Learn about the Nest Temperature Sensor

A temperature sensor can help if you're consistently too cold or too warm in a room in your home. A thermostat only measures the temperature in the room that it's in. It heats or cools your entire home based on that temperature, even if it's different from the rooms where you spend the most time.

Most homes aren’t the same temperature in every room. The temperature can vary because of the number of windows, size of the room, amount of sunlight, and other factors. If you install a Nest Temperature Sensor in a room, the sensor measures that room's temperature and sends it to your thermostat. Your thermostat can then use the sensor temperature to keep you more comfortable.

For example, you might want a temperature sensor if you have a multi-story home. A temperature sensor can help your thermostat keep you comfortable on the floor you choose at any time of day.

The Nest thermostat works fine without a sensor, and you don't need a temperature sensor to use your thermostat. However, if your thermostat is in an out-of-the-way location, or if you spend a lot of time in a room other than the one your thermostat is in, a temperature sensor might help keep you more comfortable.

No. You can't use a Nest Temperature Sensor without a Nest thermostat. Your temperature sensor reports temperature data directly to a Nest thermostat in the same home.

The Nest Temperature Sensor works with the following thermostats:

• Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd and 4th gen)
• Nest Thermostat E

For the following countries:

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico

How to tell which Nest thermostat you have

The Nest Temperature Sensor is battery-powered so you don't need any special wiring or an outlet to use it. It connects to your Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd or 4th gen) and Nest Thermostat E over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and has a range of about 50 ft (15 m), so it should work in most homes.

The Nest Temperature Sensor works with the same systems as your thermostat, regardless of what type of system you have.

• If you have a Nest thermostat that's compatible with the Nest Temperature Sensor, it doesn't matter what kind of system you have. The Nest Temperature Sensor can work with it.

• If you don't have a Nest thermostat yet, use our compatibility checker to find out if your system can work with a Nest thermostat and the Nest Temperature Sensor.

You can have up to 6 sensors for each compatible Nest thermostat in your home, up to a total of 18 sensors.

Nest Thermostats are only compatible with Nest sensors at this time.

Everything about your system works the same as before, except now, instead of taking the temperature reading from the thermostat, it takes the reading from the sensor.

• You can add one or more temperature sensors to the Google Home app or Nest app and choose a thermostat for them to report to.
• The sensor tells your thermostat what temperature it’s in the room where it's placed.
• You can also choose which sensor controls your thermostat and schedule your thermostat to use different sensors at different times of the day.
• Whenever the sensor is active, your thermostat uses your sensor's reading to control when your system turns on and off. Your thermostat ignores its own built-in temperature sensor during those times.

Change your temperature sensor settings

Yes. When you tap on a thermostat in the Google Home app or Nest app, you can check all the Nest Temperature Sensors that are connected to that thermostat.

You can also compare your sensor's temperature reading and the reading from your thermostat.

Your thermostat also shows if your sensor is usually warmer, usually colder, or about the same as your thermostat. This can help you learn a little more about your home, where you might want to move your temperature sensors, and when you want your thermostat to use them.

Nest Temperature Sensor

A CR2 Lithium battery is included with your Nest Temperature Sensor and is also commonly available for purchase at a local store.

If you need to replace the battery for Nest Temperature Sensor (1st gen), simply insert a coin into the slot on the back of your sensor and turn to unscrew the battery cover.

For Nest Temperature Sensor (2nd gen), rotate the back cover of your sensor in a counterclockwise direction to unscrew the battery cover.

The Nest Temperature Sensor's battery can last up to 2 years.

You should receive a notification on your phone and be alerted in the Google Home app or Nest app when the battery in a sensor is low. You should also get another notification when your battery is critically low, so there's plenty of time to change the batteries before your sensor stops working.

If you wait too long, your sensor powers down and stops reporting temperature data. It gets listed as offline in the Google Home app or Nest app, and you need to replace the battery to get it to work again.

The Nest Temperature Sensor is designed to keep you comfortable. Whether it results in lower or higher energy use depends on where sensors are placed, what temperature you set your thermostat to, and what temperatures are set in your schedule.

