Can't send an invite to 'Home'

[LesBell]

I've been trying to add my wife to our Google Home setup, with no success. We originally started with some Google Home and Home Mini devices, which we individually set up, trained to recognise our voices, etc. The house is now full of them, plus Chromecasts, Chromecast with Google TV, etc. But they're no longer individually set up, but added through the Home app, and so I want to add my better half.

However, when I go through the "Household" -> "+ Invite person" routine in the app, it fails at the final step: pressing "Invite" leads to the error message, "Can't send invitation at the moment. Try again.". Trying again never works.

Is this perhaps because we are both using Google Workspace accounts (family business)? I've already had to use a Gmail account just for our Nest smoke detectors - and I can't begin to describe what a disaster that is, with Google Pay suddenly losing all my credit cards because it switched to the otherwise unused Gmail account and other problems. 😞 Using Gmail is not an option - my Google Play movies, YouTube Music, and everything else in the Googleverse is on my one true Google Workspace account. If Google Home is really Nest Home and not functional for Google's best paying customers, I'm going to be very unamused.

[LesBell]

I forgot to mention - our Google Wifi is on there, too. If she can't manage that - needed for work - there will be hell to pay.

[LesBell]

I guess now we can see how seriously Google takes some of its best customers . . .

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,
Sorry for the late response, but I wanted to drop in here to help.

I understand that this can be frustrating but I definitely wanted to stop by and see how I could help.

Just wanted to double check to see if you were still needing help on this? If so, what troubleshooting steps have you tried?

Please let me know.

Best regards,
Garrett DS
 

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,
Just wanted to see if you still needed help. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Garrett DS

[LesBell]

Yes, it is still not working, and yes, it is beyond frustrating. And no, I have no idea what kind of debugging I might even be able to attempt; the Home app simply refuses to send an invitation and I don't think I should have to put my phone into developer mode and install debugging tools just to figure out why.

We have an almost completely Google home: multiple Google Workspace domains, applications hosted in Google Cloud Platform, Google Play Music (regrettable downgraded to the execrable YouTube Music) and Movies for our entertainment, Chromecasts everywhere, Google Home and Home Mini in most rooms, Philips Hue lighting throughout, rooftop solar PV monitored through Google Apps Script, etc. My wife can use the devices which were individually set up prior to the introduction of the Google Home app, but I cannot now add her to devices which are configured with the Home app, such as our Google WiFi setup, a Nest Hub I bought as an experiment, etc. If I link our new security cameras to Google Home, she won't be able to use those, either, and Nest doorbell and cameras are simply off the table.

I am increasingly sure this problem relates to Google's acquisition and integration of Nest, and the fact that Nest seems to regard Google Workspace accounts as not just second-class citizens, but positively unwanted (c.f. my experience with Nest smoke detectors). It seems that nobody at Google is thinking strategically about customer satisfaction; I am hearing so many complaints from Google customers and former customers that Google's NPS (Net Promoter Score) must be in the toilet somewhere. I'm just one of many who used to enthusiastically promote Google; now I have to warn people off.

[GarrettDS]

Hey there, 

Sorry to hear that you're still having frustrations with this. As you stated, the underlying issue may be that Gsuite and Google Workspace accounts are not compatible with these apps and you'll need to create and use personal gmail accounts. 

Please try that and let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

[LesBell]

Surely you jest? There is not one thousandth of a percent of a glimmer of a chance of that being a practical solution. All my Google assets are owned by my Google Workspace account identity - Google Play movies, Google Play/YouTube Music uploaded and purchased content, hundreds of hours of YouTube content I've generated, Google Pay account and credit cards, my emails, calendar, contacts, tasks, Keep notes, GCP assets, blog articles, not to mention the configuration of all the existing devices in our home: Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, Pixel phones, Google WiFi, Home and Home Minis, lights, the rooftop PV monitoring and all the rest.

I've already described how I had to use a Gmail account to set up our smoke detectors, and the massive pain that is - quite frequently I'll find that, e.g. YouTube is showing me weird content suggestions and I find that it's using the Gmail account, so I have to log out of all accounts, and then log back in and refresh things in the right order. I've had the embarrassing situation of all credit cards disappearing from Google Pay on my phone - only to discover later that it had somehow switched to the otherwise useless Gmail account, which is only on my phone because the Nest app is too stupid to work with a Google account, just Gmail accounts.

Nobody in their right mind is going to want to abandon their entire digital life and recreate it, just because the developers that Google acquired from Nest don't know what they're doing.

Now, please cogitate upon that, and let me know if you have any other suggestions.

[GarrettDS]

Hey there, 

Unfortunately it seems like the root of your problem is what I have already stated in my previously reply. I understand the frustrations around this and am happy to take the feedback and pass it forward as this type of feedback helps us to improve our products and services. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

[LesBell]

OK, here is what I believe you meant to write:

"You are correct - that is clearly a bug. It is unacceptable that a Google account should not be able to add another member to their household, especially when both are long-standing customers. I will immediately open a case in our bug tracker - here is the case number, and here is the URL on the bug tracker (insert URL here). Please add any other diagnostic messages or other information which may help. You will also receive notifications as the bug is assigned to developers to work on, and may be invited to assist with testing new code. Thanks for notifying us, and rest assured that a fix will be forthcoming in an updated release shortly."

See the difference?

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,
Just wanted to see if you still needed help. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Garrett DS

[LesBell]

You're kidding, right? I've told you what needs to be done - how about doing it? Or are you, as I increasingly suspect, just a bot?

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,
Just checking in to make sure that you saw our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours.

Have a great day.
Garrett DS
 

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,

While I'm not a bot, unfortunately there is nothing further that I can change because the solution is to create a gmail account as I stated in my previous response. I'm sure this is frustrating to hear and am happy to take the feedback and pass it forward as this type of feedback helps us to improve our products and services. 
 

At this time I'm going to go ahead and lock the thread as there is nothing further to be done. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS