Google buys Nest: Wow, just wow... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2014, 10:47:37 pm
content: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/google-just-bought-connected-device-company-nest-for-3-2b-in-cash/The Nest is not exactly a high school project but close to it. Or at least many of the forum members here can do this in their sleep. Or it must be the data collection aspect of it or something. But c'mon, $3.2B?

author: rolandpenplotter
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2014, 11:06:54 pm
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 13, 2014, 10:47:37 pmGoogle think they can buy the earth, and will probably try to do so... but who'd they sell it to?

author: alex870
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 01:19:17 am
content: Hey Yahoo, I'll make you a fancy thermostat for just $1.6B - it's a bargain!So apparently this is what the Googles needed control of the company for from Eric Schmidt.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 01:22:02 am
content: it must be in preperation of there google house project, where all control of your appliances is routed through google (internet of things) and controlled via voice commands also fed through google (the NSA must really love donating to google)

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 01:23:00 am
content: Google wants to have their slimy fingers in every corner of our lives. Don't let them...Quote from: Rerouter on January 14, 2014, 01:22:02 amIf the NSA hasn't alreadyacquiredGoogle...

author: nowlan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 01:53:49 am
content: That does sound ridiculous for a fuzzy logic thermostat. While I dont know their earnings, do they hold patents or something?

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 02:00:24 am
content: Quote from: nowlan on January 14, 2014, 01:53:49 amQuite the opposite according to some as they are apparently being sued for patent infringement.http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/13/google_buys_smart_home_device_builder_nest_for_32_beeelion_in_cash/

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 05:18:18 am
content: Quote from: c4757p on January 14, 2014, 01:23:00 amWant to bet, that next version of this thingy has camera, microphone and other neat extras. And of course wireless data (to Googleplex).

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 05:24:35 am
content: WTF, they meant $3.2M, right?

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 05:34:10 am
content: I have seen this movie before. Most tech companies justify the hugeBillion dollar buyouts not for the product, but for the people.Namely, "Nest Founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers will both join Google. Rogers was one of the first engineers on the iPhone team at Apple".PS. The movie ends badly. See 2000 March Tech Bubble Train Wreck.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 05:41:42 am
content: Quote from: retiredcaps on January 14, 2014, 05:34:10 amNo kidding.There is no possible way Google will make anything to close to getting their money back on this, by several orders. Hardly anyone gives a toss about a fancy intelligent thermostat, nor will they ever. Totally niche.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 05:43:40 am
content: Considering google had that electricity consumption thingy where smart meters could upload data onto google and you could then use their page to view your data, but then canned it, What's the deal with this then?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:05:50 am
content: Quote from: retiredcaps on January 14, 2014, 05:34:10 amThat's explains it. The Nest has an Appl'ish touch.Last year we replaced our old mechanical thermostat. We looked at the Nest, it seems very impressive from design perspective, but ended up buying a simple digital thermostat. It has a heat/off/cool slide switch and up/down temperature buttons. Didn't even need to read the manual.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:06:11 am
content: Maybe the idea is to require always-on internet video cams as part of your 'home security system', and have them visible in Google plus, before you can watch Youtube videos. Or something like that.Joking.At least I hope I am. That's either a 3 orders of magnitude typo in the price, or for some reason that tiny company is very important to Google's long range plan to most definitely do evil. And lots of it.

author: codeboy2k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:20:03 am
content: The future will be much better if the home computer was going to be just that... a centalizedHOMEcomputer that ran all aspects of the digital house and only used the Internet for information retrieval and data display to the home owner when they are away.. However, sadly, it's not going in that direction.."The Internet of Things" is a bad idea. The "Networking of Things" is good. Internetworking? bad. Every single appliance in your home will go back to Google (or some one else in the "cloud" for its intelligence, instead of going to your home's own main "brain" computer, and this opens up not only a stupid design to have 150 connections from appliances in your home to the outside world, but also a major security and privacy issue that no one can control and is just full of fatal flaws. We already know appliance manufacturers can't get this right. Designers put web servers and RPC services in their hardware so they can control it from a PC, or a cloud web page, or a smart phone, these are all well and good, but no one knows how to do it right, and because of that, this needs to come together under one control umbrella that can be auditted and secured.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:28:40 am
content: What's even worse, is the path these big players are going down with their locked down OS's where unless you "jail-break/root" your OS you are unable to even list the contents (dir, ls or what ever the similar command is in apple) of the folder containing the apps running on your system.So you have this wonderful scenario where your computing device is more connected than ever, with more things than ever and the least "open" OS ever

