My heatlink suddenly stopped working (H71). I did all the checks, but it had completely stopped working, and therefore my central heating was not working.
So I called the help number and the gentleman arranged an appointment to replace it with a new heatlink. The earliest that could be booked was 4 days after, so no heating for 4 days which especially with my wife's health issues was difficult. I was not given a time slot so was required to wait from 8.00 to 5.00pm. I did call Boxt to request a more urgent appointment or at least tell me if there was a way to over-ride and get the heating on; he was not helpful and actually he did not really care. On the day the contracted engineer called me 20 minutes before, attended and replaced the heatlink. I have no complaints on the helpfulness of the Google Nest person I called initially or the engineer who replaced the heatlink. Both were efficient, kind and helpful.
My concern is whether it is right to be on this Google Nest System? Admittedly it is a very good system but we are rendered helpless when things go wrong!
If my central heating boiler had failed I could have got an emergency appointment and had it fixed within 24 hours. But here the thermostat/heatlink failed and I had to go 4 days without heating. I tried various avenues, but it all boiled down to the fact that Google Nest had the part needed, nobody else has it, so even though I had an central heating company willing to replace the heatlink immediately, Google Nest said they would need to get the part to me which would not be for "a few days at least...!!''. So if a problem occurs with the Google Nest product, we are completely at the mercy of THIS ONE COMPANY, ONE SOURCE FOR THE PRODUCT, and that means nothing can be done if an emergency like this happens. AND IF THEY DECIDE YOU WILL BE FOUR DAYS WITHOUT CENTRAL HEATING then we are stuck with that. AND that is what is troubling me. How can we, in this day and age, be stuck with such an unfair monopoly. Okay partly my fault for having bought the Google Nest product in the first place, I should have done my due diligence and opted for a better system, if such exists.
Am I thinking about this wrongly? I know many of my fellow customers have recently experienced similarly? Did you also feel the frustration I felt? Was there a way that we could have still had the central heating working with some kind of over-ride? AND does anybody here know of a similar but more accessible system?
Thank you.
