Hub dead support a joke :(

Sensors
1

Our hub stopped responding and went offline.

Short press or long there no response or voice prompts

Call support get stuck on hold for a crazy amount of time with a message saying they are busier during the holidays. Fairly certain we are long past the holidays .

Finally get through and confirm i done both the long press and short press with no response at all.

Put on hold again as they talk to tech support.

So what do i get told you may ask.

I get told that tech support is going to contact me through email for further troubleshooting !!
Now what magically tech support you may ask is going to make a hub that completely off line and unresponsive to the only button it has you may ask…well i certainly did and i almost feel bad for the guy on the phone as its not his fault.

The device is utterly unresponsive except for some blinking lights whats tech support going to do think real hard at it?!

Sure lets wait for that email and ignore the fact the alarm system is is not working.

They treat it like a faulty vacuum rather then security for a home.

Unbelievable bad support :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

1 Like
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Based on My years of working in the customer service filled in the past, here is my interpretation of why they probably did this: I’m GUESSING that it’s more than a year old and not under warranty. The rep could just tell you “well, then it sounds like it’s broken but your warranty is expired, please buy a new one.”

I think they WANT to help you though and the only method left within their control is to try to escalate this to Tier 2. They may be able to get a dev to see if anything in the final moments it was online indicate anything useful or if they can help you, even partially to get a replacement, despite not actually qualifying for the warranty, especially since you’re a paying customer. That’s how I am taking it: they want to avoid saying " Too bad, that sucks. Please buy a new one" and used their discretion to say " hey, it is not within my power to do anything for you on this since you’re not covered under warranty, so I’m going to escalate this to tier two and see if they have any options at their disposal to use some discretion to help you out." But, problem is that if they tell you that clearly some customers will start to feel entitled and claim they were promised by tier one that tier 2 would do something different for them than what they may actually end up doing. So, to avoid entitlement tantrums, all they do is say they’re going to send your case to tier 2 and somebody will contact you about the result, while avoiding giving someone fuel to claim they were promised something they weren’t actually promised.

If you’ve had it less than 1 year, then they should have certainly just issued a warranty claim as soon as they confirmed it’s nonresponsive.

One thing I would recommend checking before being sure it’s dead: try plugging it in with a different power adapter and cord that you verified is working in another device. It is possible that the power adapter or the cord went bad and the device is unresponsive because it’s not getting power and the battery is dead. I have seen that before.

In the end, they’re not trying to give you bad service or the run around. They’re trying to see if anyone else can use discretion to help resolve this for you within their policies. You’re right, they could’ve just told you within the first couple of seconds: “Sorry, that sucks, your warranty is expired now so please buy a new one.” But in this rep’s eyes they’re trying to do you a favor and check if there is any other way to qualify you for any other kind of help. At least, that’s how it sounds to me.

Sorry it’s not going how you expected. I hope you ultimately get a good resolution from this. Again, try a different adapter and cord just in case it is that. I’ve seen that fix things before.

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The irony is it is under warranty. But i had to order a replacement because i can’t wait around for them to get their act together.

I think this has less to do with customer service and more to do with them trying to do damage control.
From what appearing in the forums they may have broken a lot of them with a firmware update.

This was very badly handled and they need to clue into the fact this is is not a smart home product but security for a home.

I work in It and freaking out on some poor guy answering the poor guy answering the phone isn’t going to happen.

I don’t think wyze grasps the gravity of this as you can’t operate this badly and survive too many things quickly pile up.

Judging by the complaints about tech support getting much worse i would say they are already feeling the pain. Hopefully they get it together soon

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Hmm, if it is under warranty, then I agree that it should’ve been pretty straight forward. Please keep me updated on the end result. I assume they should send you a replacement hub. If that doesn’t happen, I’d like to know why and probably will want to pass your support ticket number on to someone who can review it and make sure it is properly handled and possibly issue training to the original rep if they indeed should’ve just initiated the warranty replacement right away.

Please keep me updated in case I need to have someone look into more for you. Even if you resolved it yourself, you still deserve to be properly taken care of. Maybe ask if they would be willing to implement your warranty claim with a gift card or credit instead since you already got the replacement yourself. I’m assuming that could be arranged (I don’t work for Wyze, but I have seen them sometimes do giftcards or store credit as an option for warranties) so that you can avoid the extra hassle of having to go through setup multiple times or processing a return/refund.

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Did get a email response asking me to go through the trouble shooting steps which was funny.
Apparently they got some serious communication issues as no amount of trouble shooting is going to bring it back from the dead.
The irony is it did this 4 days before the warranty was up so there that at least but given the response so far i am not holding my breath they are going to do anything.

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Having worked customer service in the past, I can tell you that it’s possible the rep knows all the troubleshooting steps they sent are pointless, however, a company typically requires they follow a standardized script in their response. It may seem ridiculous, but the rationale behind it is is to ensure their agents don’t skip telling the customer something that MIGHT actually help. If agents are given too much “agency” over what they tell a customer, then many of them will not share with them things that would’ve actually fixed a user’s problem. So, instead, they require them to send all the standardized troubleshooting even when it might not be applicable, because at least then nobody is missed from getting potential help. It can be a tough thing to balance. The benefit is that, when they tell you to try everything (including things you can’t try), they can confidently say that they have tried EVERYTHING possible and vouch for the fact that you need a warranty replacement. If they don’t send every known troubleshooting step that has been known to fix things for someone else, then it can be hard for the company to know if everything was really tried, or if they are wasting money in shipping and wasted units, etc sending out replacements to a lot of people who didn’t actually NEED a replacement. In your case, it seems fairly obvious, but from a company’s procedure writing standpoint, it makes sense to ask their agents to test everything in the script first, then they can conclusively rule that a replacement is needed and they’re not wasting resources sending replacements to some people when a replacement wasn’t actually needed.

