Learn about Seasonal Savings

Seasonal Savings can give your Nest thermostat’s temperature schedule a tune-up in the early winter and summer by automatically making small changes to some temperatures in your schedule to make them more efficient. 

What Seasonal Savings does

Seasonal Savings uses everything your thermostat has learned about your home and temperature preferences to find ways to save energy without compromising comfort.

When Seasonal Savings is adjusting temperatures, the changes it makes are subtle, just a fraction of a degree each day. Over the course of the entire tune-up period, the changes typically add up to about 2°F or 1°C. The biggest temperature adjustments usually happen while you’re asleep or away, so you may never even notice the changes made by Seasonal Savings. 

Like any good assistant, Seasonal Savings keeps you in control. So if you don’t like a temperature that it has set for you, you can change it - your thermostat will learn the new temperature and your comfort preferences.

Who can get Seasonal Savings

Seasonal Savings is available on Google Nest thermostats in the US and Canada, except for the province of Quebec.

Note: This feature is available on thermostats setup to use English (US) only. 

You need to have air conditioning to get summer Seasonal Savings and heating to take advantage of winter Seasonal Savings, and it’s only triggered once your device starts consistently heating or cooling. Seasonal Savings won’t necessarily be available for everyone, every season.

When Seasonal Savings will happen

Seasonal Savings becomes available early in the winter and summer seasons. Your Nest thermostat will only ask you if you'd like to use Seasonal Savings if it notices opportunities to make small schedule adjustments that could help save you energy while still keeping you comfortable. 

If Seasonal Savings can’t find those opportunities for you, or if your Nest thermostat doesn’t have enough temperatures in its temperature schedule, then Seasonal Savings won’t run for that season.

How Seasonal Savings notifies you

Before Seasonal Savings If it's available, you’ll get a notification on your thermostat and in the Google Home app or Nest app. Select Enable, and Seasonal Savings will start to slowly adjust your schedule for the next several days. If you have more than one thermostat, you’ll get a message for each thermostat that qualifies for Seasonal Savings, but you’ll just need to select Enable once.

During Seasonal Savings When Seasonal Savings is helping you save energy, a yellow gear icon with a leaf in the middle  appears. This will appear on your thermostat's screen and in the app. If you change the temperature while Seasonal Savings is running, the icon disappears. Seasonal Savings will learn from the change you made and update how it adjusts the temperature. While Seasonal Savings is running, there's a banner at the top of the Nest app in Energy History that informs you of its progress. Check your Energy History with the app to check which temperatures were adjusted by Seasonal Savings. Each temperature that Seasonal Savings has changed will have a gold ring around it.

After Seasonal Savings:

• You’ll get a notification after Seasonal Savings is complete to tell you that you’ll save energy for the rest of the season if you keep the Nest thermostat's schedule.
• If you have more than one thermostat that qualified for Seasonal Savings, you’ll get a separate message for each thermostat’s schedule.

What happens during Seasonal Savings

Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen)

If you don’t have a schedule, Seasonal Savings will create a basic schedule for you with your Comfort preset during the day and your Sleep preset at night. If available, your Sleep preset will be added based on your presence patterns. When creating a schedule, Seasonal Savings will also change the temperatures of your Comfort and Sleep presets to match commonly followed temperatures during the day and night respectively. 

Once your thermostat has a schedule, Seasonal Savings may make small adjustments to the preset temperatures in your schedule toward saving energy. Seasonal Savings only makes these adjustments if it thinks you may be comfortable at the new energy-saving temperature based on your temperature adjustments over the past few months. If Seasonal Savings determines that a recent change has made you uncomfortable, it will return the preset back to a comfortable temperature. Seasonal Savings waits for your thermostat to experience a new temperature before making another adjustment. For example, if Seasonal Savings lowers your heating target on a Winter Monday, then Tuesday and Wednesday are uncommonly warm and no heating is needed, Seasonal Savings will wait until after the new temperatures are experienced on Thursday before deciding whether to make another adjustment. 

This process ends under a few of conditions: the Seasonal Savings campaign reaches its scheduled end date, you manually stop the Seasonal Savings campaign via settings, you manually edit your temperature preset of which Seasonal Savings will stop editing it, or you delete your schedule, after which Seasonal Savings won’t recreate it.

