Nest Is Done As a Standalone Alphabet Company, Merges With Google (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a shakeup at Nest today. Following previous rumors back in November, Google just announced Nest will no longer be a standalone Alphabet company; instead, it will merge with the Google hardware team. The current Nest CEO, Marwan Fawaz, will report to Google Hardware SVP Rick Osterloh. Google's blog post says the merger will allow it to "combine hardware, software, and services" between the two companies, which are all "built with Google's artificial intelligence and the Assistant at the core." Nest and Google have been growing closer together even without this merger, with Nest getting a spot at the "Made By Google" Pixel 2 launch event to tout Nest and Google Assistant integration. An earlier report from The Wall Street Journal said that Google and Nest already combined their supply chain teams in 2016. While Google has focused on making the "Google" brand well known in the hardware world with the Pixel phones and Google Home, CNET reports that Google won't be dumping the Nest brand.

Comments

Re:What's the point?

[beelsebob]

The point is that Alphabet absorbs the risky propositions, and allows them to cut off money to them if the risk doesn't pan out, while google remains an isolated profit making group that is insulated from risk.

I predict

[93 Escort Wagon]

Over the next 3-5 years, every other Alphabet "company" will merge with Google. Then Alphabet itself will rebrand as Google.

Re:This much buzz?

[AvitarX]

I purchased one because my free standing radiators take a while to heat up, and then keep hot for a while.

The nest auto learns how early to turn them on and off to keep my my temperature correct and program functioning year round.

I think that's a common feature now, but it wasn't five or so years ago.

The fact that the house can take three hours plus to hear up makes the online feature nice when on business trips of indeterminate length too.