Google’s hardware products are routinely plagued by issues, so much so that some of our team memberswon’t unequivocally recommend Pixel phones anymore. The problems are nothing new, and the company had to deal with multiple class action lawsuits over the years, started and joined by customers disgruntled with the quality of their hardware. There is now a new class action lawsuit in town, alleging Google knowingly sold overheatingPixel 6 Prounits.
The plaintiff, Jennifer Hyatt, claims that she went through multiple replacement units to get her problems with the Pixel 6 Pro fixed, but every single one of them had the same overheating problems as her first one. According toLaw360(viaTop Class Actions), the lawsuit alleges that Google is guilty of violating California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act.
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Hyatt claims that Google knew that its devices had overheating issues even though the company repeatedly claimed that wasn’t the case. This is pinned down toGoogle’s support websitetitled “Help keep your Pixel phone from feeling too warm or hot,” which lists a few common use cases like video calls, video recordings, and navigation apps as culprits that may cause the phone to overheat.
The class action lawsuit is intended for consumers who purchased the Pixel 6 Pro in California, with Hyatt wanting to represent a group of affected people. It wants to achieve a recall of affected devices and make Google offer refunds for those affected. The lawsuit is still in its early stages, so it’s not clear at all if it will hold up in court or be dismissed early on.
Google has some experience with class action lawsuits around its handsets. Its Nexus 6P suffered from bootloop problems and early shutdowns, the original Pixel had issues with its microphone, and the Pixel 3 had problems with consistent battery life and poor photo and video quality. The overheating issues described here and connectivity issues only started cropping up more often on the Pixel 6 series and newer devices sporting Google’s custom Tensor CPU. Matters have improved over the past few years with the Pixel 8 series, but Pixel phones are still often among the hottest and those with the worst mobile connection.
