8 ms·
Nest to join forces with Google’s hardware team
- Touche 9y agoThe article isn't totally clear, this is a rebranding announcement, right?
- shawndumas 9y agoNest is no longer an alphabet.
- sesutton 9y agoApparently not. >Nest's brand, known for the internet-connected thermostat it created in 2011, isn't going anywhere, Osterloh and Fawaz say. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-and-nest-reunite-in-push-to-add-ai-to-every-gadget/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-and-nest-reunite-in-push-to...
- dragonwriter 9y agoNo, apparently Nest is still both a brand and a coherent unit, but instead of a direct subsidiary of Alphabet it will be a unit inside the larger Google Hardware unit.
- _sy_ 9y agoProbably the end of Nest as we know it.
- brianwawok 9y agoHas nest really had a successful product past the v1 hockey puck thermostat?
- luckydata 9y agoThe smoke detectors are fucking great. Even if they are expensive they are worth every cent.
- Animats 9y agoThose are Nest's worst product. Failure to detect smoke: "Consumer Product Safety Commission: Nest Labs Recalls to Repair Nest Protect Smoke + CO Alarms Due to Failure to Sound Alert" [1] False alarms.[2] [1] https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2014/nest-labs-recalls-to-repair-nest-protect-smoke-co-alarms https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2014/nest-labs-recalls-to-repai... [2] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/nest-protect-annoying/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/nest-protect-annoying/
- tacomonstrous 9y agoPerhaps it would be more convincing if these reports weren't over 3 years old. I own multiple Nest Protects, with no issues whatsoever. A year ago, I got pinged on my phone while we were out and about about a CO leak. Turned out we'd forgotten to turn the stove off. Without that ping, we'd probably only have come home a couple of hours later. That alone is worth their cost to me.
- pathseeker 9y agoWhat's worth the cost? Some saved gas from the stove?
- vthallam 9y agoSaving a possible inflammation probably?
- astebbin 9y ago> Failure to detect smoke Incorrect. If you examine the announcement you linked, the issue was a failure to alarm when smoke was detected (below UL's must-alarm threshold, above which the Protect ALWAYS alarmed) due to false detection of a hand-wave as part of the "Wave to Hush" feature. This feature was remotely disabled on all Protects via a software update. > False alarms. Not for a long time. The second-gen Protect, which has been out for years, includes much-improved smoke sensors and algorithms. This is reflected in its unusually-high 4.6 star Amazon rating [0]. > Those are Nest's worst product. How did you reach this conclusion? In addition to its outstanding score on Amazon, the second-gen Protect is frequently recommended by professional reviewers [1][2][3]. Anecdotally, I have 3 first-gen Protects in my home (in addition to 2 second-gens) and have never had any false alarms (except when I forget to run the fan while cooking bacon, and fill the entire house with smoke...). [0] https://www.amazon.com/Nest-Protect-Carbon-Monoxide-Generation/dp/B00XV1RD0K/ https://www.amazon.com/Nest-Protect-Carbon-Monoxide-Generati... [1] https://www.popsci.com/nest-protect-smoke-co-detector-review https://www.popsci.com/nest-protect-smoke-co-detector-review [2] https://www.cnet.com/products/nest-protect-second-generation/ https://www.cnet.com/products/nest-protect-second-generation... [3] https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/16/nest-protect-review-2015/ https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/16/nest-protect-review-2015... [4] https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/nest-protect-smoke-alarm-smart-apartment/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/nest-protect-smoke-alarm-...
- neon_electro 9y agoI have a v3, and I really like it. Do you have any objections to the later versions?
- DividableMiddle 9y agoI have their security suite (home unit, 2 door triggers (and it came with an outdoor cam). I love it. No issues, geofencing when I leave so I can enable the alarm (or when I come home). And the app is smooth as butter. I'm waiting for the doorbell now.
- mtgx 9y agoThe end was when Google purchased it and the founder left a few months later.
- Roritharr 9y agoNot sure if this is a smart move, the Brand Nest was far enough removed from Google to feel different to customers. Now explaining to my mother that we want to install Google Cameras in my Apartment is a whole different deal.
- skybrian 9y agoIt's not clear that the branding will change? Companies can use multiple brands and this one is well-established.
- mastax 9y agoI suspect the changes will be less branding and more managerial.
