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Google's Business Plan For Nest: Selling Your Data To Utility Companies

Posted by timothy on from the selling-to-burglars-would-be-wrong dept.

jfruh (300774) writes "Google spent $3.2 billion on Nest. How is it going to make its money back selling high-end electronic thermostats at $250 a pop? Well, keep in mind that Google is a company that makes its money off information, not hardware. In fact, Nest is developing a healthy revenue stream in which it sells aggregated user information to utility companies, to help them more efficiently plan their electricity-generation scheduling. The subscriptions net Google somewhere in the range of $40 per user per year."

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. But they already bill me by scorp1us · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The power company already knows how much I use and when. In fact they send me this energy statement saying I'm using 10% more than my neighbors.

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    1. Re:But they already bill me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But they don't specifically know how much energy goes into heating and AC, vs. other household uses.

      Say it looks like there's going to be a heat wave next week, it's going to be 100+ for a couple weeks straight, how much extra energy are you going to use (and by extension everyone else like you). If you're using 10% more energy than your neighbors because you're growing pot your increased demand is going to be lower than if you use 10% more energy because you keep the house at 55 degrees to slow the decay of your roadkill collection.