The issue is prompting Google to replace the thermostats totally if other regular troubleshooting fails because some Nest owners can no longer operate the devices remotely. The "w5 error," which affects the company's thermostats remotely, first appeared on Nest forums in November of last year and has since received over 200 answers.

The Nest thermostat's primary selling feature is its ability to let you adjust the temperature of your home while you're away from the actual thermostat or out of the house. Even though you may still manually change the device's temperature, this makes it a somewhat major problem. Google claims to be aware of the issue and is now providing replacements to device users who are unable to resolve it with a basic reset.

Fix Google thermostats not working

"A known issue with the Wi-Fi chip that affects remote connectivity is being experienced by a very small number of Nest thermostat customers, according to the manufacturer. The user's ability to control the thermostat remotely is impacted, but the thermostat's capacity to regulate the customer's heating and cooling system in the home is unaffected, a Google spokeswoman tells The Verge. Users are prompted to contact customer support for assistance and will be given a new device if this error cannot be fixed through troubleshooting.

It's still unclear where the problem originated. The Wi-Fi chip on the device was allegedly disabled by a recent update, according to some users in the discussion posts, but Google itself has not confirmed this. In any case, the firm is minimising the seriousness of the w5 problem by claiming that regular troubleshooting can resolve it, whereas in actuality it sounds as though some devices are just broken today and cannot utilise one of Nest's defining characteristics. Given that a thermostat is not normally something you want to malfunction, the fact that Google had to completely repair some of these thermostats raises some red flags.

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