author: iloveelectronics
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:30:20 am
content: Quote from: rolandpenplotter on January 13, 2014, 11:06:54 pmGoogle already owns the earth. Google Earth that is

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:47:17 am
content: QuoteWeird stuff goes on in Silicon Valley. When Instagram went for a Billion (B) I thought that's nuts (no revenue, mediocre product, bunch of similar things out there)... Now after this I think that wasn't probably that bad.If you look at Google's acquisitions you'll see more weirdness -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_GoogleAndroid - 64 times less valuable than Nest...youtube - half the value of Nestor may seem unrelated but my favorite is Slide (same thing, no revenue, no product) bought for $200M just to be shutdown and never heard of again...Out of curiosity, how much do you think Nest would have raised on Kickstarter?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:54:08 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on January 14, 2014, 06:06:11 amFor the life of I can't see what though, even if they wanted to do evil with it.It's a bloody intelligent thermostat. What else do they have? I have not looked at Nest's supposed 100 patents though, but geeze, this price just doesn't make sense. 3 orders as you said.It doesn't even make sense that a VC firm would have put $22M into this to begin with. Why?It's almost as if it's some elaborate money laundering scheme or something, and everyone's in on it somehow.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:58:12 am
content: I am sure every thing is fine with that acquisition and the Google and Nest guys are fine upstanding gentlemen and ladies.Would it be other companies, theoretically, of course theoretically only, I would have thought it sounds a lot like a company paying off organized crime by buying something at at much inflated price.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:03:27 am
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 14, 2014, 06:47:17 amAt $230 a pop, even if they got say 5000 orders (realistic high side for such things), that's only just over $1M.How many have they sold?And I just don't get the smoke alarm, what a gimmick. $10 at your local hardware store does the trick just fine.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:05:44 am
content: I won't mention the Altium acquisition of Morfik for 15% of the companies value - oops, I just did...

author: Codemonkey
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:25:13 am
content: As someone else mentioned, this is all likely part of their android@home project. According to one teardown I read, the Nest thermostat has an 802.15.4 radio in it running ZigBee, as well as the WiFi stuff, so its possible this could form the gateway in a network of low power wireless devices which I'm sure t they'll also be wanting to make. If they go down the same pathway as they did with android (make a reference design, let others license it), they could certainly recoup their investment in the long run as more home automation stuff takes off.I think the biggest thing holding up much of the take-up of HA is the lack of a large organisation willing to develop something and then put it out there for others to use. Many of the existing players can provide some of the things you'd like to network, but not all and they don't always like to play nice with other companies products if at all. ZigBee goes some way to addressing this, its just a shame its not completely open. It would be nice if Google would just buy up the ZigBee folks and open the spec for use by anyone freely, I'm sure they could have got it for a lot less than what they just coughed up for a thermostat!

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:40:59 am
content: Well, it's a nice thingie, but 3 200 000 000 USD ? That's about a quarter of our whole countries state budget for the past year.Now, I can see that google would be interested in such a device, but the price is an overkill by a few orders of magnitude. My guess is that the long term plan is a general purpose home device - a local wifi router integrated with a smoke/co2 alarm, or thermostat, or a light switch. It'll be great, because the 2.4 GHz band will become completely useless as even more things will start broadcasting on that range! In my flat I can already pick up 28 different networks.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:44:03 am
content: yes spectrum congestion is a massive problem, and if they want an entire house in the long term goal automated with it, i am just not seeing how you could possibly manage it,(nest wouldn't have owned a sliver of the broadcast spectrum by any chance?)

