This app is impressively poorly designed. Do you want to control two thermostats at one once? You can’t. Do you want to control the temp with just one button click up or down? You can’t, you need to click on each thermostat device manually and then change it, then wait about 10 seconds on that screen because if you back out it won’t register the change, then you need to back out, then go into the other thermostat and change it. Do you want the thermostats to go into eco mode when you leave but when you come home go into comfort mode!? you can’t. You can only mandate presence sensing as a trigger for being away but not for being home. Makes sense. Oh actually, you can but you can only have it return to the previous temp it was at which would’ve been my sleep preset, not my comfort preset. Oh, and best of all, if you want to turn off automatic schedule changes where the app “learns” from you and then makes schedules and changes temps automatically, you can’t. It can’t be turned off. So enjoy constantly having to check and change the temp back to what you want. This app will not let you trigger ANY ACTION with anything other than an audio command “Hey Google”, so if you don’t have the Google device or don’t want to operate that way, you’re out of luck. Terribly shameful app.

The app has always been slow, but in the last few months, the notifications don’t work. They sometimes pop up, but then immediately disappear from the Lock Screen. If unlocked, the banner notification will pop up and stay indefinitely until it is manually dismissed, even though settings are set for the banner to dismiss itself. There are no longer previews in the notifications for cameras (note: the old Nest app still has camera image previews in notifications and works as designed. It’s also much better for reviewing 24/7 footage, and has always moved quickly as compared to Google Home). Another issue I have is the Smoke/Carbon Dioxide detector support. I purchased these pre-Google Home, and there is still no way for me to add them to Google Home. I still have to use Nest to monitor smoke/carbon alarms. Annoying and interesting since Google has owned Nest for a while now. There are blogs full of posts from people with the notification issues, and all say they have had a lot of trouble getting this issue acknowledged by Google. Fix these basic things, and this app is back to being slow and clunky, but would at least not make our monitoring products ineffective for timely monitoring.

ALSO (see previous review) … where are you (Google Home/ the App Store) getting the 4.5 star rating from ???? From the hundreds of reviews I’ve read through, they’re certainly not 5’s and most people are experiencing the same or similar issues that I have been. Is Google actually looking at these reviews? Are they reaching out to get input from the users on the app, especially the updated version? Am I missing something??? And reaching out to support is a waste. You don’t speak with an expert on the Google Home app, you speak to someone in India reading from a script!! So frustrating!!! Google is a multi billion dollar business and I understand that have and offer TONS of different services but as we move into a more automated, voice activated world, than I would think that figuring out from the people using the services what works and what doesn’t (not just, I don’t like the platform kind of complaints but actual technical issues with the connection between app/device/user) seems really important to having and improving those services, no? Just the thoughts of a consumer that’s really curious and frustrated and would love to continue to use the service but also feel like I shouldn’t be in a position to spend more time writing a review than enjoying the service.