Hi Abi, and anyone else following this drama,
So the wificare team wanted to initiate a return/replacement of one of my nodes, but wanted me to pay for the replacement node until they could confirm receipt of the returned "defective" node. Here are the email messages that were exchanged between that team and me:
The wificare team said:
Apologies for the late revert.
Does your modem when in router mode has an option to turn off its Wifi capability? If so and you haven't tried it yet please do so. We also recommend replacing the primary Nest Wifi Pro router with the child point Nest Wifi Pro as the new primary Wifi point if you are going to encounter the same issue.
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To which I responded:
I apologize for the delay in responding, but my wife and I have been very busy the last two weeks, and this is the first chance I had to take the wifi network down to perform the tasks that you suggested.
Please let me address the items in your email in the order in which you wrote them:
wificare team member wrote: "Does your modem when in router mode has an option to turn off its Wifi capability? If so and you haven't tried it yet please do so."
ChargePositif: Yes, the DSL modem does have the ability to disable the built-in wifi. I disabled the DSL modem's built-in wifi shortly after I installed the modem. It is currently disabled, and has been since before I installed the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e mesh system.
wificare team member wrote: "We also recommend replacing the primary Nest Wifi Pro router with the child point Nest Wifi Pro as the new primary Wifi point"
ChargePositif: I have done this, and so far everything seems to be working. I was even able to add the child node located downstairs to the mesh without issue.
The DSL modem is in routing mode, i.e.: providing a NAT network on the ethernet side into which the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e router node is connected. I do not wish to change the DSL modem into a transparent bridge to perform any more testing. It has not worked for me in the past, and I am not going to the time and effort of multiple factory resets and reconfigurations to see if it works now. I'll leave that as an exercise to the Google Test Engineers (Google does have Test Engineers who test the hardware, firmware, and software of the products, right? I mean, that's what I did for over 25 years and for several networking companies before I retired in 2020...) to complete.
Also of note, during the process of using the Google Home app to make one of the child nodes the primary router node, I noticed that the Google Home app was detecting a child node downstairs from the primary router node's location, and giving me the option to set that up as the primary router node. I find it interesting that the Google Home app could detect the child node located downstairs, and yet the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e I had set up as the original primary router node had ongoing intermittent difficulties.
Should this situation prove stable and reliable, what is the next step? I bought and paid for three Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e nodes as a set, and I'll be rather unhappy with just two operational nodes.
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To which the wificare team responded:
I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing an issue with one of your Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e routers. In order to determine your replacement eligibility, I'll need to collect the following information. Please reply directly back to this email with all the following information so we can confirm your eligibility.
- The email address associated with your Google Pay account: If you do not have a Google Pay account, please visit GPay. During the warranty replacement process, we’ll put a temporary hold on the payment method associated with your Google Pay account. There will be no charge to your Google Pay account.
- Purchase receipt and the serial number of your Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e device:
- Please provide us both of the following:
- Purchase receipt: Please take a picture or a screenshot of the sales receipt or invoice, and send it as an attachment in your email reply. If you received the device as a gift, or if you have misplaced the receipt, please let us know.
- Serial number: Please take a clear picture of the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e serial number from the bottom of the unit along with these 33390 numbers. Please write this number on a piece of paper and include it in the same picture.
- To locate the serial number:
- Note: To help move this process along as quickly as possible, please make sure the serial number of the unit is legible.
- To locate the serial number:
- Please provide us both of the following:
Please also include or confirm:
- Your First name:
- Your Last name:
- Your Street address, including apartment or unit numbers (no PO Boxes):
- Your City:
- Your State or province:
- Your Zip or postal code:
- Your Country:
- Your Phone number:
Two types of warranty replacement:
- Standard Exchange replacements don't require an authorization hold and a replacement device isn't sent to you until we receive a signal that the defective device has been shipped.
- Advanced Exchange requires an authorization hold to be placed on your bank account and we ship the replacement device first and drops the authorization hold once we receive the signal that the defective device has been shipped.
- The authorization hold is dropped when we receives a signal that the defective device has been received, usually takes 14 business days, however, it's controlled by the bank.
As a reminder, the Nest Wifi Pro Google Consumer Hardware Limited Warranty covers purchases from Google Play and authorized retailers. We will review the provided information and reply back to you with the next steps as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience.
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I then replied:
Before we go down the path of the return/replacement process, I wanted to let you know that the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e node that is located downstairs is offline. It went offline about three hours ago, and is not yet back online. It had been online for almost eight hours before going offline. Given the performance of the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e node that used to be the primary router, I don't expect the remote node to come back online any time soon, and if it does come online by itself, I don't expect the node to remain online for very long.
So where does that leave us? Well, from my perspective, I have a mesh network system that is basically unusable, and certainly not reliable. What I seem to have are three wifi routers that appear to function just fine as single point wifi routers, but which are wholly incapable of forming a stable and reliable wifi mesh network. Not exactly what I was expecting when I purchased them. This appears to be a long-running issue for which Google has had no good answer, and given that length of time without a solution, I don't have any real hope that a viable solution for the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e will be found and applied in the foreseeable future.