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 07:57:10 am
content: Quote from: Codemonkey on January 14, 2014, 07:25:13 amSure, but this is pretty trivial stuff for any decent hardware/product team. Put half a dozen people on it, throw a few million at it, and you have it. Let's say throw $20M at it. That would have been a reasonable price for Nest perhaps. $200M would have been "bat shit crazy" territory. $2BN is so insane it's, well, just insane.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 08:13:41 am
content: Yep, even if they cleared $150 per thermostat, they would need to sell over 20 million thermostats just to break even. And thermostats are not like iphones. People don't repace them every 2-3 years.Something else must be going on here...

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 08:57:17 am
content: Well it's a mystery. Definitely not about thermostats, or even home automation (as such.) Maybe there's some detail in Nest's patents that the Google Monster really, really, REALLY needs for something important to them?The corollary would be that that Goog doesn't want people to know exactly which patent detail just yet. So bought the entire reservation to avoid giving away clues.Incidentally, there are a few barriers to workable and acceptable home automation, and have been since the 80s.Processor software/hardware platforms that can survive random power outages and other glitches, while guaranteeing to never lose state information. Therefore able to restart and continue doing exactly whatever they were doing before.This is actually quite easy to engineer, but surprisingly Intel/Microsoft/etc never seem to be able to get it right. Deliberately IMO.A means for presenting a unified GUI consisting of all virtual controls for all appliances in the home, despite them being from multiple manufacturers, and changing often. This is also only a conceptual hurdle, not so hard to do - if you're NOT a corporation constantly trying to gain advantage over your competitors. As things are now though, the corporations will NEVER get this right. It's beyond them for deep reasons fundamental to what they are and how they think.The security problem. Home automation is never going to be widely accepted, so long as there's any chance at all of sh*theads like the NSA gaining access to private home networks. And we all know that with present day operating systems and hardware there's no chance of preventing such backdoors. Can't even trust the damned CPUs, let alone all the other closed binary blobs and silicon snitches.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 09:03:40 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on January 14, 2014, 08:57:17 amunplugging from the internet seems the safest bet there, but then again i have half a suspicion you could backdoor through a hdmi connection (internet connected television) if you had your hands deep enough in the pockets of the companies producing the tv and graphics cards

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 09:07:13 am
content: There must be something amongst the 200 odd patents that nest has that interest Google so much otherwise they would have started their own division, it may well be that one of the patents applies to something Google already does and this is a cheap way of settling the matter.

author: Codemonkey
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 09:33:06 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 14, 2014, 07:57:10 amWhen they start receiving royalties for all the other stuff like fridges, lightbulbs/switches, home security systems etc sold worldwide that work with their system, that $3.2B could be pretty insignificant. I wonder if nest has already got a bigger range of products developed that are almost ready for release. Could be a chance for google to get their logo slapped on them soonish.lol, I've been building a wireless thermostat myself for a while using NXP's 802.15.4 radio's, they could have bought mine for a few millionweb interface to the monitoring bit of my thermostat (served from a raspberry pi):http://indigopepper.com:8800/daily.html

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 09:40:18 am
content: codemonkey, that site does have your address on itequally from a mozilla browser the time log is showing blank

author: Codemonkey
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 09:47:31 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on January 14, 2014, 09:40:18 amyeah, I know about the address, not really that fussed tbh.Not tested it with firefox, works fine with chrome. Its all getting a bit of a re-write at the moment anyway to use this new fangled JSON stuff so it updates automatically while the page is open. I'm more of an embedded C bloke so this web technology is taking me a while to get my head around!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 10:17:38 am
content: Quote from: Codemonkey on January 14, 2014, 09:33:06 amBut there are tons of companies doing home automation.So why Nest?, and why so much?

