7 ms·

Nest is acquiring Dropcam

• minimaxir 12y ago
  Are high-profile announcements typically announced at 5pm on a Friday?
  • jakozaur 12y ago
    Likely the timing is because of stock exchange regulations. Google is publicly traded company so announcing it on different time may gave someone "unfair advantage". Doing that 5pm Friday after market closes give everyone 2 days to process that information.
    • seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      There was no reason to down vote this comment, it is probably exactly right. A lot of announcements for publicly traded companies are made at 5PM on a Friday.
  • yarri 12y ago
    If they need the whole weekend to find the right tone to explain this acquisition, yes. Looking forward to seeing how Google handles the privacy concerns on this...
  • RockyMcNuts 12y ago
    Search 'Friday news dump' From the West Wing - http://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-dump/ http://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-dump/ Donna: What’s take out the trash day? Josh: Friday. Donna: I mean, what is it? Josh: Any stories we have to give the press that we’re not wild about, we give all in a lump on Friday. Donna: Why do you do it in a lump? Josh: Instead of one at a time? Donna: I’d think you’d want to spread them out. Josh: They’ve got X column inches to fill, right? They’re going to fill them no matter what. Donna: Yes. Josh: So if we give them one story, that story’s X column inches. Donna: And if we give them five stories … Josh: They’re a fifth the size. Donna: Why do you do it on Friday? Josh: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday. Donna: You guys are real populists, aren’t you? There are also other reasons, maybe they were rushing to complete the deal by EOD, if you try to keep it quiet over the weekend, might leak out in a haphazard way, want to release outside market hours, etc. Not too coincidentally, a lot of the SEC filings with really bad news seem to happen in the last minute of filing activity on Friday. (Not that this particular announcement is very material or bad news)
• jakozaur 12y ago
  Google has acquired Nest... so now Google has also acquired Dropcam. I wonder why they call it Nest acquistion, to downplay privacy concerns?
  • gress 12y ago
    Yup, the want to avoid the headline: "Google buys network of in-home cameras."
    • privong 12y ago
      They did make a point of explicitly saying none of the data is shared with Google. But, yeah, probably best for fit PR to differentiate.
      • dbarlett 12y ago
        Dropcam runs on AWS [1], "ingest[ing] more video per minute than YouTube" [2] into S3. Presumably the cost savings from switching to Google infrastructure will be compelling enough to change that. They'll probably torture the semantics and say "the data is there but Google can't access it". [1] http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropcam/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropcam/ [2] http://gigaom.com/2013/07/31/dropcam-gets-30m-for-expansion-plans-and-computer-vision-rd/ http://gigaom.com/2013/07/31/dropcam-gets-30m-for-expansion-...
        • lotu 12y ago
          Naturally what what they mean is not, this data will never exist on a computer/network owned by Google. What they mean is we aren't going use video from your security camera for general Google projects, like street view, collecting large amounts of speech databases for voice recognition, figuring out what products you and enjoy using and tailoring advertising to fit that, or tracking epidemics in real time by monitoring how many people in your house are sick.
          • 12y ago
• ojbyrne 12y ago
  It's interesting how google subsidiaries somehow announce acquisitions rather than the parent company.
  • evan_ 12y ago
    Youtube acquired Twitch last month: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/18/report-youtube-acquires-twitch-for-1-billion/ http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/18/report-youtube-acquires-tw... so apparently this is a thing that happens now.
• uptown 12y ago
  I'm surprised Nest (Google) hasn't bought Logitech's Alert division yet. Logitech has been shopping it around - looking for a buyer - for awhile.
  • pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Perhaps they were concerned about leaving Dropcam as a/to a competitor and taking on Logitech; whilst acquiring Dropcam they can take out 2 competitors in one go as no-one else seems to want to take on Logitech? [Pure speculation].
  • sitkack 12y ago
    Because the Logitech brand is fugly, that ship is sinking and can be scooped up for less if they care to. This wasn't about technology, brand and customers.
• mkempe 12y ago
  Here is a more accurate description? Google acquires webcam-maker Dropcam for $555 Million, to integrate with its Nest brand.
• martin_ 12y ago
  The deal went through for $555 million in cash. http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-for-555-million/ http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-for-5...
  • dokem 12y ago
    Funny how (relatively) little companies with actual business models are acquired for.
    • lumens 12y ago
      Once you make it real (with an actual working model), the fantasy top-end projections of vapor-models disappear. Anchoring projections in realities of the market can be a real downer.
    • psbp 12y ago
      It's probably more dependent on the volume of customers for all these data companies.
• raldi 12y ago
  From the January 3 "What's your prediction for 2014?" thread: > The next Nest product will be a home security system. If you already own Nest thermostats or smoke detectors, their motion sensors will do double-duty as security alarms. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7008786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7008786
• jmduke 12y ago
  Some interesting quotes from Dropcam's CEO last year: “Our business model is very straightforward. I think if your business model is not straightforward, it veers into potentially being unethical, if you look at things that are quote-unquote ‘free.’ None of the people who work here want to work on something that works like that. They look at it as tricking the user, when [a company is] turning around and using some part of the user’s data to make revenue." and "He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days." http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/04/23/dropcam-ceos-beef-with-brogramming-late-nights-and-free-dinners/?single_page=true http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/04/23/dropcam-ceos...
  • npizzolato 12y ago
    Funny how quickly things change when someone offers to hand you a lot of money. Granted, someone's opinions can change, but I feel like the first quote especially describes a personal philosophical value that wouldn't change on a whim.
