Could Insteon interfere with Nest thermostats?

[saphotoexpress]

I've spent easily 15+ hours with Nest support trying to resolve connectivity issues and their senior support  techs are stumped.  The only thing really unusual about my house is my Insteon system, so I'm starting to wonder if the devices might be interfering with the thermostats connectivity.  

Here's the background info:

I have 2 Gen 3's and a E Nest therm in my house for a total of 3 thermostats.  All 3 Nest thermostats randomly show offline in the Nest app.  Sometimes, when all 3 are offline, the "home" in the nest app shows offline.  If I walk over to one of the thermostats, the motion sensor on the therm wakes them up and they usually/eventually will show back up in the Nest app.  It seems like the thermostats go to sleep and go offline, when I wake them up manually, they eventually/usually show back up online.  Nest wifi and thermostat support has had me try everything they can think of.  I even replaced my Linksys Velop 3 node mesh router system with a google Nest wifi with 3 access points and the issues continue. 

We all agree that the thermostats seem to be functioning correctly, they just don't wake up on my network and that creates a connectivity issue. 

I've got lots of tech in my house and everything has worked fine on my old Linksys setup and the new google Nest wifi network.  I'm running all sorts of tech, August smart locks, Ring door bells, sonos, Arlo cams, printers, computers, phones and everything but the thermostats work fine on the old and the new network. 

So I'm wondering, could it be my Insteon system?  Could it be the Insteon devices?  Could it be the RF signals from Insteon devices?

I have an ISY994i Pro with many wall switches, signal boosters/bridges, irrigation, and gate relay's.  I'm posting on this forum as a last effort to see if anyone has any ideas on how to resolve this.  If I can't get past it, then I probably need to ebay the thermostats and switch to ecobee or other.
 

Thanks.

[Teken]

I've spent easily 15+ hours with Nest support trying to resolve connectivity issues and their senior support  techs are stumped.  The only thing really unusual about my house is my Insteon system, so I'm starting to wonder if the devices might be interfering with the thermostats connectivity.  
Here's the background info:
I have 2 Gen 3's and a E Nest therm in my house for a total of 3 thermostats.  All 3 Nest thermostats randomly show offline in the Nest app.  Sometimes, when all 3 are offline, the "home" in the nest app shows offline.  If I walk over to one of the thermostats, the motion sensor on the therm wakes them up and they usually/eventually will show back up in the Nest app.  It seems like the thermostats go to sleep and go offline, when I wake them up manually, they eventually/usually show back up online.  Nest wifi and thermostat support has had me try everything they can think of.  I even replaced my Linksys Velop 3 node mesh router system with a google Nest wifi with 3 access points and the issues continue. 
We all agree that the thermostats seem to be functioning correctly, they just don't wake up on my network and that creates a connectivity issue. 
I've got lots of tech in my house and everything has worked fine on my old Linksys setup and the new google Nest wifi network.  I'm running all sorts of tech, August smart locks, Ring door bells, sonos, Arlo cams, printers, computers, phones and everything but the thermostats work fine on the old and the new network. 
So I'm wondering, could it be my Insteon system?  Could it be the Insteon devices?  Could it be the RF signals from Insteon devices?
I have an ISY994i Pro with many wall switches, signal boosters/bridges, irrigation, and gate relay's.  I'm posting on this forum as a last effort to see if anyone has any ideas on how to resolve this.  If I can't get past it, then I probably need to ebay the thermostats and switch to ecobee or other.
 
Thanks.

Easy, kill the breakers to the entire home minus the TSTAT.

[simplextech]

12 minutes ago, Teken said:

Easy, kill the breakers to the entire home minus the TSTAT.

And the router and access points and internet access device (cable modem, dsl modem, whatever) You may have to shuffle some things around or isolate.

 

[Teken]

And the router and access points and internet access device (cable modem, dsl modem, whatever) You may have to shuffle some things around or isolate.
 

Trying to be short and brief!

[auger66]

No, Nests are wifi and Insteon is not--even very different frequencies. Above cb suggestions are a good idea. If the Nests start working, turn one cb on at a time to help isolate the problem.

I have one gen 3 Nest thermostat, four gen 2 Nest smoke detectors, and all Insteon for everything else. I've never had a communication problem in my current location, or the one before with a similar setup. And I live in a dense urban area with lots of rf flying around.

The one thing that may be different about mine is I never setup a Google account because I use the Polyglot Nest2 nodeserver.

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, saphotoexpress said:

I've spent easily 15+ hours with Nest support trying to resolve connectivity issues and their senior support  techs are stumped.  The only thing really unusual about my house is my Insteon system, so I'm starting to wonder if the devices might be interfering with the thermostats connectivity.  

Here's the background info:

I have 2 Gen 3's and a E Nest therm in my house for a total of 3 thermostats.  All 3 Nest thermostats randomly show offline in the Nest app.  Sometimes, when all 3 are offline, the "home" in the nest app shows offline.  If I walk over to one of the thermostats, the motion sensor on the therm wakes them up and they usually/eventually will show back up in the Nest app.  It seems like the thermostats go to sleep and go offline, when I wake them up manually, they eventually/usually show back up online.  Nest wifi and thermostat support has had me try everything they can think of.  I even replaced my Linksys Velop 3 node mesh router system with a google Nest wifi with 3 access points and the issues continue. 

We all agree that the thermostats seem to be functioning correctly, they just don't wake up on my network and that creates a connectivity issue. 

I've got lots of tech in my house and everything has worked fine on my old Linksys setup and the new google Nest wifi network.  I'm running all sorts of tech, August smart locks, Ring door bells, sonos, Arlo cams, printers, computers, phones and everything but the thermostats work fine on the old and the new network. 

