The rollout of Matter across Google’s ecosystem has been relatively quick, and now the company is bringing support to another device. The 2020 Nest Thermostat is adding Matter support, with the rollout starting today.
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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 Wall Street Journal reports that Google made the statement in support of its contention that it shouldn’t have to break out ad revenue from mobile devices.
Google argued that it doesn’t make sense to break out mobile revenue since the definition of mobile will “continue to evolve” as more “smart” devices roll out.
“Our expectation is that users will be using our services and viewing our ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future,” the company said in the filing.
While the statement is purely a defensive one – the company not wanting to share more data than it has to with competitors – the specific thermostat example seems unlikely to have been chosen completely randomly.
Google added the Nest smart thermostat to Google Play three months after purchasing the company. Nest remains on sale in Apple stores, both retail and online.
Nest was created by former Apple engineer Tony Fadell, the man dubbed ‘father of the iPod.’ Fadell sought to allay concerns about Google’s acquisition of the company soon after it was announced, promising that all data collected by Nest was used only to improve the product, and that any changes to that policy would be opt-in. Nothing was said about serving non-personalized ads, however.
Update: Google gave the following statement to Engadget…
“We are in contact with the SEC to clarify the language in this 2013 filing, which does not reflect Google’s product roadmap. Nest, which we acquired after this filing was made, does not have an ads-based model and has never had any such plans.”
Nest CEO and ‘father of the iPod’ 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 …
Fadell gave the assurances during an interview at the Digital-Life-Design conference (via TNW). He also said that he was excited by the conversations he’d had with Larry Page and other Google execs when discussing future plans.
We were finishing each other’s sentences, and the visions that we had were just so large and so great, and they weren’t scared by them. We were both getting exhilarated by what could change and how things could change, and that we could have the ability to change those things together.
Apple senior VP Phil Schiller unfollowed both Fadell and Nest on Twitter following the acquisition.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXca4WcCzlo]
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The Nest Protect has a nice glow :-)
We originally reported last month that Nest Labs, the company founded by famed iPod creator Tony Fadell, was readying its next product for launch soon: the smart fire detector. Nest Labs officially announced today that the ‘Nest Protect’ will be joining the lineup with the smart thermostat.
The Nest Protect detects smoke and carbon monoxide and addressses some of the flaws of modern smoke detectors and of course connects it to your iPhone in the process:
Nest believes that safety shouldn’t be annoying, so they started from scratch and built a new smoke + CO detector, the way it should be done, with advanced features under a sleek interface:
· Heads-Up: Instead of just beeping at you, Nest Protect gives you helpful vocal warnings before conditions get dangerous. And if you have more than one Nest Protect in the home, you can connect them so you’ll know where the danger is, no matter which room you’re in.
· Nest Wave: No more climbing on chairs to reach your detector. You can silence Nest Protect by simply waving at it.
· Mobile app: Get low-battery alerts and Emergency Alarm notifications on your smartphone or tablet.
· Pathlight: Nest Protect glows white as you pass under it at night, lighting your way in the dark.
The smoke + carbon monoxide detector itself has a design similar to our Apple products as it resembles Apple’s previous generation Airport Extreme base station. I really like the idea of silencing an alarm with just a wave. Wrestling with a tiny disengage button in a commotion is the last thing anyone wants. Check out availability information and the official promotional video below:
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