Troubleshoot phone location for iOS

The Nest app will ask you to update your phone’s settings if there’s something you can do to improve how Home/Away Assist works for you. Here’s more information and how to change your phone’s settings.

Home/Away Assist regularly checks your phone or tablet
settings to help make sure that your home switches between
Home and Away as accurately as possible. If it sees that you
can change a setting to make it work better, it will let you know
by showing you the Phone location screen when you open the
Nest app. You’ll see a customized list of up to three things that
you should change on your iPhone or iPad. Be sure to change the
suggested settings, but you may also want to check all the
settings below if you haven’t already.

           How Home/Away Assist uses your phone’s location >

Note: The Nest app will only show you the Phone location
screen no more than once a week so you don’t get bugged every
time you need to use the app.

 Nest app iOS update phone location settings . image.

If you don’t want to change your settings, you can set Home/Away Assist to not use your phone’s location. On the Nest app home screen, tap the Settings icon in the top right corner, then select Home/Away Assist.

Here are the things to check on your iPhone or iPad, and how to change them. The links below will take you to Apple’s support website for more detailed information.

1. Turn off Airplane mode

Airplane mode can help save battery charge since it
disables Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth, but you may
have forgotten to turn it off. Open Control Center and
make sure the airplane icon is not highlighted.

        Using airplane mode on iOS >

2. Turn on Wi-Fi

This is one of the most important settings because it
can affect Home/Away Assist accuracy so much.
Make sure the Wi-Fi icon is highlighted in Control
Center. You can also open Settings to turn Wi-Fi on.

3. Turn on cellular data

Open Settings and select Cellular. Make sure the
Cellular data switch is green to show that it’s set to
on. This will help ensure your home switches as quickly
as possible when you leave or come back.

Important: If you have also turned off Data Roaming
to prevent additional charges, Home/Away Assist
won’t be able to use cellular information when your
phone switches cell networks outside of your coverage
area.

       About cellular data settings >

 iOS airplane mode cellular data phone image.

 

4. Set Location Services to On

In Settings go to Privacy and select Location Services.
Check that it says on.

 iOS privacy location services phone image.

 

5. Set Nest app settings

In addition to general iPhone and iPad settings, each
app you have installed has individual settings that you
may also need to change. Go to Settings and scroll
down until you see the list of your installed apps. Select
the Nest app and check these settings.

Set Location Services to Always

Each app on your iPhone or iPad that uses Location
Services has an individual setting. This should be set
to Always for the Nest app. This will let the Nest app
switch your home between Home and Away modes
even if you don’t have the Nest app open.

Enable Background App Refresh

The Nest app needs Background App Refresh turned
on for Home/Away Assist to work.

Enable Cellular Data

This is an essential setting to have on. Turn this on to
make sure the Nest app can switch your home when
you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection.

 iOS set nest app settings phone image.

 

6. Restart the Nest app

In some cases force quitting the Nest app can disable Home/Away Assist. If you notice that your home isn’t switching between Home and Away modes when it should after force quitting, simply quit the app and restart it.

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