- fancyfacebook 9y agoThe nest brand is probably even more toxic than Google after the past few years of media coverage.
- on_and_off 9y agoI understood this more as a management change (from all the rumors it looks like Nest was an extremely shitty place to work in) that might keep the Nest branding.
- jbob2000 9y agoIt really seems dumb to have a thermostat at all. If I have a smart home, why not just have an app for controlling temperature settings? With a google home, I should be able to say "Set temp to 21".
- prepend 9y agoThis will be cool when you replace your furnace with a “smart furnace.” Until then the smart thermostat is required to function just like you said. Btw, a nest is about $200, a furnace is $2-5k.
- SirFatty 9y agoA thermostat is the interface to the climate control system, how could you possible remove it from the system? Where would the temperature feedback come from?
- jbob2000 9y agoHa, yeah was a quick comment. To be clearer - Why do I need a temperature interface hanging on my wall? Why not split the device into two; a measurement device (small, portable) and a controller (remote control, app, voice controls).
- dankoss 9y agoI have a "wireless" thermostat (Honeywell Redlink) and there are a lot of problems you have to think through to make it work. In particular, what is the failure mode when the thermostat can't communicate with the furnace? What if your internet goes down and it can't communicate with your phone? You might need a different failsafe for when it's 0C vs 25C outside, but what if your exterior temp sensor stops working or can't communicate with the furnace? Not to mention the security implications of having an appliance on your network. All these problems are made much simpler with a wired thermostat and battery backup. I wish it was easier, but in this case "smart" doesn't really buy you much energy or UX savings over a simple programmable wired device.
- kevin_b_er 9y agoWhat's happening to the Nest brand, then?
- oflannabhra 9y agoNest is probably Google's strongest hardware brand (although it has some blemishes). I wonder what this looks like within Google? Will Google HW products become branded under Nest? Will Nest remain specific to the home? Will the Nest brand be dropped entirely? Will things remain "separate-but-together?" Will Nest Weave [1] become the default IoT offering from Google, superseding Android Things? Will Nest Weave run on GCP? I'm guessing there is quite a bit of turf-warfare going on to determine the answers to those questions. [1] - https://nest.com/weave/ https://nest.com/weave/
- prepend 9y agoI will be so frustrated when Google makes my thermostat stop working by end of living Nest.
- Andrex 9y agoThat seems like an unlikely outcome of this event, not a foregone conclusion.
- pxlpshr 9y agoI really wish Google/Nest would end their corporate beef with Apple and integrate with HomeKit. What happened with the openness of Google? Instead of buying Nest's entire line to outfit the house I'm building, I'm avoiding them completely even though I think their products are at the top of their class. Nest isn't unique anymore... neither are their cameras... and they are late to the party with the doorbell. Do I think they are great products? Absolutely!! But they aren't in a position of leverage, the market is becoming commoditized, and forcing consumers to use only your app is a poor strategy. Especially considering it wasn't until a few weeks ago did Nest's app support iPhone X's new format, MONTHs after it was available to the public.
- nwah1 9y agoHomeKit is not using open standards. Google and Nest are. Your question should be reversed. Why doesn't Apple just use OpenThread or one of the competing open source IoT frameworks? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/11/google_open_sources_thread_in_bid_to_win_iot_standards_war/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/11/google_open_sources...
- pxlpshr 9y agoGoogle open-sourcing their proprietary standard classifies it as an industry standard? I think most home automation purists would provide a contrarian argument that points to z-wave or zigbee. :)
- jotux 9y agoOpenThread is an open source implementation of Thread, which is an open standard based on 6LoWPAN with 802.15.4 for mesh networking.
- wil421 9y agoCome on man. I don’t even need to link the xkdc comic but I will. How do you force companies to play nice without regulation? https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- supergeek133 9y agoThis is going to make it hard for direct product competitors to do business with Google now IMO. Before it was made very clear that the two groups were VERY separate within Alphabet. So as a competitor (say a camera maker) you could feel somewhat OK partnering with Google Home integrations because there were legal protections that data, roadmaps, confidential info wouldn't be shared. Now they're literally the same person, according to this. Ouch.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoBut they never were separate, right? Nest employees had Google badges and had offices in Google buildings and ate lunch next to Googlers. This just smells like politics.
