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Google Nest Rumored To Be Moving Into Audio

Posted by samzenpus on from the spread-the-music dept.

CIStud writes Google's Nest, best known for its innovated smart Nest thermostats and Nest Protect smoke detectors, has posted several new job positions for "Nest Audio" including a leadership position to handle "acoustics, audio electronics, audio SW, audio test and validation for all Nest Products." From the TechCrunch article: "This is a new frontier for Nest. The company has so far utilized little audio in its products. Instead, Nest has so far recruited a couple of audio companies to join Nest’s world of Internet of Things through the 'Works With Nest' developer program. 'Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone. We’ve had great momentum, but [Google] is a rocket ship,' said co-founder Tony Fadell when Google bought the company."

37 comments

  1. LOLOLOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google's Nest, best known for its innovated smart Nest thermostats and Nest Protect smoke detectors

    Yeah those smoke detectors were definitely "innovated":

    According to Nest, the Nest Wave function -- which allows users to turn their alarm off by simply waving their hand -- could be activated accidentally, thus potentially endangering lives if a real fire were to occur.

  2. Squeezeplay by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So it is going to be like Squeezeplay, but connected to proprietary products instead of a server that runs on almost any hardware and free clients/controllers that you can install on windows/linux/android at will?

    We'll see how it does. If it was Apple, I would say people would almost certainly buy it.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Squeezeplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, a major point of the article is that nobody knows what is going to be like yet. I have no idea how you made that leap of (ill)-logic.

    2. Re:Squeezeplay by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I wasn't aware Slashdot had forbidden imagination. That explains why there are so few articles on unicorns.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    3. Re:Squeezeplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SHUT UP UNICORNS ARE REAL

    4. Re:Squeezeplay by montulli · · Score: 2

      I was/am a huge fan of Squeezeplay and the Squeezebox product lines. If Nest could combine the flexibility of Squeezebox, the simplicity of Sonos or Apple, and the reasonable prices of Google, they would have an amazing hit.

    5. Re:Squeezeplay by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Yes, the Squeezebox stuff could benefit from better GUIs and being alittle more seamless, still it is an amazing product on the back end.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    6. Re:Squeezeplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I stumbled onto the whole home automation market by accident recently, and am really frustrated. So much potential wasted by people trying to monopolize your money, when they'd all make money by being more open [libre].

      Here's my rules:

      1. Any home automation product should not depend on external servers. E.g., if I want to know the status of my thermostat, or humidity sensor, I should be able to access that information and communicate with the units from the LAN without going outside the home. As a corollary, I should have absolute control over access to products in my home.

      2. Every product should support an open industry standard for wireless communication. Zwave or zigbee, or some better version, or both, or something like that. No idiosyncratic or proprietary protocols. I should be able to buy a zigbee temperature and humidity sensor and Ecobee should recognize it.

      I don't see this field really taking off until both of those things happen. When it does, it will really revolutionize home, and we'll see the IoT. Until then, it's a hyped pipe dream. You *can* do all this now, buying zwave and zigbee units, and buying a hub that supports these things, but it will cost an arm and a leg. The stuff that's affordable now basically involves you getting locked into the cloud or whatever. And no, I won't take any company's word that they'll still be around in 10 years and offering their servers for free.

    7. Re:Squeezeplay by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      but connected to proprietary products instead of a server that runs on almost any hardware

      I never understood why people liked the squeezebox better than other alternatives. I had an AudioTron, and it required zero software installation on Windows and OS X, and one useful package on Linux. It relied solely on SMB and didn't need any indexing server or anything. You gave it a user account and it could either self discover the shares or you could explicitly point your music share to it and it indexed that.

      Made using a special server sorta like having to use iTunes to load your MP3 player.

    8. Re:Squeezeplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never understood why people liked the squeezebox better than other alternatives. I had an AudioTron, and it required zero software installation on Windows and OS X, and one useful package on Linux. It relied solely on SMB and didn't need any indexing server or anything.

      I believe SqueezeBox is more easily incorporated into multiple audio systems than AudioTron. I have multiple SqueezeBox receivers plugged into different systems throughout the house -- a single server (already running for other tasks) handles each either independently or sync'd together. From what I understand of AudioTron, each is independent of the other. I don't know what it cost, but looks to be considerably more hardware than the much smaller, headless design of a SqueezeBox receiver.

    9. Re:Squeezeplay by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure of the capibilities of Audiotron, but Squeezeplay allows me to switch sources, whether it be a radio service like pandora or mp3s on disk. It also searches through live feeds of radio on the internet. I am not in a big city and most of my local stations are available. And yes there is the syncing ability, I can have the same service playing all through my house if I want, or I can have every player on a different source.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    10. Re:Squeezeplay by radl33t · · Score: 1

      buy and root the wink hub, many radios. many places it ends up free if you spend $12- $16 on a couple of z wave LED lights. otherwise its $50

  3. Great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google found a way to place always-on microphones in everyone's homes. Fuck this company.