author: Codemonkey
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 10:29:46 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 14, 2014, 10:17:38 amThere are a ton of companies doing it badly, and who have the mindset that they want to be the ones providing ALL of the products, they don't like to play nicely with products from someone else.I agree it does seem like a stupid amount of money, but at least they bought someone who actually makes something, unlike facebook who spunked an equally stupid amount of cash for someone who adds effects to photo's!I wish I knew why they picked NEST, I guess as someone else posted, the patents must be a big part of this. Maybe I should approach Apple and see if they want to buy my home made wireless thermostat for the bargain price of just $1billion

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 10:40:56 am
content: QuoteAFAIK a company can't own a spectrum area world wide. You can get a frequency range assigned/approved, but in each country it is individual.QuoteThere's a lot of smartphones, and smartphone adoption wasn't hindered by the fact that you're effectively dumping your personal life onto the net, exposing your work stuff to a host of backdoors and such. Facebook has a fair amount of users and it's well known that it's a feeding ground for data mining of other parties. I don't think that privacy issues will be/are a major home automation holdback.QuoteIf you look at most of the products, they aren't really "cool". Yes, they are working well, they connect to something, but they don't have the "buzz". There's a difference between a "home automation system" and "a neet gadget!". Nest products seem to me like the kind of things for customers who don't want a data sheet, or a spec sheet, they want a system that has a nice, clean UI, gets them one step closer to a scifi-ish living room and is cool, without any configuration/setup whatsoever.Also, codemonkeys comment applies - you can buy a system from X companies, but they might not play well together - the customer doesn't want to read a spec sheet 10 pages long, which lists the various systems that are compatible with it and which are not. They want a nice sticker that say's ANDROID FRIENDLY!. A good move would be for google to try and make something like the USB of home automation. The situation before that was a 1001 different proprietary, open, obscure, simple, complex communication standards that could plug into X, Y, but not into Z, you spent a ton of time downloading (or rather getting) drivers, so that your external CD ROM which connects to the parralel port via vendor specific cable can work. USB changed all that and was adopted. Partly because it had a strong group to back it up, partly due to the specs and that it worked and partly because the time when such a standard was capable and appropriate came. Perhaps google wants the same for home automation.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 10:51:09 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on January 14, 2014, 09:03:40 am"Smart" TVsalready watchyou... now, your thermostat too! I don't think it'll be long before we hear of thermostats being hacked.By the way, does anyone know how hot common house heating systems can go?

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 10:55:02 am
content: i would imagine most would be soft locked to 40 degrees, but in reality its the "k-factor" of the materials that bite you in the butt there, as heat losses increase by temperature difference squared for brick and glass,

author: jayco242
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 11:11:37 am
content: This seems to be a "big picture" aquisition. In the UK people like British Gas ( the largest energy company) is now sell a product called Home Hive which will do a similar thing. No doubt the other players in the market are working on the same. This will probably give them a kick up the ass.Jason

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 02:31:23 pm
content: Reminds me of this line from Inception:"I bought the air line, it seemed neater..."

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 03:43:52 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 14, 2014, 10:17:38 amGoogle have been funding Nest with venture capital so at least in part they are buying it from themselves and there is probably a tax avoidance fiddle going on.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 04:04:45 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 14, 2014, 07:03:27 amEhhh , nest has already sold over a million of their thermostats and there moving about 20.000 of their detectors a month now and its been only out a few months.These are not you ordinary smoke detectors. The also check co , are an emergency escape light , talk , and communicate amongst each other. You really need to read what it does.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 04:06:47 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on January 14, 2014, 10:51:09 amI know that when the battery ran out in my wireless thermostat the house got to 32C before I turned the boiler off and I suspect it would go quite a lot hotter. It was about +5C outside when it happened.