- notatoad 9y ago>Nest employees had Google badges and had offices in Google buildings and ate lunch next to Googlers. did they? i thought nest was an alphabet subsidiary, and operated as an independent company to Google.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoNest was a Google subsidiary before Alphabet was formed. Across the street from their offices are Google offices. I've talked to Nest employees about their use of Google infrastructure, in a Google office. It didn't seem like there was any more separation than you'd expect of the Android and chromecast groups, for example.
- pinewurst 9y agoMaybe it was changed recently, but they were very much kept apart from Google during the Fadell era - physically and to the degree of even having lesser benefits.
- supergeek133 9y agoPolitics still matters, from a legal data sharing perspective. For instance, let's say I integrate a thermostat/camera/x device with Google Home/Assisstant. Based on # of users who connect devices and use the integration I could get some idea of user base/popularity/sales rate. "On paper" there is separation between the two companies, and the agreement between Google and Thermostat Company A might say "data is not shared with any other entity within Alphabet". Now that agreement is potentially null, since they might be the same thing now. Or even things like "we're going to release a new product and want to integrate it with Google Home in advance, etc, etc".
- cptskippy 9y agoMy only concern with this move is that Nest products might become less open as a result. Apple, Google, and Amazon are developing competing ecosystems and Apple has been making/keeping theirs as closed as possible. Amazon has remained relatively open and Google has been somewhere between the two. I get the feeling that Google would love to be a completely closed system and they seem to be moving in that direction.
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- stcredzero 9y agoMy only concern with this move is that Nest products might become less open as a result. Will they become better tested, or will it work the other way?
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- cptskippy 9y agoI guess that largely depends on your opinion of their current level of testing and Google's level of testing for their other hardware. Presently Nest utilizes the Centercode platform to manage a pool of beta testers.
- jamieomatthews 9y agoYou can certainly guarantee you'll never have Alexa assistant inside the nest (like echobee for example)
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoFWIW, Nest products were never very open. I had one pre-Google acquisition, and there was never a way to talk to it that wasn't via Nest's own servers, even though it's on my network. Of course, the likely thing is that Google will not go out of their way to make it possible to make Nest plugins for Alexa, Cortana, etc.
- chirau 9y agoI think this was the natural progression intended from the beginning and it's a good thing. I personally like the aggregation that Google is undergoing. All hardware under hardware, all cloud related under Google Cloud etc. I understand Kaggle is going to be part of Google Cloud as well. Which makes sense. There was a very large fragmentation of teams previously.
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- olfactory 9y agoMozilla's open source home automation project is a very big silver lining to this kind of news. Google has not shown any interest in creating a truly open platform, or in creating lower cost hardware alternatives (no not everyone wants an audiophile speaker in a simple home automation controller).
- atonse 9y agoI am excited about Mozilla's project. It's probably just my Stockholm syndrome of being 100% invested in Apple's ecosystem, but I'm kind of less interested in how open something is (because open often means "slow, takes forever to get anyone to agree"). I'm more concerned about companies actually having an attention span of more than a couple of years. Is Mozilla's thing going to last for 10 years? Is HomeKit? HomeKit has a better chance. But look at things like Google Weave. What even happened with that? All that said, HomeKit, even though it seems superior to everything else from a security standpoint, has been moving at a glacial pace. Hopefully this software authentication stuff will make a difference. The only ecosystems that seem to be sort of thriving are closed, but extensible ones (Alexa, Google Home) and their originators seem incentivized to keep them going.
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- olfactory 9y ago> The only ecosystems that seem to be sort of thriving are closed, but extensible ones (Alexa, Google Home) and their originators seem incentivized to keep them going. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but I think Amazon has a big advantage in that it has sold a massive number of Echo and Echo Dots and is fairly open in all respects except the actual voice data captured.
- atonse 9y agoRight this is my point. The "openness" kind of doesn't matter in practical terms, mostly because the platform is SO extensible and everyone has integrated with it.
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- jotm 9y agoI still don't see the point of the Nest thermostat. It takes seconds to adjust mine for the day, or just turn it low in the morning before work and up in the evening. It's such a minor improvement that I can do fine without it.
- gregcoombe 9y agoYou might not be the target market. The value proposition was largely the attractive design, which is still significantly better than most thermostats. And in addition the UX is nicer, and the app is convenient every once a while (coming home from a long trip), but I think those may be secondary.
