Nest Gets Better with Home/Away Assist
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Nest Gets Better with Home/Away Assist

Alphabet (nee Google) keeps making its Nest home automation products better, and now they've added a couple of new features that will help us a lot. (We only have a Nest Thermostat right now, but a Nest Cam or two for security would be nice in the future.)

First, they now let you add multiple family members to your Nest account so they can adjust the thermostat or other Nest products without having to use your login credentials. This wouldn't be a huge change for us as I don't care if Melanie has my login for this, but it's the way it works with the other new feature that makes it nice.

The way the Nest has worked is that it adjusted temps by learning your heating/cooling schedule from how you set it manually and when you leave the house. But if you're a stay-at-home mom, like Melanie is, you don't leave the house on a regular schedule.

So what Nest does is ask for permission to track whether your phone is in the house (presumably by whether it's on the same WiFi network as the Nest) and if it's not it sets to Away. But it can track multiple phones for everyone in your family, so when I leave for work it doesn't set to Away, but when Melanie goes out for a field trip or shopping, then it will. Likewise, it can turn on a Nest Cam when she leaves and off when she comes back. It will even adjust your Hue lights or other home automation gear made to work with Nest. Spiffy.

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