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Comment by ProAm | Hacker News Reader

Until they discontinue support and turn the service off in a 18 months. It's hard to put any faith in google products anymore, especially with the new alphabet revenue strategy put into place.

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The opinions stated here are my own, not necessarily those of Google.

If you are referring to Revolv, Nest/Revolv stopped selling the device the day Nest acquired them (Oct 2014), and they are also issuing refunds to anyone that contacts them[0]. The other major hardware cancel I know about was the Nexus Q which Google also provided a full refund for anyone that contacts them.

Sure, Google could cancel it, but they seem to only do that with something if it was a total flop, and they then do what they can to fully refund whoever was effected.

http://revolv.com/

There was just a little bit of outrage over the revolv before they started doing what they could to refund people.

I think the problem is more that many people feel that Google doesn't care about their customers, for a variety of reasons that I'm sure you can imagine.

That's an image thing, and I'm sure you can come up with all kinds of historical facts on why that image is not right, or not right anymore, but that hardly helps fix the image.

I think that if Google really wanted to fix that image, they could do revolutionary stuff like promise long term support, or publish a phone number.

EDIT! westernmostcoy pointed out that actually they do, clearly, publish a phone number, which is pretty decent of them. I got the HN points anyway so it's too late now, but still, good to see! Maybe I should read a site before I criticize it.

I think doing things right is the way to change the image. Surely it's easier to trash your image than fix it, but with time I don't see why it can't happen.

The examples of refunds provided for Neus Q and Revolv are a good example of the company trying to do what's right, and I'm sure that helps the image a little bit.

Plus at least for the onHub they do provide email and phone support. https://support.google.com/onhub/answer/6270180

This line of conversation is an easy way to get points on HN, but if you actually looked for a phone number for OnHub support you'd find one quite easily. Here it is in two locations:

Bottom right: https://on.google.com/hub/support/#ready "Contact Us" on: https://support.google.com/onhub#topic=6243113

I feel like being forced to sell Google back my device lest they remotely brick it is not exactly a happy ending.

To be fair, getting a refund from Google like that seems like the best possible outcome (assuming the service will be shut down regardlesS).

My understanding was that they were going to remote-update to brick the device even though it had offline functionality that did not depend on the home servers.

I think the best possible outcome would involve them leaving the existing functionality intact.

Is there a site I can request a refund for my Glass?

Who are you quoting there? I didn't say that.

I put it on comments I make that are google related. I probably should have put it as a footer instead of header to the post. I'll do that in the future to not confuse it as a quote (I didn't think about it that way when I did it)

Oh, that makes sense now. Didnt mean to sound accusatory.

I knew what you meant. :) thank you for pointing it out.

Absolutely this! I roll with Pfsense hardware because the software is open source. Even if CMB and crew sell or make it proprietary I know that with such a large community some of the contributors will just fork it.

Too many ways for this Google gadget to be made a brick because they don't care about their customers.

For paid products, Google is being silly. The easy way to fix it is throw a wad of cash at people plus replace. For the Revolv they should have proactively offered a $200 apology credit in cash and a Nest voucher for a similar product. The cost of that goodwill is less than the negative reception they've gotten elsewhere.

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