- jotm 9y agoDefinitely am not, I guess. UI? It's a thermostat, it needs to just be able to turn the boiler on and off when temperatures hit the mark. Long trip? My house heats up in less than 15 minutes. App? I'd rather not bother.
- irq 9y agoImagine you’re lazy and on the couch and it’s cold and you don’t want to go upstairs to where the thermostat is to turn it up. I can just do it from my phone. Are you still unable to see the point? Imagine you live in a big family and people come and go all day long and no one remembers to turn the thermostat down when they’re the last person to leave. Are you still unable to see the point? (Sometimes it seems like “I don’t see the point” is code for “I can’t imagine a lifestyle different than my own”)
- jotm 9y agoNo.
- lern_too_spel 9y agoThe rarity of when this would be useful is what gets me. I have a programmable timer on my thermostat that I set to turn on when I expect to be awake and in the house during the week. If I leave the house for a few hours on the weekend, there isn't a big enough energy savings for turning it off. My range of comfortable temperatures is large enough that feeling cold while sitting on the couch and needing to turn the thermostat up a few degrees higher than normal doesn't sound plausible. Like wearing a wristwatch, this just seems like more trouble than it's worth.
- muninn_ 9y agoThis sounds good, until Google wants me to sign into a Google account to use Nest products and then I have to uninstall them from my home.
- EADGBE 9y agoSo how long before Google pulls support from Amazon devices like they did with YouTube? I love this silo problem.
- Bucephalus355 9y agoI typically do not like Google and a lot of ways the company acts and performs. However, recently I moved into sysadmin-type work, partly doing work for state governments. Cybersecurity is really bad everywhere, and it’s scary, and it’s frustrating how abstract and very theoretical all the risk is as it makes hard (justifiably) to take seriously. Anyway, Google’s reputation with security is (fingers crossed) nothing short of “almost bulletproof”, and I’d love to see more IoT devices from them. With the recent rollout of Nest Security System, we’ve actually been advising lots of small businesses to combine this system, along with Nest cameras + fire alarms as a solution to actual physical security and fulfilling compliance alarms. Since Nest also does cellular backup in case of internet outage, we just hook everything up to an APC and the whole system can run for 10+ hours without power or internet. Also also, Android security sucks. Not Google’s fault, but thank god they moved to making their own phones. Maybe that will encourage better behaviors from other manufacturers.
- throwawayfinal 9y agoIf Google is using GCP internally, then their infrastructure is as you said. The GCP "best practices" sections in the docs* have been top tier in my experience and you can learn a lot, even if you're using AWS or Azure. * my one complaint is that searching for the docs almost always ends you up on marketing pages, which you then have to find the docs link on.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoAndroid security is Google's fault. Any kidding yourself that might occur through believing that OEMs deserve any blame for an update mechanism (or lack thereof) in a system designed by Google is pretty easily discredited, especially when you consider it took Google five months to patch KRACK in the Pixel 2, when third party ROM authors did it in two days. Also, Google's "reputation with security" needs some serious nuance: They are very good at preventing types of exploits they care about, but they are a literal joke when it comes to security that interfaces with submitted content and user choice. Consider that the Chrome Web Store is a literal cesspool of malware, and that a lot of websites blatantly try to force you to install extensions through the Chrome Web Store which steal your browsing data. Since extensions are permitted to request such a huge security hole, Google doesn't consider it their problem that extensions do it maliciously. Because Google doesn't consider something they gave permission to do malicious things to be an exploit or vulnerability, Google can simultaneously claim that Chrome is the most secure browser, and it be literally the easiest browser to get malware with. I can definitely agree with you that state level government security has a long way to go and is a pretty scary place. But Google can't fix it, because the biggest problem in government security is still humans, a security layer that Google has repeatedly demonstrated no understanding of.
- brailsafe 9y ago> built with Google’s artificial intelligence and the Assistant at the core. Thank god. Nest cameras' object detection leave a lot to be desired as of present. Like accuracy. I was going to say that Nest products could use some Google software engineering polish—which they could—but then remembered the state of Music and many Play apps on iOS.
- gcr 9y agoWeren't they already a subsidiary of alphabet? I don't quite get this.