Nest's Time At Alphabet: A 'Virtually Unlimited Budget' With No Results (arstechnica.com)

Ron Amadeo, reporting for Ars Technica (edited and condensed): Nest CEO Tony Fadell wasn't officially "fired" from Nest, but it certainly feels like it. In just the last few months, Nest has had to deal with reports of an "employee exodus," a string of public insults from Dropcam co-founder and departing Nest employee Greg Duffy, news that even Google supposedly didn't want to work with Nest on a joint project, and fallout from the company's decision to remotely disable Nest's deprecated Revolv devices. [...] It's hard to argue with the decision to "transition" Fadell away from Nest. When Google bought Nest in January 2014, the expectation was that a big infusion of Google's resources and money would supercharge Nest. Nest grew from 280 employees around the time of the Google acquisition to 1200 employees today. In Nest's first year as "a Google company," it used Google's resources to acquire webcam maker Dropcam for $555 million, and it paid an unknown amount for the smart home hub company Revolv. Duffy said Nest was given a "virtually unlimited budget" inside Alphabet. In return for all this investment, Nest delivered very little. Two-and-a-half years under Google/Alphabet, a quadrupling of the employee headcount, and half-a-billion dollars in acquisitions yielded minor yearly updates and a rebranded device. That's all.

Comments

This is what happens when you have

[bravecanadian]

a solution looking for a problem.. that causes other problems.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[RatPh!nk]

In terms of energy efficiency, it is smart. The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system. However, I admit even as a gadget geek with some superfluous income it just isn't $250 cool, to me. Purely a values thing. I'd definitely be in for $150, maybe at $200. Price point is just off for what it does.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[QuietLagoon]

a solution looking for a problem.. that causes other problems.

It was a solution for two problems:

.
1) how to gather information about the interior of people's houses

2) how to get people to install yet another advertisement screen in their houses.

To your point, the problem with Nest is that the solutions were not for problems that the people buying the device had, Nest was a solution to Nest's business partners' problems.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[known_coward_69]

yep, some of us aren't so OCD that coming home to a too hot or cold home is a big deal. we tough it out for 30 minutes instead of turning the AC on remotely of having it run all day. this seems like a millennial product for the younger crowd who are still in their whiny everything must be perfect phase of their lives. us old people in the we're too cheap phase will tough it out and save the cash. and electricity isn't that expensive if you don't use a lot. in NYC my bill is like $70 most months unless it's a hot summer. i turn all the lights off, the TV, all the computers, nothing running or torrenting 24 hours a day, no SAN's or other geek nonsense sucking up electricity. absolutely no need for one of these gizmos or you buy a new home with all the energy efficiency bells and whistles so that this isn't a problem in the first place. and new homes already have automation options you can buy.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[green1]

My house is very unpredictably empty. But I've also seen nothing to indicate that Nest can handle that any better than my existing "dumb" thermostat.
It can only detect people if they walk near the thermostat (which is in an upstairs hallway that I don't walk by very often), it can guess at schedules, but I can guarantee it can't guess at ours. I could manually program a schedule in to it, but it would always be wrong, and It would be just as easy to manually adjust the thermostat each time.

Now if they implemented something that looked at multiple google calendars, and assumed that if there was nothing scheduled on any of them that there'd be someone home, then it would be useful, but right now it only works if your house is PREDICTABLY empty.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[MachineShedFred]

Other competitors have solved most of those problems, specifically Ecobee with their remote sensors that you can put in different rooms. You can then set schedules that ignore some sensors at certain times - for example, I don't really care what the temperature is in my office when I'm in my bedroom sleeping, so pay no attention to that.

The remote sensors also have movement sensing too, so you don't have to walk past the thermostat, but any sensor that you can put wherever you please. They've also integrated with IFTTT to allow smartphone geolocation services.

Nest may have been first, but they've done jack shit with that lead and now they're last.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[macs4all]

In terms of energy efficiency, it is smart. The rate at which your house warms and cools, especially as a function of outside temperature, is a much better algorithm for controlling a heating and cooling system.

That's the "D" (Differential) part of the "PID" (Proportional Integral Differential, or "Proportioner Integrator Differentiator") Algorithm that thermostats and heating/cooling plants have been using for, well, since there were mechanical thermostats with that strange little setting inside that was marked with "0.4, 0.6, 0.8..."

Look up "Heat Anticipator" sometime. Rate-of-Change when heating is NOT a novel concept. Far from it.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[b0bby]

I have both a Nest and an ecobee; can't remember which one, but one of the two had a setting where it would switch to resistant heat instead of the heat pump if the internet reported temp outside was below ~32 degrees. I noticed the aux heat was coming on too much and found and changed that setting. I could see how that could add a good amount to your bill for sure.

Re:This is what happens when you have

[TheInternetGuy]

"D" (Derivative) , because letters and stuff

Google overpaid...

[__aaclcg7560]

Based on my experience in a company that went on a shopping spree during the run up to the dot com bust, Google overpaid and Nest had unrealistic expectations.

Re:Google overpaid...

[drinkypoo]

But it just always seemed like a certain, bizarre brand of hubris to want to show off all the pretty server LEDs as proof that you were doing something important.

