Google gobbles Wi-Fi thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 BEEELLION IN CASH Nest Labs, which touts sensors and controllers for so-called "smart homes", has been bought by Google for $3.2bn in hard cash. "Nest's founders, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family," gushed Google CEO Larry Page in a statement, heaping praise on the …
The API will be open but the only way to use it will be with a custom, proprietary runtime and there will be a global query limit of 500 requests.... And installing your Nest now will require a Google+ account.
That said, you'll be able to easily share your data through Circles and your thermostat will be able to discover all your email accounts.
Google: I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours.
Google: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Google: It can only be attributable to human error.
User: Open the Washing Machine doors, Google!
Well, lets examine this. They have build super secret storage facilities that are more secure than area 51. Their data has become uncontrollable and showing "sign of life". They own the most advance war machine company on Earth, and they have been given the U.S. health care system to boot. ...Now they control your house. Google is obviously run by the Alien robot overlords preparing for world invasion. Prepare yourselves now.
Do all evil all the time.
To me, this is yet another sign that the company is becoming the new Microsoft, buying innovation to make it unavoidable you have to get a Google account to do things, and thus agree legally to let them have all the data they cansqueeze out of your life to sell. In that context, the commentard suggesting someone might need insolation isn't far off IMHO, also because Google possibly has your MOBILE number to sell with it if you bought the "extra security" Argument to give them the one thing that wasn't listed).
If you wanted a Nest thermostat, buy it now before Borg II absorbs it.
I don't know why people bother buying lottery tickets when the odds of getting rich are so much better creating a company and getting bought by Google. Just make sure to play to the personal tastes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Still, they just bought a company that makes thermostats for $3.200.000.000, which is about 500 times what I expect to earn during my whole life. Please excuse my loser self while I go cry in a corner.
Already have it today, I can control my heating anywhere through an Internet connection, with standard British Gas boiler. No doubt we will see more of this kind of thing in the future.
If that's true, I hope this isn't anything like an ipod - no thanks, I don't want every device from fridges to kettles set up so that they're suddenly only compatible with a system from one manufacturer, ignoring every other system that uses open standards. And then even the people that do go along with it find that all their kettles and fridges have to be replaced, because the one manufacturer changes their dongle socket interface.
I am struggling to think what's so clever about this company. Altering the temperature of somewhere according to whether or not there are people in the place is not exactly difficult.
Someone (this bunch?) have a phone program that can let the system know when you're nearby (probably), so the place can be warm if and when you arrive.
But really this is simple control stuff with some nice industrial design.
"Since then the company has expanded into flogging a combination carbon-monoxide detector and "smart" smoke alarm, which phones you when your house is on fire"
<Cheesy ringtone>
<<Hi, this your Nest (tm) smart smoke detector, your house is on fire!>>
I can definitely see enough people rushing out to buy this to justify an investment of $3200000000
Maybe it'll post a message for you on your Google+ account and send an email to all your gmail contacts too : "Hi, I won't be available to answer emails for the next few days as my house just burnt down".
"<<Hi, this your Nest (tm) smart smoke detector, your house is on fire!>>"
It'd have to be a bloody smart smoke detector to overcome the usual problem that such devices have, which is that they are much more likely to be set off by burning your toast or even just cooking bacon.
Perhaps a more useful role for this product is in guarding your supply of breakfast pig products from being snaffled by someone else living in the house. Show up to a couple of 'false alarms' and catch them in the act of preparing a sneaky fry up...
<<Hi, this your Nest (tm) smart smoke detector, either your house is on fire or the missus is at the bacon again!>>"
So why was the iPod a huge success and other MP3 players less so?
The guy who designed Nest worked on the iPod. I'd say that means people do want rotary dials and nice lights.
Clarity is important and if you're going to have something stuck on your wall why shouldn't be be attractive?
"featuring "innovations" such as a rotating dial with an LED to indicate the temperature"
Is it just me or is this another stupid American patent? A rotating dial with an LED? What new exciting development next? A togglable switch with with an LED?
Stupid damn American patent system.
I guess the thermostats will soon have microphones for voice control and cameras so they can see if people are there and if they look hot or cold.
They are already web connected so Google can get to see and hear what you do in your homes as well as your computers, fondleslabs, and phones.
And 3.2 billion for a bloody thermostat company? Maybe they see it is another route into people's homes after the flopped powermeter attempt and will be able to use it as a lever to force utilities to cooperate with them on smart metering and smart appliances.
Almost all the major air conditioner brands do in fact now have infra-red sensors in them to detect when people look hot or cold. And Sharp's Cocorobo (Roomba-alike) speaks to you and will on command trundle over to the air conditioner to switch it on and off.
"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to turn down the aircon. Call that job satisfaction?"