But from our standpoint it does seem kind of ridiculous. Just take it with a grain of salt and let them know the troubleshooting did not resolve the issue so they can move on to the next phase and know that it doesn’t mean they’re an idiot or have bad communication, it probably just means they are required to check off a list of things before they are approved to move on to their next steps. Having been in that position, I can almost confidently say that it’s probably as annoying if not more annoying to them than it is to us. When I did customer service in college and had to do the same thing I hated knowing that some things I was required to ask/say made me look like an idiot or seem incompetent or like I didn’t listen to single thing they said to me already. Sometimes I’d even take a slight risk by admitting to them,

“Hey, just to let you know, I have been listening and I did hear what you said, but I am still required to specifically ask you some questions or ask you to check something even if you already told me the answer or even if we know some things aren’t going to fix it, so just bear with me and we’ll get through these requirements so I can get the approval to help you out. I just want you to know I did hear and understand you, and I will help you, but to get that approval I have to follow some of the required standardized processes, so we’ll get through it together here, okay?”

I probably wasn’t supposed to say things like that in some cases, and I am sure lots WANT to say that, but it is what it is. Just give them the benefit of the doubt at first. Hopefully they handle it well. Let me know the outcome though.

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No worries.

I never hold the people in tech support to task as they are just doing a job and its not their fault.
This ones on wyze who should have thought things through better before doing things.
Security systems fall under a different level of urgency they appliances but their inexperience is biting them in the butt.

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They did eventually get around to replacing it when they finally realized that no amount of trouble shooting was going to make the device come back from the dead.

Wyze seems to be trying to do too many thing and failing to get them right.
Hopefully they improve or get help showing them how it should be done.

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I just want to throw this in here for others who happen upon it when browsing for a similar issue and such.
Check your state laws. Implied warranty laws supersede any company’s “one year limited warranty” in most cases, and customer service WILL give you the run around as implied above, but if your state has an implied warranty law they can’t just pass you along to avoid telling you they can’t help you. They can, and have to, help you, if your state is on your side 🩷

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Good thoughts. There are definitely cases where an implied warranty is important (I’ll list an example at the end where I totally agree with this, after I share why it’s generally challenging to do).

Note, I am not a lawyer and am only speaking from my experience of working in a law firm as an assistant, but I am not giving any specific legal advice here, particularly since each state varies a lot. Just sharing my personal opinion that it can be extremely challenging to prove either of the 2 types of implied warranty.

For the Implied Warranty of Merchantability you have to prove that an electronic failed to meet reasonable expectations (not abnormal or entitled expectations, but reasonable ones), which can be challenging for any electronic that is already covered by a 1 year warranty of 24/7 use, knowing that most electronics already wear out over time, especially with 24/7 use. In most cases you will have to prove there is evidence of a serious defect and if it was always there, explain why you did not pursue this within the first year. Similar challenges arise for the Implied Warranty of Fitness, and if it did not live up to that standard, why did the buyer not return it right away or make a warranty claim earlier (ie: within the first year)? Records, documented defects, expert opinions, etc can all help, but they can certainly be a struggle in a case like this where reasonable electronic market expectations of 24/7 use are typically not long as electronic parts wear out. Particularly in a low-profit margin company that doesn’t necessarily advertise itself as being being highest quality longest lasting in the market made with the most expensive and durable parts. With a quick search it would be easy to show how many people have the opposite expectation with people frequently repeating “you get what you pay for” and they have lower expectations. So convincing a state that significantly higher expectations than the typical user are warranted would certainly be challenging.

In these cases, the purden of proof is on the customer (and that is a difficult thing to demonstrate, especially when debating about something like a cheap $25 hub wherein any court or attorney costs and time, stress, etc are going to make it not worthwhile for anyone involved). The next challenge are the manufacturer defenses (arguing misuse, wear and tear, or other factors that can be easily persuasive for a 24/7 electronic that costs under $50).

But sometimes it helps in negotiations with a company so that they will be more flexible and reasonable and helpful. And having said all of the above, there certainly are cases where I think it should apply.

In my PERSONAL opinion, if a normal public firmware update bricks a device, that device should generally be covered under an implied warranty, at least for up to a few years even if the limited warranty is expired. I think most people would generally agree that there is a reasonable assumption that it is always safe to update to the latest firmware and you are expected to do so in order to keep adequate security up to date. So if a company implies you need to update firmware for security, and their firmware bricks your device, then in my opinion, that should be covered by an implied warranty. Of course that is up to regional laws and not my personal opinion…I’m just saying what my personal ideals are.

Interesting topic though.

For what it is worth, I have seen Wyze do warranty replacements in many cases for people where the limited warranty didn’t cover something or was expired. So I do believe that they use some reasonable discretion to take care of people in certain circumstances.