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Your Google Nest smart thermostat displays a variety of symbols and icons to indicate what’s happening at any given time, including temperature readings, the Nest Sheet, mode symbols like cooling or heating, and more. Depending on how you programmed your Nest, you may see a yellow gear icon with a leaf outline in the middle. This yellow gear symbol has a very specific purpose. It tells you that the seasonal savings feature is active and is currently helping you save on energy costs.
Google’s Nest Thermostat is designed to learn your habits and schedules and, over time, automatically adjust or control temperature settings to make your home’s cooling or heating more efficient. Google Nest’s learning feature isn’t for everyone; some prefer to turn it off and use the thermostat as a standard, manually operated device. But if you leave it on, you can also benefit from seasonal savings.
Seasonal savings are an offshoot of the learning feature, where the system uses what it has learned about your home and air conditioning adjustments to make “subtle” changes that reduce energy costs. The temperature can change little by little over several days for a total change of about one to two degrees at a time. This allows the cooling or heating system to run less, use less energy, and ultimately reduce your electricity bill. You need to enable it first. Google Nest will usually ask you for this on the device. Some reported that it was turned on apparently without authorization. It’s also possible that if you select “Enable” to ignore the notification, you may not realize what you are enabling.
Your thermostat must be eligible before you can activate seasonal savings
According to Google’s support page for this feature, every eligible Nest thermostat will receive a prompt. So, if you have several thermostats in your house, you will be asked for each of them. The feature is only available to residents of the United States and Canada, except in Quebec. Additionally, there are two variations, one for summer and another for winter, so the prompts will appear earlier during these seasons.
During the summer, if your system continually cools the house with air conditioning, you will see a message prompting you to activate savings. The opposite is true in winter. If your home system is actively and continuously heating, you will see a prompt for winter mode.
You can also choose to have the Google Home app notify you when seasonal savings are available so you don’t miss a thing. To do this, open the app and go to Favorites or Devices > Climate > Your Thermostat. Then go to Settings > Temperature Preferences, and under Nest Sense, select the Seasonal Savings option, then turn on savings notifications. This is one of Nest’s advanced features, especially since it relies on scheduling. So you will need active internet access to use it.
What is seasonal savings really for?
When the mode is active, it helps you save energy by reducing how often the system cools or heats. As mentioned, it does this by making small adjustments throughout the day or week. It combines what it knows about your air conditioning habits with the local weather. The system will only make changes “if it judges that you are comfortable with the new power-saving temperature,” according to Google. If it detects that a change might make you uncomfortable, it can reverse the setting.
When Seasonal Savings are active, the yellow gear icon will display on the main screen. You’ll also see a single banner in the Nest app under Energy History that shows the system’s current progress. It shows how long the program has been running and what changes have been made. You are still in full control and can return things to normal if you want.
Overall, this is a feature you probably didn’t know about on your Nest thermostat, and there are many other similar features you should read about. It’s a great example of the modern smart home that allows you to generally improve your life and experiences.
