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Google Buys Home Automation Company Nest
JDG1980 writes "Google just announced that they will be purchasing Nest, a company best known for their 'smart' thermostats and smoke detectors, for $3.2 billion in cash. What will this mean for Nest devices going forward — greater integration with Android, perhaps?"
What they'll do is track when you're home, what temperature you like your house, whether you're cold at night, etc, and then use it to advertise at you. Isn't that what Google does with everything?
"We've noticed that you've been running your furnace a lot recently. Here's a list of insulation installers in your area that you might be interested in."
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Ridiculous sum of money for Nest. Google is starting to look like a has been trying to buy their way to relevance like Microsoft.
So, the AC unit can be the master, with wifi, that also connects to the smoke alarms around the house with wifi, with speakers... I'm sensing the chance for streaming music wherever you go in the house. Notifications, warnings where you left the phone. More of the chromecast model of a fairly basic module that's controlled through the phone's UI and just streams. To have these neat devices ONLY used for fire/ac, when they could have so much more running? Lots of potential. Tied in with your phone, and it's location, so as you're returning from work, crank up the heat/AC as needed. Maybe tie it into Google Glass so you can wander around the house and SEE the temp and control it with a few blinks? Very very cool, hopefully Google won't dump it but really go all out to make it the base of an Aware House.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
That assurance should last as long as "We won't track your data across services" did.
I own a warehouse and have to pay a security firm to receive emergency signals for freezing (pipes!) and smoke or overheating. I'd like to be able to monitor it myself. I'd live with ads if i can reduce what I pay the security company. Seems kind of obvious.
Gently reply
I own a Nest thermostat and while it's a great and innovative device I don't see the company being worth $3.2B. There are also a lot of other new Internet enabled smoke detectors coming out. I looked at their smoke detectors but in many jurisdictions they can't be legally installed since smoke detectors are required to have a hard-wire connection such that if one goes off they all go off. Since Nest does this wirelessly it's not allowed. They're also incompatible with all the other smoke detectors and alarm systems and are quite expensive for what they are. I looked into this since I just wired in a bunch of 2-wire (12v) smoke detectors into my alarm system. I picked up a combination smoke/CO detector with heat sensor that integrates into my alarm system for $80.
Now what would be cool is for someone to integrate a good wireless AP with a smoke detector though I think the smoke detector signalling should remain separate (at least here in California they require using special fire alarm wire for hooking up fire related stuff).
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THE THERMOSTAT
Of all the great inventions of modern times the one that has given me most comfort and joy is one that is seldom heard of, to wit, the thermostat. I was amazed, some time ago, to hear that it was invented at least a generation ago. I first heard of it during the War of 1914-18, when some kind friend suggested that I throw out the coal furnace that was making steam in my house and put in a gas furnace. Naturally enough, I hesitated, for the human mind is so constituted. But the day I finally succumbed must remain ever memorable in my annals, for it saw me move at one leap from an inferno into a sort of paradise. Everyone will recall how bad the coal was in those heroic days. The patriotic anthracite men loaded their culm-piles on cars, and sold them to householders all over the East. Not a furnaceman was in practise in my neighborhood: all of them were working in the shipyards at $15 a day. So I had to shovel coal myself, and not only shovel coal, but sift ashes. It was a truly dreadful experience. Worse, my house was always either too hot or too cold. When a few pieces of actual coal appeared in the mass of slate the temperature leaped up to 85 degrees, but most of the time it was between 45 and 50.
The thermostat changed all that, and in an instant. I simply set it at 68 degrees, and then went about my business. Whenever the temperature in the house went up to 70 it automatically turned off the gas under the furnace in the cellar, and there was an immediate return to 68. And if the mercury, keeping on, dropped to 66, then the gas went on again, and the temperature was soon 68 once more. I began to feel like a man liberated from the death-house. I was never too hot or too cold. I had no coal to heave, no ashes to sift. My house became so clean that I could wear a shirt five days. I began to feel like work, and rapidly turned out a series of imperishable contributions to the national letters. My temper improved so vastly that my family began to suspect senile changes. Moreover, my cellar became as clean as the rest of the house, and as roomy as a barn. I enlarged my wine-room by 1000 cubic metres. I put in a cedar closet big enough to hold my whole wardrobe. I added a vault for papers, a carpenter shop, and a praying chamber.
H.L. Mencken
The Boons of Civilization
From the American Mercury, Jan., 1931, pp. 33-35
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
That would beat how long it took them to discontinue selling SageTV by "a few years".
Speak before you think