So I'm wondering, could it be my Insteon system?  Could it be the Insteon devices?  Could it be the RF signals from Insteon devices?

I have an ISY994i Pro with many wall switches, signal boosters/bridges, irrigation, and gate relay's.  I'm posting on this forum as a last effort to see if anyone has any ideas on how to resolve this.  If I can't get past it, then I probably need to ebay the thermostats and switch to ecobee or other.
 

Thanks.

Insteons rf is a completely different frequency than your thermostats so I highly doubt it would interfere. I'd look at other wifi based devices in your home causing problems on your network

[larryllix]

Bad RF devices can put out any frequency noise and interfere with other systems.

How can a powerline frequency, at 60Hz, interfere with radio reception at 550KHz to 1650 KHz? Easy. I have seen it blank out all radio reception for almost a mile radius by having a bad connection on a pole switch.

[lilyoyo1]

44 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Bad RF devices can put out any frequency noise and interfere with other systems.

How can a powerline frequency, at 60Hz, interfere with radio reception at 550KHz to 1650 KHz? Easy. I have seen it blank out all radio reception for almost a mile radius by having a bad connection on a pole switch.

If this was the case with insteon, I would think he would be having issues with other wifi based devices in addition to the insteon system itself.

[saphotoexpress]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I think I will first try setting up my older Linksys and just adding the thermostats to that network.  If the issue goes away, I will 1 by 1 add back each of my other wifi devices and see if the issue follows one of those devices.  

If the thermostats have issues all by themselves on the Linksys network, then I will try killing breakers.  I'll report back once I have more info.

[keepersg]

The only other thought I have about this:  Could it be a power issue to the thermostats?  The Nest's have a battery that recharges by 'stealing' power from the HVAC system.  I had this problem on one Nest (I have 6) when it couldn't obtain adequate power until I rewired it.  It would go to sleep like you describe and wake up when approached.  When the HVAC system was heating there would be power to recharge the battery but periods of inactivity would cause the symptoms.  It's been years ago that I encountered and fixed this so I don't remember the details.  Would have to check my notes.

[larryllix]

56 minutes ago, keepersg said:

The only other thought I have about this:  Could it be a power issue to the thermostats?  The Nest's have a battery that recharges by 'stealing' power from the HVAC system.  I had this problem on one Nest (I have 6) when it couldn't obtain adequate power until I rewired it.  It would go to sleep like you describe and wake up when approached.  When the HVAC system was heating there would be power to recharge the battery but periods of inactivity would cause the symptoms.  It's been years ago that I encountered and fixed this so I don't remember the details.  Would have to check my notes.

Good point! But it should be the opposite. The thermostats steal power from the 24vac wiring when the contacts are open, not calling for any HVAC and there is voltage across the open contact. When you have extreme weather (winter) the contacts may be mostly/always closed and no battery charge can be "stolen".

Now when you walk up to the stat, it lights up, and requires more energy from the dead battery and dies/disconnects. Now the WiFi would have to reconnect and with all the signal protocol interaction may die again with a weak battery.

@saphotoexpressthis brings up more troubleshooting questions.
- how old are your Nest batteries?
- are your stats wired with a common wire (to the C connection) for full 24vac power, or "power stealers"? "Black Wires Matter"

Edited February 6, 2021 by larryllix

[keepersg]

Yes, that's right.  Had that reversed in my post.  The Nest that was problematic did not have enough wires to it for the common.  I fixed it by rewiring which was something of a pain.

[nadler]

It's funny that you mention this.  For the last week or so I have had the exact same issue with my Gen 3 nest thermo. That thermo has problems updating from the nest app, alexa and google.  I also have 2 gen 2 stats but they exhibit this behavior to a lesser extent.   They all eventually work, but not like they used to.  When I approach a stat it awakes and shortly thereafter it works.  I also noticed that the Google Home app works more reliably and faster then the google/Nest app of late.  I have tried many problem solving techniques including linking and unlinking from skills, apps etc.  I've used different apps to test the signal strength at the thermo and it's 83% so that's not a problem.

My conclusion was (and is) something changed on Nest's end and that is what is causing the issues for both of us.  Please let us know if you find a resolution.

[saphotoexpress]

2 minutes ago, nadler said:

It's funny that you mention this.  For the last week or so I have had the exact same issue with my Gen 3 nest thermo. That thermo has problems updating from the nest app, alexa and google.  I also have 2 gen 2 stats but they exhibit this behavior to a lesser extent.   They all eventually work, but not like they used to.  When I approach a stat it awakes and shortly thereafter it works.  I also noticed that the Google Home app works more reliably and faster then the google/Nest app of late.  I have tried many problem solving techniques including linking and unlinking from skills, apps etc.  I've used different apps to test the signal strength at the thermo and it's 83% so that's not a problem.

My conclusion was (and is) something changed on Nest's end and that is what is causing the issues for both of us.  Please let us know if you find a resolution.

I’ve had the issue from day 1 with my first Gen 3. I think I’ve had it a couple of years. I continued purchasing the other units because I was sure I would get past the issue. Seems like a dad idea now?

I’ll try and work on it this weekend and will post something after that. 

[larryllix]

A few on my sons got Nest stats when they were being hyped up, and had battery problems at first. Nest support told them to open the cover and connect a USB cable to some port inside and charge up the battery to get them going again.

[saphotoexpress]

I ended up setting up a guest network with internet being the only shared resource and the offline issues continue.  I'm going to replace them with Ecobee and put them on ebay.

[keepersg]

Hope that works.  MIght try replacing just one to see if the problem is cured.