Way back at the beginning of 2014 Google (as it was then known, not Alphabet) acquired Nest Labs — a maker of innovative thermostats and smoke alarms — for a cool $3.2 billion in cash. At the time Nest was to be left to its own devices to continue what it had been doing.
Earlier this year we reported that Google was consolidating all of its hardware into a single division but conspicuously Nest was missing from this puzzle. Then a couple of months later Nest CEO and co-founder Tony Fadell resigned which, according to some insiders, was due to tensions between Nest and Alphabet over its lack of new products and disappointing sales figures. Now in a final piece to the Google/Alphabet puzzle Nest Labs’ developers are going to be absorbed into Google.
Fortune.com is reporting that Nest Labs is undergoing further restructuring and their entire platform team will become part of Google “in order to create a unified Internet of Things platform”. Current Senior VP of Android Hiroshi Lockheimer will lead up the division which now also includes Google Home. To many of us it makes sense in a resources and synergy fashion but it has been reported that it may also be to pare costs at smaller Alphabet units.
While we are still yet to see any Nest Labs products here in Australia, we can only hope that the experience of the Nest Labs team helps Google in their efforts not just with Google Home but with other products as well. Hopefully we will see some of them on our shores in the not to distant future.
