Why does geography matter?

[henrym]

Google closed my previous topic without a resolution, so I'm reopening a discussion.  I asked why my sleep tracking feature disappeared when I moved from the US to Gabon.  Google replied that "Some features don't work in all areas".  They've failed to explain exactly why geography makes a difference.  It's the same hardware, the same app on my phone, only my location has shifted.   For a global company, this is a pretty big failure.  

[Cathal_S]

Hi there,

Google devices are only supported for use within a country where the device can be officially purchased from the online Google store and delivered to an address there.

https://support.google.com/store/answer/2462844 

This is a community forum supported by other users like myself and community specialist's, I don't work for Google so I can only guess that they limit features by geo locations because of different laws in different countries, languages that are available on devices, to try to stop unofficial importing and resale of devices, different WiFi frequency regulations in different countries.

I live in the UK and there's lots of products and services from major companies that aren't available for me.

Please leave feedback for the Google Nest team.

Feedback:
https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7071494

Sleep sensing feature:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/10357288 

[Muddi]

Hi henrym,

Kudos to @Cathal_S  for helping here!

I know that this is not the answer that you are looking for. We value your opinion and rest assured that all feedback is being reviewed by the team, that's why we recommend all users to send feedback for any features that they are looking forward to use on their Google Home/Nest devices.

Let us know if you have additional questions or concerns abut your device, otherwise; I'll close the thread after 24 hours.

Cheers,

Muddi

[henrym]

It's just too bad that Google doesn't care enough about their customers to provide actual information.  It's nice that they can rely on unpaid volunteers to provide their tech support with your best guess, but I hope you realize that they're taking advantage of your generosity.  

As far as their feedback link goes, we all know those suggestions just go into a black hole with no hope of ever being acknowledged.