just seems that if the RBR is too close to the NEST, some unknown processes are causing the battery to drain. If at 25-30 feet from the NEST, the battery doesn't seem effected. Only seems to be with Orbi AX systems also. Orbi AC system doesn't see this. 

I've also looked into the C wire and luckily we had installed the extra wire cabling for the thermostats so eventually, we will be connecting the NESTs to this wired and should no longer have this problem. http://support-assets.nest.com/images/pro-faq/Nest-Pro-Installer-Guide.pdf 

I have one more wifi router system to check before hand. 

[philsheng]

I’m still having the same issue. I have disconnected Nest Thermo from router to prevent the battery drain but now cannot control it remotely. No fix from Netgear??

[turbojimmy2]

Unfortunately the only real fix is not to use the Nest thermostat with the Orbi. I don't know whether it's a Nest issue or Netgear issue or both but they're not going to fix it. I tried all of the suggestions here only to end in frustration. And I needlessly spent $$ on the Nest power supplies.

I dug out my old WiFi router and set up a separate network connected to the Orbi. Connected the thermostats to this new WifFi network. Problem solved.

[philsheng]

Thanks. That’s certainly frustrating. The thermo was working fine with my Orbi setup for a while so I set up my entire property with the Orbi ecosystem. Really disappointed reading all these posts going back over a year and still no resolution.

[philsheng]

So you were able to connect an old wifi router to the Orbi and no issue with battery drain? So old wifi router connected via Ethernet cable to the back of the Orbi with a different SSID, and connecting thermo to old wifi router?

[FURRYe38 · Accepted solution]

No. 

Only thing I found was that with mine, being so close to the RBR, 5 feet, was having problems with the NEST. I found that when I moved the RBR away from the one NEST controller, 20-25 feet, the NEST controller started working with out draining the battery. Also was said that this is also a NEST controller issue as well that NEST needs to fix it on there side as these controllers ping pong back and forth on there own when there is more than 1 signal source in play, i.e. RBR and 1 or 2 RBS. Its also recommemeded to install the C power wire to your NEST from the main central AC system to help avoid the battery draining. You'll need to consult your systems mfr wiring diagram to find out which connection that is. 

[Bosjoe65]

My solution has worked. It's on the previous page by adding an adapter. If your handy, mine has had no issues since July. It is crazy a whole year and not a simple fix, especially for people who just want plug and play solution without going through all these hoops, to make it work

[turbojimmy2]

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@philsheng wrote:
So you were able to connect an old wifi router to the Orbi and no issue with battery drain? So old wifi router connected via Ethernet cable to the back of the Orbi with a different SSID, and connecting thermo to old wifi router?

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Correct. That solved the problem for me.

[philsheng]

Thanks. Annoying but simple enough solution until Netgear figures it out.

[FURRYe38]

Contact NG support to let them know. 

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@philsheng wrote:
Thanks. Annoying but simple enough solution until Netgear figures it out.

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[Shadowgent]

Another solution that might work for some...

I was about to follow the (unfortunate) solution to use a seperate router and SSID.   However, on a whim I decided to enable the Guest network on the Orbi AX and use that exclusively for the Nest.  I'm about 1 week into this approach and so far I've had zero problems; the Nest thermostat has been online 100% of the time and battery voltage has been consistently 3.8+ volts!  Way more convenient and cheaper than a separate router, so give it a try and perhaps it'll work for others.  

[philsheng]

Wooohhh..  OK, so you created a guest network on the Orbi with a different SSID and password and no issues so far?!  Super easy...  I had just ordered a crap router off Amazon but will try this and return if it works!  

[FURRYe38]

I also found the distance between the RBR/RBS is important as well. Having them too close to the NEST controllers seems to make the controllers bounce from signal to signal. I found that 20-25 feet or more seems to be needed. I had moved my RBR from it's normal location to my desk which is 25 feet or more from my 3rd gen NEST controller, after this, NEST remained connected and saw no more LOW Battery messages. Also the other solution is to connect the NEST to the AC systems C-wire connection for NEST power and fully elliminate the problem all together! 

[Shadowgent]

Exactly!  Perhaps the Nest somehow loses voltage when it's competing with the umpteen other devices on the main SSID, so the separate SSID (albeit still on the Orbi AX) solves the problem?  Who knows.  

Good luck.  Let us know if it works for you...

[FURRYe38]

Yes thats whats happening as was explained to me. For some reason, NEST can't lock on 1 signal, seems to get confused by all the different singals coming from the RBR and or RBS. I guess being too close to the RBR or RBS doesn't help either. Part of this problem lays at the feet of Google too.