Google has just purchased Nest Labs, the maker of the Nest Learning Thermostat and Protect smoke detector, for $3.2 billion in cash. According to a Google press release, Nest will continue to operate independently, co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell said; co-founder Matt Rogers will also make the move to Google. While the transaction is subject to the usual regulatory review, Google says it expects the sale to close within the next few months. Google Ventures had already invested tens of millions of dollars in Nest, so the company has been on Mountain View’s radar for some time.
It’s not yet clear exactly how Google plans to use Nest, but the company obviously sees it as an important part of its future. A combination of Nest’s home solutions coupled with Google’s language recognition could give Google its strongest path yet into your home. “Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone,” Fadell wrote on the Nest blog. “We’ve had great momentum, but this is a rocket ship.”
Unsurprisingly, the company is remaining coy about how it’ll integrate with Google’s existing product lineup. “Nest’s product line obviously caught the attention of Google and I’m betting that there’s a lot of cool stuff we could do together, but nothing to share today,” Rogers wrote. He did address any potential concerns about Nest’s customer data being opened up to Google for advertising or other purposes. “Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services,” Rogers wrote. “We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.”
source: theverge.com