    1. Re:Great news by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      The NSA is likely very excited about the opportunity.

    2. Re:Great news by bmimatt · · Score: 1

      Google found a way to place always-on microphones in everyone's homes. Fuck this company.

      Why downmodded? The AC is making a valid point.

    3. Re:Great news by jmac_the_man · · Score: 2

      Home audio generally means the opposite of that. You're listening to stuff sent to you by Google. Google isn't listening to stuff sent by you.

  4. Big brother ahoy! by Desler · · Score: 0

    Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone.

    Said the NSA Director who absolutely loves the new surveillance avenues these devices will open up.

    1. Re:Big brother ahoy! by PPH · · Score: 1

      Why audio? Can't the Nest just real lips?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  5. Monster, Look out! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People pull out perfectly fine 2-stage thermostats and put in a Nest and next thing they know their inside evap coil has turned to ice because the compressor has been running while in the midst of a winter cold snap. How can Nest ruin an audio system? Time will show that, for sure.

  6. Mod parent up by mbstone · · Score: 0

    There must be some organized effort of Google fanchildren that mods down posts critical of them.

    Obv. Google isn't satisfied with the amount of information they already have on you, now they want to bug your bedroom.

    1. Re:Mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >There must be some organized effort of Google
      > fanchildren that mods down posts critical
      >of them.

      That or people have tired of the paranoid derp here since all the smart people left. Assuming someone is a shill because they don't share your dysfunction is pathetic.

    2. Re:Mod parent up by radl33t · · Score: 1

      How about you don't use these products? I don't get the nonstop privacy outrage. Why can't I give away mine?

  7. Competition is fierce in that market by Karmashock · · Score: 1

    ... I don't see the point really.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  8. I already blew my wad by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    On a couple of Sonoses.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:I already blew my wad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      SONOS rules!

    2. Re:I already blew my wad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'm pretty happy with Sonos. But they are marking some of their stuff up a lot, especially something like the connect or connect amp - why the connect is priced at $350 is beyond me, unless it's purely to discourage people from using it. Or maybe they figure the only people buying it already have a ton of money in their existing systems. Anyway it can't cost more than $50 to make.

  9. I'm guessing they're targetting Sonos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This seems like Sonos is the biggest competitor with that exact functionality. Kind of like Google TV for audio. Stick the smart box somewhere, control it from your phone/tablet/pc but you don't have to stream directly from your phone/tablet/pc.

  10. Oblig. XKCD by tool462 · · Score: 2

    I feel like Randall was trolling /. with this one, but it's right on the money here:
    http://xkcd.com/1497/

  11. TIOT is going to be the end of us all... by bjwest · · Score: 2

    I'll say this again... Fuck The Internet of Things. Thermostats, smoke detectors, ovens, refrigerators, LED light bulbs and now audio? How much of our privacy and control are we going to give away? Networked devices are fine - if I retain full control and keep usage stats inhouse, but I'll be damed if I'll give control and monitoring over to any corporation in the name of "convenience". Why in hell does my temperature adjustment or light turning on or off or dimming need to go into the cloud, frigging before it even happens? There's enough processing power in a Raspbery Pi to handle the needs of the majority of homes, fuck your cloud spy devices.

    Todays iCrap outage should be a wake up call, but I fear it won't. They'll patch (not fix, patch) whatever caused that, blame the problem on some terrorist group, and say it's all good. It'll happen again, and it'll be the same same again.

    I'm glad I'm a do it yourselfer who can hack my house to do what I want it to do, because believe me, I will never give that much control and info of my life over to anyone. The rest of you... Well, if you handen't've (yes, that's a word) been such dicks to the nerds in high school/college, maybe you'd have someone to help you out.

    --

    --- Keep the choice with the user..
    1. Re:TIOT is going to be the end of us all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Internet of Things does not require you to give away any data. It's all the cloud bullshit. Just because you can VPN into your home and adjust the thermostat or check what's in thefridge doesn't necessarily mean that google knows all about it. I'm holding out for "internet things" that leave me in control.

    2. Re:TIOT is going to be the end of us all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your meds are next to the glass of water.

    3. Re:TIOT is going to be the end of us all... by radl33t · · Score: 1

      In principle I have no problem giving up control or data. I choose otherwise because I enjoy DIY. Why does it make you so angry I and other brainless consumers have the freedom to choose?

    4. Re:TIOT is going to be the end of us all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Likewise... LAN-of-Things > IoT

  12. Can't be hushed here! by citizenr · · Score: 1

    Can't be hushed here, now in 7.1!

    --
    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  13. Next up for Google Nest by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Pod Bay door control.