Today, Nest announced that it has acquired home automation device maker Revolv for an undisclosed sum. It’s believed that the Google-owned company made the move to acquire the firm’s developer platform. Nest recently acquired Dropcam for $555 million as part of its continued push into consumers’ homes.
Nest, makers of smart thermostats and smoke detectors, announced today that it is expanding its platform to be compatible with even more hardware and third-party home automation software. Namely, the company’s “Works with Nest” program has been announced to now include Dropcam—the Nest-owned home security camera—and the company also says that its products will now work great with a variety of home automation systems including those from URC, RTI, Crestron and Control4.
Now we’ve added Dropcam to Works with Nest. When your Nest Protect alarm goes off, Dropcam records a clip of the smoke or carbon monoxide event and saves it for you, regardless of whether you pay for Cloud Recording. And when you set your Nest Thermostat to Away and walk out the door, Dropcam automatically turns on motion alerts so you’ll know if anyone’s in the house.
While integration with Dropcam seems handy, the announcement of Nest’s devices now working with other home automation software is equally as important. These pre-existing systems control a wide variety of aspects of home automation including lighting, music, and more—and now you can add Nest to the list. Additionally, LiftMaster’s MyQ technology was announced yesterday to also be joining the ranks among hardware that works with Nest.
Shortly after Google acquired Nest, Tony Fadell’s company behind the smart thermostat and smart smoke/carbon monoxide detector, the company ran into a patch of unrelated issues with its Nest Protect product launched months earlier with reports of false alarms from many users and an issue with the ‘wave to dismiss’ feature touted as a key benefit of the product. A soft recall later followed remotely disabling the dismiss feature after a safety bug was discovered followed by a reduced price once it went back on sale.
While the ability to motion to dismiss an alarm is still disabled as the company works toward better implementing it reliably, current and future Nest Protect owners will benefit from new features delivered through a software update for the product. Steam Check, a feature that takes advantage of the device’s humidity sensor and an advanced algorithm, now allows the Nest Protect to distinguish smoke from steam by determining the presence of moisture. Steam from hot water shouldn’t be a reason to panic, and the Nest Protect says this feature will reduce the number of false alarms for users.
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When Google announced its $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, many users reacted strongly to the idea of Google having access to their information and data, despite both companies claiming that they wouldn’t share any information. The WSJ published a report last month, however, claiming that Nest and Google eventually planned to share some user data between each other. This report only led to even more privacy uproar. Now, a handful of hackers have taken matters into their own hands and have developed a tool to prevent any user data from be sent back to Nest or Google (via Forbes).
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could tell your watch to change the temperature, turn on/off lights, or perform various tasks on your computer? Well, thanks to Android Wear and some third party services, you can transform existing smart devices around your house into fully automated tasks using a device like the Samsung Gear Live, Moto 360, or LG G Watch.
The process will slightly vary between different Android devices and “smart” devices in your house, but we’ve put together the groundwork necessary so that you can build on these ideas in your own home. The setup procedure is a bit more than some people would like to go through, but in the end saying simple commands from a smartwatch to control things in your house is absolutely worth it.
Wifi and Bluetooth may work fine for today’s limited number of smart home devices, but neither is ideal for future homes in which every switch, socket and lightbulb may be a connected device – that’s the claim of a consortium of companies that includes Samsung, Nest and ARM.
GigaOM reports that the companies have jointly created a new radio system which they believe is more suited to smart home networks than existing systems.
Dubbed Thread, it is a low-power, mesh network protocol that also supports IPv6. The standard is built on the existing radio hardware used by ZigBee devices (802.15.4), which means that a company could update their ZigBee devices to support Thread with software if they chose …
The official Dropcam companion app has been updated with an all-new activity feed, customizable activity categories and alerts, and fast mobile setup. Dropcam users can now view and filter recorded video based on activities, manage labels and alerts for activity categories, and setup Dropcam Pro wirelessly using an Android device.
