Google enters the household consumption - The País.com (Spain)

Google gets into the kitchen. It has acquired for $ 3,200 million (2,300 million euros) Nest Labs, a company that started to become famous a few years ago for its line of smart home thermostats. Nest will continue to operate under its own brand.

The agreement is the largest in the history of Google, after acquiring 12.500 million mobile division of Motorola, two years after purchase, only accumulated losses and judicial fiascos in their second patent litigation .

Like the Motorola deal, which marked the first major foray into the world of Google devices, Nest to Google should give you a springboard in household consumption, an increasingly important market with the Internet of things, ie all devices connected to the Web A sector in which you will find other brands as well situated as Samsung or LG.

“Nest seems to be focused on thermostats and smoke detectors, but it is not unreasonable to think that Google expand this technology to other devices,” he told Bloomberg Shyam Patil, analyst at Wedbush. “Home automation is one of the greatest opportunities when discussing Internet tas things. Acquisition expands its strategy around that.”

not the first raid. A few months ago provided an Internet connection to the TV and a musical team in 2012, which was never offered for sale, and also a PowerMeter, a measure of the energy consumed was not successful and closed in 2011. After announcing the purchase, Google stock rose 0.5% to $ 1,128.

Nest, founded in 2010, is headquartered in Palo Alto, near Ideo, one of the leading design firms in technological devices. With that firm has in common aesthetics of objects. Its founder Tony Fadell got ugly home thermostats were beautiful, as acquired similar to the wall, yet intelligent tones, as the historical record of the temperatures of the room to automatically match up the operation of the heating or air conditioning.

Fadell, who is credited with the design of the iPod, will continue to lead the company as co-founder Matt Rogers and his team. A third of its 300 employees are former Apple.

According to Bloomberg, some commentators on Twitter expressed concern about the privacy implications of Google agreement, which contains lots of personal data online habits of its users. “Not content with their personal data, Google now wants the source data by purchasing Nest” Irene Ng wrote on Twitter.

“So basically, Google will know when the homeowner is away, when you have had a fire and what their electricity bill” Brian Makas tweeting, adding the hashtag # creepy to your comments.

concern of these people think it is not far-fetched. In an interview with Reuters, Fadell explained that, during the negotiations of the purchase, the company spent a lot of time talking to Google’s privacy issues. “The problem is a matter of Google, but privacy is taken very seriously,” said Fadell who stated that service standards would not change Nest.

Despite

Fadell experience in the design and manufacture of mobile devices, has ruled out going to behind those products in its new phase. “That was something that was very clear I told Larry (co-founder of Google):.. ”ve Built all kinds of mobile products, I’ve done all those things I’m not here to build again”

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venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2010 supported Nest 20 million has seen the benefits of your bet is multiplied by 20 in only three years.