Google Made a Sad Boomer Mark Out of Me and There's Nothing I Can Do About It

Freddie deBoer

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Google Made a Sad Boomer Mark Out of Me and There's Nothing I Can Do About It<br>I hate writing this so much

Freddie deBoer<br>Jun 17, 2026

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literally me<br>Hello,<br>My name is Freddie deBoer, and I really got the full Google experience today, in the worst way. Please don’t discard this email just because you see so much text. I think this story is worth listening to. If nothing else, you can laugh at my stumbling, worthless attempts to navigate the world made by you, the giant impersonal corporation who dominates our lives in ways both subtle and grand.

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A couple of years ago I purchased five of your 2nd generation Google Nest Protect wired smart smoke detectors from the Google Store. My wife and I were struggling to have a baby, I had all of this sad anxious energy that came with that long, laborious, repetitively heartbreaking process, and I found myself channeling that energy into various attempts to make our house a little safer. They were shockingly expensive, but Wirecutter raved about them and made me feel like they might really make a difference. I was a little worried about the installation process, though; you never know with smarthome stuff. The product page said that I could find a licensed (or approved or whatever) Google installer by using your widget after purchase. Alrighty!, I thought. They’ve got a widget! They’ve got official (or whatever) Google techs! I won’t have to worry so much about finding an honest technician to do the installation. So I bought five of them, one for each of the smoke detectors we already had installed. They weren’t cheap - almost $800 as a matter of fact - but every expense feels justifiable when you’re doing it for your kid, even if your kid is still entirely theoretical. What can I say? I’m only human.<br>Then I put in my ZIP code in your widget… which told me that there were no techs in my area. This was strange because we live in suburban Connecticut, less than two hours from New York, not in the middle of Wyoming. I tried several times over months, but your service kept saying that there was no one in my area. I thought hard about doing it myself and found the appropriate YouTube videos. Unfortunately, I had a failed rotator cuff repair sometime ago and now my other rotator cuff is partially torn and over-the-head stuff is really hard for me, so installing five alarms just seemed physically unachievable. My wife, meanwhile, is a full foot shorter than I am and was otherwise not keen on doing amateur electronic work. OK. I set the problem aside for awhile.<br>Then we got pregnant and had the baby and I was distracted. Not a good idea, leaving $800 of smart smoke detectors in a box, but that’s what happens when you have a new baby. Everything else just leaves your awareness. I concede that this was dumb and my bad and if you’d like to abandon any sympathy towards me because of this, well… fine. But recently I finally took steps to get them installed; we’re getting a doorbell cam, a Nest one, and I thought, hey, good opportunity to kill two birds, you know? I found someone to install the doorbell through your widget. I called the number. That company, the ones who are gonna install the doorbell and camera, said they couldn’t do the smoke alarms but they’d find a licensed electrician to install the smoke detectors - at my own additional expense, of course. I said OK. The electrician showed up and told me the smoke detectors were discontinued. I looked it up and showed him that Google has guaranteed 10 years of service for the product anyway and that they could still be installed and used, according to Google itself. He said alright. Then, when he went to install them, he found a mount for a smoke detector in the basement that I was unaware of. That one had to get filled too, and it had to be with an alarm that could communicate with the rest, apparently by law or regulation or whatever. I needed a sixth alarm.

The only problem is that you discontinued the Nest Protect and don’t sell them anymore! Boy, you guys love pushing a product onto consumers only to abruptly stop doing so in a fickle and abrupt fashion, don’t you? Alright, well, I went looking on the secondary market for a sixth Nest Protect gen 2 wired smoke and CO detector. Surely eBay would have a few? Unfortunately, because the product is discontinued, the options are all dodgy used models or insanely expensive price gouging that I can’t afford. So I can’t install the five that I have unless I get a sixth but I can’t get a sixth without paying significantly more than face value, maybe, for a discontinued model. Not appealing!<br>OK, well, this was a real pickle. So I contacted your Google Store customer service to look for help. (What is the purpose of customer service other than to service the customer, right? …right?) I wanted help either finding a detector to fill the missing...