I love Google products and services. But there are some usability issues that drive me crazy. One recent issue which comes to mind is the Google Nest Thermostat which I described in a recent post. I've unsuccessfully tried to get apartment management to replace what I think is a defective unit (the actual temperature deviates, which I verified from a cheap handheld thermostat I bought from Walmart). Reseeding the device occasionally corrects the temperature but it'll climb (above the real temperature). So I have to do offsets. For example, if I set the heat for 68, and I wake up to 64, and Nest shows 72, I'll reset the heat target to (say) 76. I'll make similar adjustments periodically while I'm in the apartment. It gets particularly annoying because it'll reset your heat target in "energy saving" mode. (I routinely get utility reports showing my apartment as the most efficient among neighbors, obviously unrelated to Nest.)
Sometime back I bought some Tiles. These are great for relocating items. Now at the risk of oversimplification, there are two types of Tiles, a flat kind (Slim) that you can insert into a wallet and a thicker, small plastic device with a keychain hole (Mate), which sort of reminds me of an iPod Shuffle. I originally bought 2 four-packs of the latter, one for my Mom (who didn't want it, found it insulting). These come with replaceable batteries (which you can buy in multi-unit packs for about $1 each). These need to be set up/registered with a cellphone app and an account with thetileapp.com.
So the Tiles have basically have two-way functionality. (Note the devices have ranges, depending on model from 150-400 feet.) Through the cellphone app, you can click to activate a noise from the target, say, my keys or wallet. And assuming your cellphone has battery power, the Tile app loaded and bluetooth on, you should be able to locate your cellphone from the tile by double-pressing the tile.
I didn't even realize it but my batteries had expired when I tried to use the tiles for the first time in months. I finally shipped my Mom's set and was going to brief my brothers on setup. For the most part, functionality works as expected in testing (e.g., for my wallet or keys). Occasionally it fails for unspecified reasons.
At some point I became aware I should be able to locate my Tiles through my Google Hub after setup, e.g., "Hey Google: ring my keys." I used documentation from the Tile App and Google, but I couldn't get functionality to work properly, and tech support from Google and the Tile App were ineffective (the latter was particularly obnoxious pasting the same setup 3 times, which had been done before my chat session). Somehow the Google Hub didn't think I had turned on the private results option through Google Home. Long story short, I found the Google Hub was linked to two of my gmail accounts. I delinked the less frequently used account, and that seemed to resolve my functionality issues.
