Shop E Store If you’ve been hanging on to your first or second-generation Nest thermostat, there’s good news: A smart workaround now offers a way to reconnect Google devices.
When Google officially ended support for its first Nest models, many owners were left with thermostats that worked perfectly fine, except they could no longer connect to the app. For a product built around smart functionality, that seemed like the end of the road. But a new open source project from developer Cody Kociemba (via AndroidPolice) promises to change that, giving users a second chance to control their older Nests remotely.
The project, hosted on GitHub, effectively redirects data from the original Nest platform to a new one. It’s not an official solution and definitely not something Google supports, but according to early testers, it works. Once the software is loaded, your thermostat behaves almost exactly as it did before: same interface, same controls, just under a different backend.
That said, this is not a plug-and-play rescue. Installing custom firmware requires a bit of technical know-how and comes with the usual warnings: proceed with caution and you’ll be responsible if something goes wrong. Kociemba’s detailed instructions guide users through every step, but at heart it’s still a DIY repair.
Of course, if you’d rather not risk locking up your thermostat, newer models from Google or alternatives from Ecobee, Hive or Tado are still safer bets. Still, for the more adventurous, this project offers a unique opportunity to breathe life back into a technology that wasn’t designed to last forever.
