GoControl Security Essentials – Updated

rmiles7721June 1, 2016Home Automation

So Home Depot has been carrying GoControl Z-Wave “security” kits for a while now. They are compatible with Wink which is why I guess they decided to carry these products as Home Depot sadly decided to back Wink in their Home Automation stuff. I have exactly ONE product linked to my Wink hub only because that’s the ONLY way to control it. Anyway, that’s for a different post and not relevant to this.

Unfortunately the GoControl stuff has been hit and miss for me so far. It’s no wonder some of the Home Depot stores are selling it for half price. I’ve been dealing with this for a couple of months now and trying to get at least a response from their customer service. Hell, any response at all would be nice. I emailed them the first time  on May 18th. No response. Then I tweeted to @NortekControl over on Twitter (Nortek is their parent company) last week. No response. Finally I made a slightly nasty tweet a couple of days ago. Once I went into asshole mode they finally responded with:

“ Hello Richard, please contact customer service directly via this link for email or live chat support: “

At least I’m not being ignore now. That pisses me off more than anything. Bad service happens. Sometimes things are defective. Not a big deal. You fix it and move on but as a company that sells products or provides a service what you don’t do is ignore your fucking customers.

So on to today. I’ve sent them this email using the addresses provided on the support page:

I have attempted to get support for this issue from the GoControl web site and thus far been unsuccesful. Your corporate Twitter account sent me the link to your support page.

Over the past couple months I have purchased one GoControl Z-Wave Home Security Suite – Premium and eight GoControl Z-Wave Home Security Suite – Essential. That’s a total of one Alarm, nine motion sensors and 19 door/window sensors. The alarm and motion sensors are all working well, however, the door/window sensors not so well. Out of the box only ten of the door/window sensors work. That’s almost a 50% fail rate.

The sensors were all bought at Home Depot (two different local locations to me) on fix or six trips. Unfortunately all but a couple of them have been discarded and originally I just chalked it to to buying cheap shit and figuring at least with the motion sensors I still got my money’s worth. After the last purchase I decided to contact GoControl customer service on May 18th and ask for a replacement or refund. At the time I also didn’t realize just how many of these I had purchased. I told them it was seven when in fact it was nine. That request has been ignored and as a matter of fact nobody has even bothered to answer my email at all. It took TWO different messages to @NortekControl on twitter just to get someone to respond to me there and now I’m pissed. This level of customer service is unacceptable and I’ll be sure to buy Aotec for the rest of my doors/windows around the house.
I would like replacements for all nine of the non-functioning door/window sensors as soon as possible.  Please contact me for a mailing address.
Guess we’ll see if I get a response. Even a poor response is better than none at all.
6/9/16 – So I did as @NortekControl (the parent company of GoControl) suggested and contacted their customer service. Three frigging times now. Still no response. While their stuff may be a great deal, almost a steal, I’ll pay extra next time. Buying something cheap that doesn’t work isn’t any kind of a deal. Thanks for nothing.
6/10/16 – I contacted @NortekControl once again last night to make sure they knew how disappointed I was and this time they put me in contact with someone in their tech support department. Apparently for anything z-wave related you are supposed to call rather than email. wtf? Anyway, they are sending me the nine replacements and I have the phone number if there is any other problem. Still doesn’t explain why all of my emails were ignored for over 20 days but they were very pleasant to speak to on the phone and prompt in getting me taken care of. Should these all work, or if they don’t and I’m able to get support, I may rethink my opinion. Should be getting the replacements shipped out toward the end of next week and I’ll update this post at that point.
7/2/16 – STILL waiting for the hardware to be shipped. I emailed them about a week ago (June 22nd) and was told that the person that was going to test them had been out of town and they would check. Haven’t heard a word since I emailed them that last time ten days ago. I’m shocked.

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