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:01:07 pm
content: It's robotics, smart people say -http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/why-google-bought-nest-a-theory/283048/All of human perception seems to be logarithmic. Including the one for money. $1 vs $1000 - wow huge difference, $1K vs $1M - hmm, a lot..., $1M vs $1B - meh, equally unreachable. I think it's time to introduce db$. So how much is $3.2B in db?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 05:27:47 pm
content: Quote from: Codemonkey on January 14, 2014, 09:33:06 amLooks very impressive. Can you shed a light what how you built it and what technologies are involved? A good place can be that 'what are you working on now' thread.

author: ConKbot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 06:17:27 pm
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 14, 2014, 06:01:07 pm95.05dB$ for 3.2 billion, vs 65.05 db$ for 3.2 million

author: ampdoctor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 07:32:59 pm
content: I could be very wrong here but Google has been locking horns with Apple for years and this company just happens to be run by a former Apple exec. At first blush it looks like they bought themselves a dirty engineer who is willing to compromise his former employer. NDA's be damned, I'd cough up one hell of a lot of corporate secrets for a cool billion dollars! Oh and they got a few nice robotics goodies as well as getting their hands on a few patents in the process. This is the only solution that even comes close to making any sense.

author: Codemonkey
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 08:58:47 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 15, 2014, 05:27:47 pmDone!

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 12:13:32 am
content: Quote from: ampdoctor on January 15, 2014, 07:32:59 pmLooks like apple may have been in talks with nest somewhere along the linehttp://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57617164-37/why-apple-didnt-buy-nest/

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2014, 09:14:51 pm
content: Sparkfun has a teardown of a Nest smoke detectorhttps://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nest-protect-teardown/all?print=1

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 04:04:29 pm
content: You are all looking at it from the electronics/hardware point of view, look at it from the big data point of view. They have what, 1 million users? each one is connected to their (Nest's) central database, along with their preferences, schedules and what not. In 10 years, smart homes will be mandatory due to Google's lobby, and guess who knows best how to optimize them?

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 04:47:50 pm
content: Quote from: Gribo on January 21, 2014, 04:04:29 pmHey now, I distinctly remember donningmytinfoil hat back on page 1.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2014, 04:58:15 pm
content: Quote from: c4757p on January 21, 2014, 04:47:50 pmWrong move, instead of doing that, you should start now with your electronic skill and experience to think of a gadget, and build a company that produce something that will improve this "big data point of views(plural)" thingy big time and far better than this one, and waiting Google acquisition to earn your 9 or more digits sums..... just teasing you Chris ...

author: Legit-Design
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 08:26:21 am
content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7g-IfbG4JgWhat's the difference between a $5 and $130 smoke detector?Vid related.http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nest+Protect+Teardown/20057Don't turn it on, take it apart (in case people haven't seen this)

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 11:41:36 am
content: Quoteyeah right!save and safe, you can use more electricity, leave your lights on unattended, play fire at will etc etc, let me add... and everybody need aka must an iphone to keep contact with their loved one and be the "number one"! having trained in jedi art, i'm not buying it. i'll tell my kid to play save and safe thats what i need. funny how these things valued in billions, affecting the weakminded (your best.... you know who) like plague. well, just a random rant not awaring whats going on in previous pages. bernays! bernays!

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 06:57:31 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on January 21, 2014, 04:58:15 pmPedantic grammar/spelling point. The plural of "point of view" is "points of view," not "point of views." It's the same rule as with "mothers in law."Carry on.

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 11:20:00 pm
content: Quote from: Legit-Design on January 22, 2014, 08:26:21 amThe $130 one is shiny...and $125 too expensive.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 11:41:27 pm
content: Quote from: wilheldp on January 22, 2014, 11:20:00 pmBut it's got a LED ring that glows.

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 01:06:38 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 22, 2014, 11:41:27 pmThat means it's watching you sleep.