    • jeroen 12y ago
      "Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too." Looks like nothing will change about that straightforward business model.
      • thesausageking 12y ago
        While technically accurate that statement is really misleading. Nest makes a significant amount of revenue from utility companies who pay up to $50 per thermostat per year for Nest agreeing to turn down their usage during peak times. This is a very different model than paying someone for a product. While you buy Nest's product, you are still the product (and selling you is a better business for them long-term).
• devindotcom 12y ago
  $555m figure confirmed here: https://nest.com/press/nest-and-dropcam-sign-acquisition-agreement/ https://nest.com/press/nest-and-dropcam-sign-acquisition-agr...
• esbonsa 12y ago
  Hopefully they will now allow to stream on the local network and the Dropcam company will not disappear and render all these cameras useless...
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• marvin 12y ago
  I don't want to spread any unwarranted negativity here, but does anyone know how this fits into Nest's business model? I get Dropcam's business model of letting people check in on their home when they are on the road, on vacation etc, but hasn't Nest's business model been data mining from the very beginning? How does placing cameras in customers' homes fit into this model? I also wonder about the privacy policy question. Okay, so they won't share data with Google, but what are the restrictions of Nest employees to check out your cameras? At the very least, there are no technical limitations here and it's all a matter of policy. Again, not intending to spread negativity but it would be interesting to see some discussion around these potential issues. Although I do hand over ridiculous amounts of private information to web companies (in reality, most of what's going on inside my head; there's plenty in my web-hosted diary that I've never told anyone), there is somewhere I would draw the line. And I think that line would go at uploading to the cloud what is going on inside my home, regardless of what the privacy policy says.
  • tsumnia 12y ago
    I think it falls into a sort of "home automation/monitoring" model. As we move further into the "Internet of Things" spectrum, Google and Nest are just securing their place. Think about how Microsoft and Sony's gaming platforms continue to build on the idea of being the only device you need for your TV. I wouldn't be surprised if Nest sought to acquire someone like Fitbit for the same thing, monitoring health/fitness via the bracelet or weight scale; or an automated garage door opener company (if they did monitoring/diagnostic work when the car is in the garage).
    • Corrado 12y ago
      I think Apple is in this battle as well. With the new iOS 8 / Yosemite releases, they are targeting the home automation & health monitoring markets. Google & Microsoft had better have something to offer because Apple is getting ready to eat their lunch.
  • notatoad 12y ago
    Nest's business model is to sell a product for a profit. From that perspective, it's the same as Dropcam. More than the business model though, Nest's goal seems to be to use sensor data and usage patterns to provide home automation with as little management as possible. Dropcam is essentially just another sensor - they're already doing things like recognizing people in the video feed. It's a way to get more data into nest's algorithms, and to get sensors into more areas of your home.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• stevengg 12y ago
  so if google owns nest and nest nad owns dropcam if you have a dropcam and the NSA wants to come blackbag your house can they delete the video off the cloudhosting warnetlessly?
  • esbonsa 12y ago
    they can probably turn off your Internet connection/power warrantlessy so they don't have to worry about that...
• gravity13 12y ago
  It is beginning.
• lgas 12y ago
  Congrats, Greg!
• steven2012 12y ago
  I had a Dropcam and was excited for its remote monitoring capabilities. As a camera it is excellent and the cloud recording is really well done. I set it up and left for vacation for 3 weeks. During this time, I got so many notifications of activity (at least 20 per day) that it rendered it completely useless. It's an interesting idea but when I got my first notification of activity I got so scared someone had broken into my house I was freaking out. By the end of my vacation I just turned off the notification altogether and returned it when I came home.
• billwilliams 12y ago
  The reason for this acquisition is clear. Its why Nest was bought, its why Dropcam was bought. For Eric Shmidt's whole life his brother would turn down the thermostat and Eric would be too cold. He would accuse his brother and his brother would play innocent. It was infuriating. But now. Billions of dollars later. Finally, Eric will always know who is screwing with his radiator.
• higherpurpose 12y ago
  You mean Google is. Remember when Schneier said no too long ago that "Google is in the surveillance business"? Even I didn't take it so literally back then, but it turns out he was just slightly ahead of time with that characterization.
  • tlrobinson 12y ago
    Misread that as "Schmidt said" and was surprised but not totally shocked (e.x. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place")
    • sitkack 12y ago
      Schmidt or Zuckerberg?
• aragot 12y ago
  I don't understand their pricing. $9.99 a month or $99 a year for a rolling 7 days of video. I guess most of that is a still, unattended image. Amazon cloud storage is cheap. It seems very expensive to me. For example. My flatmate has a child. His ex-partner is prone to make stories in her head and go to the police with that. I'd be keen to host the kid until the father comes back from work, but I'm afraid of the ex-partner's accusations. I'm looking for a cloud storage service to store those hours for a few years, not to serve as legal proof, but to reassure the ex- that nothing weird happened. With Dropcam, that would cost me a few thousands dollars of storage per year, or am I mistaken?
  • Corrado 12y ago
    I think you can export the video snippets and save them to local storage. This would allow you to keep as much video as you want, basically for free. It would be nice to have it linked in to Google Drive so that you can store selected video snippets there.
• domlebo70 12y ago
  I work for a startup providing a similar product to Dropcam. The difference being we are free, and you can choose from a variety of supported cameras (we have ~ 30 supported cameras). What do you guys think? http://www.cammy.com/ http://www.cammy.com/
  • ARussell 12y ago
    How does Cammy make money? I wish that were in the FAQ, since Cammy is free.