For example, during the winter when you heat your home:

• If you set your thermostat to use a sensor in a well-insulated bedroom that heats up quickly, your system might turn off sooner than usual and you could save energy.
• If you set your thermostat to use a sensor in a wide open living space that heats up slowly, your system might run longer than normal and could use more energy.

No. The Nest Temperature Sensor is designed for one thing, which is to measure the temperature.

You don't need to rely on motion tracking to determine which sensor your thermostat uses. You can set a schedule for your sensors, which gives you additional control over your comfort. Once your schedule is set, your thermostat can keep the rooms you want comfortable at the times you want.

Follow the steps in the article linked below for complete instructions on how and where to install it:

Set up and install your Nest Temperature Sensor 

The Nest temperature sensor was designed to blend in to your home's surroundings.

If you want to make your temperature sensor less visible, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• If you hide your temperature sensor behind something in your home, make sure it has good airflow or it can't accurately measure the temperature in the room.
• Don't completely cover the sensor, block airflow, or place it somewhere that's exposed to a source of heating or cooling like a fireplace.

Where to install your Nest Temperature Sensor

Yes. You can set a schedule to have your thermostat use a different sensor at different times of the day. For each thermostat, you can select the temperature sensor you want to use for each time of day.

Set a schedule for your temperature sensors

You can only do this with a zoned system or special vents installed in your home.

Single zone systems turn on and heat or cool all parts of your home at the same time. This means that you can't stop heating one room, and continue to heat another. In most homes, all the rooms continue to heat or cool until your system shuts off.

For Nest Thermostat E and Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd gen), you can attach up to 6 sensors per thermostat. However, your thermostat can only use one at a time. Nest Temperature Sensors let you choose which room in your house is most important, or set a schedule so your thermostat uses different sensors at different times. Your thermostat then uses the sensor you chose to keep your home comfortable.

For Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen), you can attach up to 6 sensors per thermostat and select more than one sensor. Your thermostat will then heat or cool your home based on the average indoor temperature of the sensors that you’ve selected.

If you have a zoned system with multiple thermostats, you can set these thermostats to different temperatures. You can use up to 6 Nest Temperature Sensors for each thermostat.

Set a schedule for your temperature sensors

There are a lot of reasons why different rooms, or even 2 sensors in the same room, might show different temperatures in the Google Home app or Nest app.

Some rooms are large and take longer to heat up or cool down. Rooms with lots of windows may lose heat more quickly in the winter, or heat up more quickly if the sun is shining. Even something as simple as closing a hallway door can keep air from circulating and cause a temperature difference.

The Google Home app or Nest app can show you if one of your sensors has a temperature that's significantly different from your other sensors. That way you can tell which temperature sensor to use at what time to keep you the most comfortable.

Temperature sensors and heating your home

No. The Nest Temperature Sensor can only measure the temperature.

Nest Temperature Sensors are battery-powered and work even if your home's Wi-Fi goes out. The temperature sensor talks directly to your Nest thermostat over Bluetooth so it doesn't need Wi-Fi.

If your temperature sensor fails to report data for more than 10 minutes, your thermostat defaults to its built-in temperature sensors. If your sensor fails to report data for an extended period of time, you should get a notification on your phone. You may need to move your temperature sensor closer to your thermostat to bring it back online.

Troubleshoot the Nest Temperature Sensor

We take data security very seriously and work hard to make sure that your personal information isn't compromised.

It's important that any data we transmit remains secure, even the temperature data in your home. Data is encrypted and transmitted over Bluetooth directly from your temperature sensor to your thermostat.

Information from your thermostat is transmitted to Nest servers using secure AES 128-bit encryption to help keep your data safe.

Yes, Nest Temperature Sensors have a 1-year warranty.

At Nest, we take your privacy seriously. Learn more about our privacy practices at the following link:

Privacy statement for Nest products and services

No. There are no additional fees to use your thermostat or your temperature sensors.

The Nest Temperature Sensor is currently compatible with thermostats designed for use in one of the following countries:

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico

Important: As long as you purchased a compatible thermostat from a retailer in one of the countries listed above, it should work with the sensor. Thermostats designed for use in other countries, however, aren't currently compatible with the sensor. The app prevents you from adding the sensor to a thermostat designed for use in any other country.

You can purchase the Nest Temperature Sensor at store.google.com or from a retail partner.