Google was funding Nest throughout its various rounds of raising venture capital; they even directly-mention this in today's statement regarding the buyout:
https://nest.com/blog/2014/01/13/welcome-home/
In a sense - and I'll admit that this is something of a 'better the devil you know' choice - this is probably preferable to tying your home thermostat directly into the Smart Grid*, but that largely depends on how much autonomy Nest can maintain from Google. I'm willing to bet that that autonomy is going to be quite small now that they have virtually unlimited access to the mothership's cloud services (assuming they weren't using them already), but one can at least hold out hope.
* Yes, I realise that the Smart Grid will, by its very nature, end up encompassing any Nest thermostats in the home, but at least it could conceivably remain one piece of hardware that's not directly-tied to it.
Just had a look at the products page at Nest, four products; a smart thermostat, a smoke alarm, an expensive blanket and a very expensive water bottle.
Not too sure if the blanket and bottle are smart and can spy on you but either Nest has a truck load of innovative patents ready to roll or Borgle is tax avoiding as mentioned.
And I thought Google would keep improving search algorithms.
It's a glaring but not admitted failure that they have to rely on context (even temperatures) outside a web pages / sites for understanding what ads will suit on a specific page.
Business always finds its way.
to make Google+ more popular. Now if you post an update, "I am at home and I feel cold", the thermostat (that won't work without a G+ account) will be able to react. At which point the whole of GMail will be emailed a story (the thermostat has a valid G+ account, after all) of how posting to Google+ made you more comfortable in a very real sense. Some gullible punters will order smart thermostats from Google Play and open Google+ accounts for each new device...
Google's recent purchases: gesture recognition, robots, thermostats.
So in the future a robot will recognise you shivering and show you an ad for a jumper / tropical holiday. When you respond to that with a two-finger gesture, said robot will sprint across the room and turn the thermostat up.
Google have huge computer networks, which on some levels are already programming themselves. They have self driving cars. They have technology that can control large groups of drones automatically. They have glasses that augment the reality of the world we see around us.
They bought Boston Dynamics, a company at the forefront of combat military robotics. And then yesterday they bought a company that makes thermostats. But not just any thermostats. No these are really sensors, that people will put in every room of their houses.
I can see the direction they're going in. They're creating Skynet. Skynet was the name of the computer network in the Terminator films. It's only a matter of time before this thing becomes self aware, and then takes over.
I don't think resistance will be possible. So, in an attempt to curry favour, I for one would like to welcome our new robot overlords.
Where on earth did they get the company valuation from? They must know something we don't.
I do know that the smart home/smart office market is on the verge of exploding, you only have to look at the adverts on TV now to realise that something is going on. Not to mention the level of fuss about products like this.
A couple of years ago I built my own smart-thermostat using an arduino. I also have a web interface to it so I can turn heating on and off from a web browser (more often than not on my smartphone). I don't really understand why the Nest tries to detect if people are in the house or not. If anyone goes into my house and then it decides to turn the heating on, it's too late. I wanted it on 1/2 an hour ago so it was warm when they get in. More often than not, I don't want it to turn off if we go out for a bit either.
Think Google are very clever here, Thermostats are a cheap £2.00 product installed in houses when they are built and they never get replaced, but with gas/electric bills getting bigger and people becoming more conscious of wasting energy you can replace the thermostat with something more intelligent and start saving yourself money.
Also, an internet enabled thermostat is one step closer to complete home automation, it might not become mainstream for the next 5-10 years but when it does become mainstream Google will make a significant amount of money.
We had an automated office, with everything from voice controlled flourescent lighting, to DECT based control, to local radio networks linking lights, heating, curtains, music, video cameras, etc. all in the mid 1990's. Although in those days remote access was via IP or text messages on your phone. If you can find it on a way-back machine the company was CPSL (Creative Products and Systems Ltd, in Lutterworth UK) and the product range DSS (Distributed Smart System). The graphical user interface had all the knobs, LED's etc. that you would expect and was based on the earlier Signal Centre product (a fore runner of Lab View)
Who can claim any of this is new and patentable?
I know there are wealthy bastards with huge houses and multi-zone heating and cooling. Something like this may work and pay off for them. I have a single thermostat that is only used in the heating season. Kicks on at 6, turns back at 11 for sleep. I have a couple of times set for turn back in case someone manually turns it up, so it doesn't stay up all day. If we are out of the house for a few days, we turn it back and set the hold button. In the summer, it's window AC, so this would do nothing for me.
I don't know about their system, but I can speak of the advantages of systems already available and mainstream today.
So your house is heated all during the day when you might be out at work? Ideally it should be possible to set schedules for different temperatures depending on time and day, which is a lot easier to do using a web page on a computer than fiddling with the awkward UI on a small thermostat LCD.
If I'm out for a few days and have turned it down, it's nice to turn it up before I get back, so I don't arrive to a cold house.
The only thing I'm not convinced on is whether it actually saves money - it's much easier now to just up the temperature every time I'm feeling cold from my Android phone, tablet or Windows laptop, than have to get up and go and find a jumper...
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