Devices supporting wireless mobile setup are the Nexus 5 and all Samsung devices running Android 4.3 or later. The new version of the Dropcam app also has a more polished design, performance improvements and bug fixes. The update is available now through the Google Play Store.
Dropcam is a cloud-based Wi-Fi video monitoring service based on a wireless security camera. The company was acquired by Google-owned Nest for $555 million last month.
The full changelog:
What’s New
In addition to a more polished design, performance improvements and bug fixes, this version features:
– An All-New Activity Feed:
View and filter recorded video by the activities you care about
– Customizable Activity Categories and Alerts:
Manage labels, colors and alerts for all of your activity categories
– Fast Mobile Setup: Set up Dropcam Pro wirelessly using your Android device.*
* Devices that support wireless mobile setup: Nexus 5 and all Samsung devices running Android 4.3 or later
Last night we discussed Google and Nest’s plans to make the Nest smart appliances a hub of sorts partnering with various services to make the Nest smart thermostat and smoke detector even smarter. Now the Android app for the Nest appliances was updated to support the mentioned “Works with Nest” initiative.
Google CEO Larry Page (centre) with Nest co-founders Matt Rogers amd Tony Fadell (photo: technologyreview.com)
Google and Nest have big plans for their partnership, the Wall Street Journal reports. The two companies plan to team up to offer a development platform around the Nest learning thermostat and Nest Protect smoke/CO detector in what appears to be the next step in Google’s connected home efforts following the Mountain View company’s $555 million acquisition of Dropcam a few days ago.
The system as it is currently said to exist allows users to issue voice commands to a smartphone to change settings on the Nest lineup or change a house’s temperature based on the owner’s proximity (so the air comes on when you’re almost home). However, the “Works with Nest” program will soon be expanded to support third-party remotes and appliances.
Google-owned Nest has just announced that it acquired home monitoring firm Dropcam, which makes security cameras that can be monitored remotely from a smartphone or tablet, as reported by Re/code. The buyout will cost Nest $555 million.
The companies will continue to operate independently for now, but will eventually work together on new products, according to Nest’s Matt Rogers:
Nest is recalling 440,000 smoke detectors due to a glitch that causes the internet-connected alarm to fail when users wave their hands at system. The Nest Protect Smoke + CO system is equipped with a silencing feature that mutes its alarm when users wave their hands near its vent, however a bug could possibly prevent the system from sounding off in a timely manner. To remedy this issue, the company is sending out a firmware update to disable the gesture control feature and notes that the smoke alarm needs to be connected to the internet in order to receive the software fix.
Those who expressed concern about Google’s acquisition of Nest may have have been right: the company has told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it may choose to serve ads on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.”
The WSJ reports that Google made the statement in support of its contention that it shouldn’t have to break out ad revenue from mobile devices …
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Last year, Nest launched its Rush Hour Rewards that offered rebate checks of up to $60 to owners of the Google-owned thermostat system in exchange for a reduction of their air conditioning use. Today, the company announced that the program was a success, managing to cut energy use by 55 percent during peak hours in the summer of 2013.
Google recently started selling its Nest Thermostat at its Play Store, but after acquiring the climate controlling device’s parent company for $3.2 billion, Mountain View appears to be ready to expand its brand and it’ll need some new talent to make this happen. Right now the careers section of the Nest website has plethora of job openings for engineers that could be filled by folks from Beaverton, Oregon… Beaverton, Oregon?
Yesterday, Google’s newly acquired thermostat system made an appearance on a Play Store support page. This led many to believe that the search giant would soon offer its smart climate controller at its online marketplace, alongside its other in-house products. Today, the company has made things official and the Nest Thermostat is now available from Google Play for $250 with an estimated 1-2 day warehouse departure.
Earlier this year, Google acquired smart thermostat maker Nest for the huge sum of $3.2 billion. This led to speculation that the two companies would work together, with Google using its online retail outlet to boost sales of product. Since the acquisition, however, nothing has come to fruition between the companies, with both continuing business as normal. It looks like, however, that Google may soon start to sell the Nest thermostat via the online Play Store.