author: Legit-Design
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 01:15:39 am
content: And it speaks and actually makes sense.I think it has some good features, like you can wave at it and it might shut up. Also ability to configure it so you can make it warn before it starts to beep so you have time to quiet it before it wakes up the whole house. And once you silence it won't start to make sounds before smoke levels decrease and increase again. Apparently some people have problems with smoke alarm going off when they boil water, this smoke alarm has humidity sensor so it shouldn't go off.Take note it also has carbon monoxide (CO) alarm in it. I just checked and around here in northern europe carbon monoxide alarms aren't that cheap even for a basic model.It's a luxury item, just like iPhone or iPad, not everyone needs one or wants to pay for one. I remember when iPhone first came out, most people still had some basic nokia phones which still had keypads. iPhones were ridiculously expensive compared to those normal phones. I was thinking no way something that expensive will ever become mainstream.I've actually lived in student housing in a big building, it had central fire alarm system. When alarm went off it sent emergency signal to fire department. Building has something like 10 floors each floor has 6 kitchens every time someone made the alarm go off everyone had to evacuate to outside, even if it was false alarm. Also we had to wait for fire department or some other official to come shut it off, there was no way to shut it off. For every false alarm the student housing company had to pay a fine, and usually alarms happened every week, after a while they sent the fine to the apartment that cause the false alarm. And sometimes the false alarms were at 3am on weekdays.That was a really stupid system. After a while I didn't bother to go outside anymore, I had a big window that opened easily and a parking lot at the same level.

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 01:26:59 am
content: The difference between the iDevices and Nest's products is utility. Smart phones aren't really necessary, but they put a lot of information and utility at your fingertips. They have also become a status symbol and people like to be seen with them.Contrast that with a home thermostat or smoke/CO detector. The thing sits on your wall/ceiling and controls things. Sure, it may have some nice features, but it lacks the "sexiness" of the modern smart phone. It's like designing a really expensive hammer with an air-conditioned memory foam handle , built in work light, and shock vibration. It may be a really nice hammer, but it is still designed to do one job really well, and it's not a sexy piece of technology.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 01:31:11 am
content: Quote from: Legit-Design on January 23, 2014, 01:15:39 amYeah, but that's the point, it's ultimately for a small niche market. For most people, a normal $10 smoke alarm is all that is required.To think everyone is going to end up having of these in every room is just silly, it won't happen. Just like all these programmable lights. For most people they just want on/off with a switch.Quote$10 on ebay if you trust the cheap chinese ones.$29 at my local hardware store

author: Legit-Design
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 02:25:30 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 23, 2014, 01:31:11 amHere one I found locally is 42€ just for a plain CO alarm with 9V battery.Nest firealarm 130 US$ = ~96€ (+ VAT and all that)With Nest everything works together, these protect devices improve the Auto-Away function of Nest smart thermostat. I guess some people could have problems when their thermostat is in different part of the house. So they could just get all in one device which extends this function. No more wondering if you remember to put thermostat in away mode when this system does it automatically. And when you or anyone comes home it cranks up the heat without user intervention, no need to teach the kids how to turn the heat back up. Heating in the winter is actually very expensive, right now it's -17°C outside.If I had to heat with electricity and actually pay for it myself I would probably invest in something like this.

author: lemmegraphdat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2014, 03:13:23 am
content: Who the hell spends that kind of money for thermostats? Nest must have other uses. Probably won't be making that stuff much longer.

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2014, 11:48:14 pm
content: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/lenovo-to-acquire-motorola-mobility.htmlGoogle just got $2.91B for Motorola Mobility, so they have recouped most of the money they pissed away on Nest.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 12:15:07 am
content: Considering Google paid $12.5B for Motorola Mobility, no recouping occurred.To be fair, they spun out the set-top boxes already and are keeping a bunch of patents, but overall, a loss.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2014, 12:57:41 pm
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 14, 2014, 06:47:17 amI think they know more of the upcoming inflation as we do.The rate real economy/derivatives is about 1/15, plays a role too.They sit on a huge amount of money, I think they look at the y2020 value of it.

author: fenclu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2014, 10:10:38 am
content: Just to put that into perspective...Nest could build another Curiosity Mars rover AND still have 700 million bucks, which is 20 times more than this company is worth...

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 16, 2014, 10:32:36 am
content: Quote from: fenclu on February 16, 2014, 10:10:38 amThat does sum it up rather nicely.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2014, 07:32:33 pm
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 14, 2014, 06:01:07 pmFor me, quote of the month.But what base to use for the dB? I suggest 2K euro, or some median month salary.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2014, 05:26:47 pm
content: Quote from: ivaylo on January 14, 2014, 06:01:07 pmI like it. Imagine 20% sales discount on db money.