4 ms·
Given Google's history with acquisitions, as a Nest owner, I'm not thrilled to hear this. Hopefully they let it run as independently as possible.
by tghw 13y ago
Given Google's history with acquisitions, as a Nest owner, I'm not thrilled to hear this. Hopefully they let it run as independently as possible.
- VLM 13y agoGoogle always shuts stuff down. Which is just a big laugh when its an internet application, but not so funny when its your thermostat. Anyone know what happens when GOOG shuts off the Nest system? Hopefully the thermostat reverts to at least a simple dumb mode rather than shutting everything off?
- lowlevel 13y agoDisconnect it from your network before they 'update' it.
- smackfu 13y ago>While the Nest Thermostat doesn't require a Wi-Fi connection, additional features like remote control and automatic software updates are only available when the Nest Thermostat connects to the Internet
- venomsnake 13y agoIs that a joke? Firmware update on a Thermostat?
- smackfu 13y agoUm, have you seen the thermostat in question? It has a user interface on it. Why wouldn't it support software updates?
- cloudwalking 13y agoI doubt Google would shut down a $3,200,000,000.00 acquisition.
- sliverstorm 13y agoPlease don't include decimals on that kind of number, it's intellectually dishonest.
- baddox 13y agoThat's a 12 digit acquisition!
- Karunamon 13y ago? Only if you're incapable of telling the difference between commas and periods, I suppose.
- sliverstorm 13y agoIt isn't factually dishonest, because it is an accurate number, and anyone can make sense of it. I say it is intellectually dishonest because it reads to me as a clear attempt to make the number appear more impressive. Borrowing from Wikipedia, "intellectual honesty": Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions It would still be accurate to say it was a $3,200,000,000.000,000,000,000 valuation, but I hope you will agree this is misrepresenting information.
- Karunamon 13y agoEh, guess we're going to agree to disagree there. Dollar figures having two decimal places at the end is pretty much a standard. If they included 3, yeah, that would reek of shiftiness. On top of that, all of the press releases I see don't even include the full amount written out, just "$3.2B".
- beaner 13y agoNobody puts commas in the decimal places.
- agildehaus 13y agoYou might as well say that he shouldn't put any zeros there at all, because all those zeros make it more impressive than saying "3.2 billion".
- rtkwe 13y agoShould be pretty easy to keep a large amount of the functionality online, the one thing that definitely wouldn't work is remote access through nest.com. Just controlling the HVAC system doesn't _require_ any web access, easy test to see what the impact of a hard shutdown by Google is to just disconnect your wireless router from the Internet.
- tadfisher 13y agoOn the other hand, Android, Inc. was an acquisition with a similar purpose–to break into a new product space–and it grew into a fully-supported division. I don't think Google will treat this as an acquihire situation.
- beaner 13y agoThey will have them make the robots produced by the other 7 companies they just bought look pretty and operate simply. At least, that's my hope. Nest team + hardcore robotics teams = potentially awesome stuff.
- foobarian 13y agoI wonder what their play is. One neat thing about Nest is that they are doing what many products failed to do before, and that's to kind of become a platform for the "internet of things." It's a thermostat and smoke detector now, but it could easily soon become more stuff, sensors and actuators, and it could easily all work together toward enabling a smarter home. Yes if you are a hardware/microcontroller geek you can get the same functionality for $100 but you will spend 100 hours on it and it will look vastly inferior to the Nest designs. It is also amazing how much more successful it could be than the million crappy little X10 and zigbee gadgets with their 1960s UX. Another amazing thing to me is how well and how fast they managed to build prominent industry relationships: you can get rebates from the electric company, they are on Home Depot and Lowes shelves, advertised on NPR, etc.
- lovemenot 13y agoPerhaps we'll see a return of Google Power Meter. That was an ambitious project to promote a data standard, towards the goal of better efficiency through consumers' close monitoring of their own power usage. But it failed to gain traction in the industry and Google did not double down. Until now. It seems they may now think that it is better to make transparent decisions automatically rather than by providing information for the consumer to take action on themselves. Power consumption is a large opportunity and one that Google understands from its data centre operations. Certainly it is hard to justify the cost of Nest on its current portfolio and acqui-hire alone.
- simonk 13y agoThis is more YouTube pricing so I don't see a problem with them keeping this running.
- avree 13y agoCan't wait to need a Google+ account to change the temperature in my house.