As such, what I'd really like is for Google to refund my purchase price for the three nodes, and also pay the cost to ship the nodes back to Google. To me this sounds like a fair option which will allow me to return a product that did not live up to it's claims and purchase another product that actually provides a wifi mesh network that is stable, reliable, and usable.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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To which I received this reply from the wificare team:
When it comes to a refund there will be no problems as long as you've purchased the Nest Wifi Pro at the Google Store.
We understand that this has been going on for quite some time now and we truly apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you. Right now, we need to eliminate all factors to why your devices are encountering dropping from the network and replacing the unit can point us to the right direction. Best advice to have your devices be replaced and wait for the replacement unit first before we continue to troubleshoot the issue that you have with the Wifi.
We appreciate your patience and your cooperation on this matter. Once you have the replacement take over unit, kindly set up the network again and observe the connection for at least a day and then we will go from there.
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My response to that message was:
I did not purchase the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e 3-pack through the Google store. I purchased the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e 3-pack at Best Buy long enough ago that they are outside of Best Buy's return window.
Since Google wants to troubleshoot the issue live using my network as a test bed, I would humbly suggest that Google send me a new unit, at Google's expense, without me having to provide anything more than an address to which Google can ship the unit to me.
If Google expects me to perform more work than just swapping the new unit in for one of my existing units and letting it run, then there is an extended conversation that will need to occur. This is the type of work I used to do before I retired in 2020 from a well known networking company, and as such my knowledge, experience, and expertise are neither free nor cheap.
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The response from the wificare team was:
Google doesn't accept remorse returns for devices purchased from third-party retailers (online or retail). There are no exceptions. We'd like to help, but unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about your request. However, this is how our refund works, and we're unable to change that at this moment.
When it comes to replacements, we cannot just ship out a product by just giving us your address. We do have two modes of replacement:
1. Standard Exchange - replacements don't require an authorization hold and a replacement device isn't sent to the customer until Google receives a signal that the defective device has been shipped.
2. Advanced Exchange - requires an authorization hold to be placed on a Google Pay account and Google ships the replacement device first and drops the authorization hold once Google receives the signal that the defective device has been shipped.
Authorization hold is dropped when Google receives a signal that the defective device has been received, usually takes 14 business days, however, it's controlled by the bank.
Which mode of replacement do you prefer?
If you'd like, you can submit feedback via your Google app. We're always looking for ways to improve our service, and will certainly take your suggestions into consideration. For instructions on how to send feedback, view this Help Center article: Share feedback about Google Nest Wifi or Google Wifi
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At this point I am thoroughly disgusted with Google and their treatment of what is clearly a problem with their product, and how they are treating the sizable number of consumers who have purchased these non-performing products. What is not clear to me is whether this is a hardware, firmware, or software issue, and to be honest, I don't really care. I want a functioning wifi mesh network, or I want a refund; since Google doesn't seem to be able to solve the problem to give the purchasers of this product a functioning wifi mesh network, that leaves only a refund, and at this juncture Google seems to be playing hardball with respect to refunding my purchase since it was through a "third party retailer."
My most recent response to the wificare team is:
A remorse return? Seriously? This product has never worked as advertised; does not currently work as advertised even after trying Google's suggested troubleshooting methods, and now Google wants me to float the cost of a test unit to further debug the problem? No, I don't think so. If anything, this is a defective product return, and should be covered under Google's warranty:
Specifically this section:
"What will Google do? (THIS IS YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY) If a defect covered by this Limited Warranty arises and you return your Google Product as directed by Google during the Limited Warranty period (which is one year for new Google Products and ninety days for Refurbished Google Products), Google will elect in its sole discretion and to the extent permitted by law to repair your Google Product using new or refurbished parts, replace your Google Product with a new or refurbished Google Product functionally at least equivalent to yours, or accept the return of your Google Product in exchange for a refund of the purchase price you paid for your Google Product."
"What will Google do? (THIS IS YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY) If a defect covered by this Limited Warranty arises and you return your Google Product as directed by Google during the Limited Warranty period (which is one year for new Google Products and ninety days for Refurbished Google Products), Google will elect in its sole discretion and to the extent permitted by law to repair your Google Product using new or refurbished parts, replace your Google Product with a new or refurbished Google Product functionally at least equivalent to yours, or accept the return of your Google Product in exchange for a refund of the purchase price you paid for your Google Product."
(note: the bold, italicized, and underline formatted text was done by me to emphasize part of the text in the warranty)
Given the amount of time that this problem has persisted, and with no good solutions from Google to fix the problem, I have little faith that a fix will be forthcoming in any reasonable timeframe. Given my inability, and in fact any "normal" consumer's ability, to determine the true cause of the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e wifi mesh network failure, one would consider a product that doesn't perform it's stated/advertised functions to be defective, and thus those consumers should be able to seek redress by requesting a refund of the purchase price of the defective equipment directly from the manufacturer under their stated warranty. Unless of course if Google, through the wificare team, is saying/implying that the Google Nest Wifi Pro 6e wifi mesh network system is not defective, and thus does not meet the standard set forth in the warranty to qualify for a refund.
