Buying Nest, after forays into home energy data and hardware, seems like a great fit for Google. Similar to the Android platform, Google is once again making use of hardware outsourcing (or corporate crowd sourcing) in order to focus on its core competency, smart data acquisition.
Nest's products are a great example of how known technology can be totally reinvented with the introduction of machine learning and UI enhancements.
The thermostat is no new product, and one of the most common technologies used in the sensing of temperature for thermostats has remained mostly unchanged over the past century since the first patent. Simple circuits using thermistors can mimic the thermostat for less than $20. Adding a fancy microcontroller only adds to the fun. I've built a few temperature sensing projects which i hope to share in this space.
What makes the Nest thermostats and smoke detectors so exciting is the integration of the simple technology of household appliances and adding the relatively new and buzzy machine learning approach to existing technology. A remote controlled thermostat is interesting, a bluetooth controlled thermostat might be fun, but an intelligent thermostat can actually change the way we interact with the technology. Sensing and adapting to human behavior makes Nest's products both trendy and useful.
It has been my feeling for some time that consumer technology in this decade will be defined by the marriage of smart technology and big data. Google's announcement only cements this path, and their place in the development of the machine learning era.
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