As an update to my previous post on creating an Alexa skill to control Nest thermostats, in which we got an account pin manually, and used this for making calls to the Nest API, I was able to use the account linking methodology in Alexa to allow any user to authenticate with their Nest account, and thereby control their thermostats without this tedious step and code changes. Here’s how to do it.

Get ready for a long, nerdy post with lots of coding and even more configuration. Don’t worry, I did it in a few nights, so anyone can. Pretty much every night, my wife asks, is the Nest still on? It’s freezing in here. Due to our setup, and hopefully not sedentary lifestyle, the downstairs Nest often things we aren’t home when we’re on the couch, and goes into a balmy 55 degree away mode.

Reminder, this blog represents my own opinions only and is on no way affiliated with my employer, Audible or Amazon. Still I think these thoughts are pretty common. In 2014, I moved from a software development role on my team to managing it. During the time since, I slowly began to write less code, made a concerted effort to contribute on some projects, pick up bug fixes on critical projects, help with low severity issues, and do some side projects.