Nest—which was recently acquired by Google—pulled its Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector from sale today and issued a letter from Tony Fadell, the company’s CEO about a serious potential safety issue that arose in testing. Nest is advising existing owners that a feature on the device that allows users to disable the detector with the wave of a hand will be automatically disabled.
During recent laboratory testing of the Nest Protect smoke alarm, we observed a unique combination of circumstances that caused us to question whether the Nest Wave (a feature that enables you to turn off your alarm with a wave of the hand) could be unintentionally activated. This could delay an alarm going off if there was a real fire.
Richard Branson and Tony Fadell
Okay, so Maps isn’t the only Google property kicking off April Fool’s Day on March 31st this year.
Tony Fadell, most known for his role in designing Apple’s iPod and current head of now Google-owned smart appliance company Nest, and Virgin’s founder and chairman Richard Branson have teamed up in an imaginative and rather convincing spoof video announcing a pretend partnership for a product called Total Temperature Control.
The idea is that every seat on Virgin’s airline has its own Nest smart thermostat to control the seat’s environment. It’s almost believable enough until it’s revealed that temperature options include destinations… see for yourself below.
Photo via the Sunday Times
Last week it was Apple Design VP Jonathan Ive. This week, the Sunday Times is talking to Google’s Tony Fadell (paywall) about his work at Nest, which was acquired by Google earlier this year, the future of his career, and more.
A few choice quotes have been highlighted by Rob Richman. In one, Fadell refutes the idea that money ($3.2 billion to be exact) was the driving force behind the Google buyout, saying that both companies working together can produce much bigger results than they could alone:
This was not a financially driven transaction. When you marry for money, it almost never works. We both believe we have something special and we know what it takes to make it happen around the world.
Regarding privacy and whether Nest would turn over its user data to Google, Fadell said:
Google CEO Larry Page (centre) with Nest co-founders Matt Rogers amd Tony Fadell (photo: technologyreview.com)
Tony Fadell and the rest of the Nest team will become Google’s “core hardware group,” working on a variety of hardware projects and given access to “as many resources as it needs,” according to an unnamed source cited by TechCrunch.
The new division will still work on hardware devices, but not necessarily thermostats or smoke detectors. In fact, Google would like Fadell to work on gadgets that make more sense for the company. Will it be a phone or a tablet? It’s unclear for now […]
When it comes to budget, Google is willing to let the Nest team use as many resources as it needs. In other words, the company is getting serious about consumer hardware, and Motorola was just a false start …
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Photo: websummit.net
Nest CEO Tony Fadell has responded to data privacy concerns expressed after the company was acquired by Google, stating that there have not yet been any changes to the data collected by the smart thermostat and smoke detector, and that any future changes would be both transparent and opt-in.
At this point, there are no changes. The data that we collect is all about our products and improving them.
If there were ever any changes whatsoever, we would be sure to be transparent about it, number one, and number two for you to opt-in to it …
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Investors may be pleased by today’s news of Google’s Nest acquisition, but some Nest owners are far less enthused.
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Following today’s announcement that Google had bought the company behind the Nest learning thermostat, the Mountain View-based company has gained over $2B in after hours trading. Considering the fact that they only spent $3.2B on the acquisition, it looks like the folks at Google has made out pretty well today.
Update: @evleaks has screenshots of the Android companion app:
Google: coming to a thermostat near you
[https://t.co/8lPHX9vONK] pic.twitter.com/EftKr5ZrKG— Evan Blass (@evleaks) December 17, 2013
According to a new report from The Information, Google is currently testing Internet-connected thermostats, similar to products like the Nest, to help people easily monitor and adjust energy use. The report, citing “two people told about the project,” claims that Google has been testing the service in the St. Louis area with “Trusted Testers” that are not employees.
The report goes on to add that the project is reportedly dubbed “EnergySense” and the hardware is reportedly created by a third party, such as Ecobee. Ecobee denies that it is working with Google, but says that the company could still be using its hardware.
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