In most tech companies the real work happens at desks and it looks boring as hell. The blinkenlichten in the server room are the only visually impressive part of the whole enterprise. Might as well put it on display...

Re:Too lazy to google

[__aaclcg7560]

Internet of Things - Devices to control your home.*

*As long as company doesn't brick your devices because they're too old.

Job security

[The-Ixian]

Has the buying out of a smaller company EVER resulted in a better product for the consumer?

Cheaper, maybe... but almost certainly more diluted as creative control and vision is coopted/usurped.

Re:Job security

[MachineShedFred]

Yes.

Apple purchased PA Semi, and now they have their own line of system-on-chip computers that have pushed other semiconductor and device manufacturers to constantly increase performance to compete.

Purchasing PA Semi lead directly to the Apple A4 chip and it's successors, which led directly to Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung making better ARM chips to compete.

Re:Job security

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Has the buying out of a smaller company EVER resulted in a better product for the consumer?

Well, I don't know. Was pre-Google Android any good? Were there many devices with it for you to buy?

To be expected...

[Junta]

They released an overhyped thermostat. Google then spent 3.2 billion dollars... on a thermostat company.

Sure they had vague ambitions of a connected home that jived with IoT, but all the company had really gotten into the world was a damn thermostat that could connect to the internet.

No matter how good or bad that concept sounds, it was stupid to justify a 3.2 billion dollar investment on that one concrete thing.

Perhaps it was Google's fault

[SuperKendall]

I was all set to buy a couple of Nest devices for me house... right before Google purchased them.

I don't want a bunch of Google data gathering devices in my house.

I wouldn't say that was probably a common reaction, but I'm sure Google owning the company made other potential customers uneasy as well. If for no other reason than a company being bought means a device you buy may well have support yanked (as Google Nest did with one of the copies they acquired!).

Nest temperature display is backwards

[paulpach]

I have a Nest thermostat. It displays in large the temperature you set it to instead of the current room temperature. What the actual fuck? A mercury thermometer is smarter than this.

There was a feature request for this opened in 2013, it has 1683 votes and its the third most popular feature request. You would think that even an entry level programmer would be able to fix that or add an option, but no, the feature has been completely ignored for years and contacting support about it only gives the reply "keep voting for it", even though that is clearly going to /dev/null. The other popular features request are equally ignored.

I am very frustrated by the complete lack of support these devices have. The entire community web site is nothing more than a pacifier for nest owners.

Re:Nest temperature display is backwards

[TheGratefulNet]

are you serious - they only show the SET value and not the ACTUAL current value? no option to set the default large text for the one you want? not a split display, even?

laughable, if that's really true.

I don't expect much from google, though. they mark serious bugs as 'wontfix' and nothing will change their minds.

they are all a lost cause.

Google's tactics.

[sshir]

I think Google buys all those companies just to acquire talent. Google is famous for rather hardnosed/pragmatic approach to managing it's workforce. Such an approach successfully weeds out bullshit artists (e.g. Marissa Mayer). Unfortunately this approach also fairly harsh on true visionaries.
Apparently Google thinks that because bullshit artists outnumber visionaries as 1000 to 1, it's an acceptable loss.
And to compensate for this they simply wait for other companies to cultivate the talent and then swoop in.

Re:Google's tactics.

[Cochonou]

Marissa Mayer worked for 13 years at Google. Could you please elaborate on how their management approach "successfully weeds out bullshit artists" in her case ?

Fell for the hype, sold after 1 year

[trout007]

I live in Florida so I liked the idea of a learning thermostat to save some money. Instead what I figured out (and should have known ahead of time) is that it is just better to keep the setpoint constant. Sure I saved $10/mo but the house was always muggy and uncomfortable. Part of the reason is I have a high efficiency A/C so when I keep the setpoint constant it just runs the low speed compressor and fan and keeps the house cool and dry. When the nest shut everything down to save energy when we returned it had to kick on the high speed to get back to temperature. I'd gladly pay $10/mo for a comfortable house and less wear and tear on my $10k A/C unit.

Engaged, got input, a few minor fixes, no fuck ups

[raymorris]

They haven't fucked anything up. No beta, they didn't remove the "use classic" link from that horrid mobile site, haven't caused any problems. What they have done so far is engaged with the community, solicited input, and made small improvements that don't cause any new problems.

If I thought any of the presidential candidates would do as well, I would have volunteered for their campaign. :)

Come to think of it, MANY people consider Bill Clinton the best recent president. Why, what did he do? Mostly he spent his time dealing with sex scandals. He didn't muck up the growing economy that he inherited or do anything else too bad. His wife spent 8 years as a senator and is now likely to become president. Why, what did she do in her 8 years in the senate? She sponsored a total of three bills in her eight years:

S. 3145: Name a road "Timothy J. Russert highway".

S. 3613: Name a post office the "Major George Quamo Post Office Building."

S. 1241: Designate a union building as a National Historic Site.

That's it, in eight years as a senator. Apparently that's a great senator, one who should perhaps be president. By this measure, Whiplash should at least be vice president.