What happens during Summer Seasonal Savings

Nest Thermostat, Nest Thermostat E, Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd gen or earlier)

In the early winter and early summer, Seasonal Savings looks for opportunities to save energy in your schedule. For instance, let’s say your thermostat has a simple temperature schedule that cools to 75°F (24°C) during the day and to 73°F (23°C) at night.

• First, Seasonal Savings can adjust the temperature when you’re not home – the daytime hours when everyone is at work or school. However, many people are home throughout the day, so if you don’t have a conventional “go to work” time, then Seasonal Savings won’t adjust cooling temperatures in the daytime.

• Second, Seasonal Savings will look at your “wake up” and “return home” times – the temperatures you set when you get out of bed or come home from work. If energy demand in your community regularly peaks, then Seasonal Savings may try to save more energy during these peak periods.

• Finally, Seasonal Savings can make small adjustments to your nighttime scheduled temperatures. We know staying cool at night is essential to comfortable sleep during warm summer weather, so changes at night will be the most subtle.

Many temperatures on your schedule may not change at all, and those that do should change so slowly and subtly that you’ll hopefully never notice them.

What happens during Winter Seasonal Savings

In the early winter, Seasonal Savings will take advantage of other opportunities to save energy in your thermostat’s temperature schedule. But it will prioritize how it saves a bit differently than how it does in summer by first trying to save during nighttime instead of during the day.

• First, Seasonal Savings will check if there’s room for improvement in your nighttime temperatures. 
  • This is often where most people get the biggest savings, with little to no effect on your comfort. 
  • Since these adjustments will come when you’re asleep, you may never even notice they’re happening.
  • If you don’t have a nighttime temperature, Seasonal Savings may create one for you.
• Next, Seasonal Savings may adjust your schedule if you go away regularly – for instance, to work. 
  • This is another time where Seasonal Savings may make bigger adjustments, since nobody is at home. 
  • If you’re usually home during the day, Seasonal Savings will make sure you stay comfortable. 
  • If energy demand in your community regularly peaks during any part of the day Seasonal Savings may adjust for savings during those periods.
• Lastly, Seasonal Savings may adjust the temperatures when you’re home, but these adjustments will be more subtle to ensure you stay comfortable. Some temperatures on your schedule may not change at all.

What to do if you're uncomfortable

If you don’t like an adjustment Seasonal Savings has made, you have a few options. 

• Change the temperature in the Google Home app, Nest app, or your thermostat. Your thermostat will learn from your adjustments and change its behavior. 
  • So if Seasonal Savings sets temperatures 2°F (1.5°C) lower, and you turn it up, then your Nest thermostat will know to make more subtle changes next week.
• You can also edit your thermostat’s temperature schedule for a more permanent change. 
• Or you can turn off Seasonal Savings. Check the section below for more details.

How to turn off Seasonal Savings

You’re always in control. If you don’t want to use Seasonal Savings, you can turn it off anytime.

• When you receive the Seasonal Savings notification
  • If you don’t want to participate, you can choose No Thanks to opt out of the program altogether. 
• If you’ve already enabled Seasonal Savings, you can manually override temperature adjustments or stop Seasonal Savings altogether.
  • To manually override temperature adjustments, change the temperature on your thermostat or in your schedule. 
    • The Seasonal Savings icon will disappear and won’t appear again until Seasonal Savings makes another temperature adjustment.
    • If you have a temperature schedule set enabled, then Seasonal Savings will use your adjustments to find new, more comfortable tweaks to your schedule.
    • To stop using Seasonal Savings 
      • Nest app
        1. Open the Nest app.
        2. Tap your thermostat and select History . 
        3. If Seasonal Savings is running, you can check how many days remain and a Stop button.
      • Home app
        1. Open the Google Home app .
        2. Tap Favorites or Devices .
        3. Tap your thermostat and select Schedules.
        4. If Seasonal Savings is active, there will be a notification. Tap Learn More.
        5. Tap Leave Seasonal Savings.

Important: If you opt out or turn Seasonal Savings off, you won’t be able to opt-in to the program again until the next season it becomes available.