Hey everyone!
I’ve just ordered the hardware needed to get started with Home Assistant, and I’m very excited to get started doing my own smart home! I wanted to ask the community if there was any knowledge about integrating a Nest Learning Thermostat with the Home Assistant system such that I don’t share information with Google. The thermostat came with the house, and I’d like to avoid buying a new device if possible. I would like my smart home to stay completely local if possible. If there is any advice on how to achieve this, I’d love to hear some of the tips and tricks from more experienced users.
Thanks for your help!
You say your thermostat came with the house - is the account with Google Nest or with the original Nest company? Google have been encouaging users to migrate from the original firm for some time now, but the old accounts still work.
If you have one of the original accounts the thermostat can be controlled directly using wireless tag manager. It still requires an internet connection, but at least your data isn’t going to Google. I don’t think you need any of the tags themselves - just the manager.
AFAIK your data has to go through google if you want to control the Nest thermostat remotely. (I’m probably going to replace mine for that reason). I was able to get my Nest thermostat working with HA using the API and Node Red, but it took some effort.
tip: if you decide to use the google API be careful about unwanted formatting characters (crlf) when you cut from the website and paste into a terminal, they will cause errors.
Thanks for the helpful responses! So now that I’ve dived into my HA setup, I realize there’s a lot here that I need some help understanding before I can start poking around things like getting Nest setup in this way. I’ll be posting some other threads asking for help and then maybe I’ll be able to use the information that you’ve given me 
excited!