“The announcement yesterday that Google is to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion (£1.9 billion) came as a surprise to many, with suggestions that Apple would have been the more obvious choice for the smart learning thermostat company,” Anthony Cuthbertson writes for ITProPortal. “Founded by two former Apple executives and home to many former Apple employees, it might have seemed logical that Nest would get swallowed up by the company it shares such a connection with. However, reported infighting and disillusion with his former company may well have been the reason behind Nest co-founder Tony Fadell going with Google.”
“Fadell’s history with Apple dates back to 2001 when he was hired as a contractor to work on the iPod. Within two months he was brought in by the tech giant to lead the creative design team of the product and by 2006 he was a senior vice president within the company,” Cuthbertson writes. “But somewhere along the line things turned sour between Fadell and Apple. In 2008 the company let him go amid rumours that he was not getting along with Jony Ive, Apple’s lead hardware and software designer. ‘Tony got canned,’ Leander Kanhey writes in his new book, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As usual, Google got taken to the cleaners (see: Motorola Mobility).
Related articles:
Did Tim Cook blow it by not snapping up Nest before Google? – January 13, 2014
Google to buy Nest Labs for $3.2 Billion – January 13, 2014
Tony Fadell introduces Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector – October 8, 2013
Tony Fadell, Father of the iPod: From Apple to Nest Labs, always a designer – July 24, 2013
Apple Store to sell Tony Fadell’s Nest Learning Thermostat, report claims – May 25, 2012
‘Father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell shows off his new project: Thermostats – October 25, 2011
Still a little disappointed about it. I wanted the smoke alarm/CO2 detector… Now I am not even gonna touch it.
I hope Google loses their rears on this, and Nest loses a lot of customers.
I repeat myself. Thermostats and CO detectors carry a whole lot more liability than phones and tablets. Maybe Tim dodged a FAD bullet for Apple. Sometimes it is just not the products it also what kind of legal and financial landscape does it put you into? Example; Apple owns Nest and a family dies in their sleep due to CO poisoning from their furnace.
Seems a lot of users are listing their Nest products on ebay now.
Don’t blame them at all.
Apple has no obligation to make all kinds of products in the world. Even the coolest ones. Apple does not need to buy Leica or Tesla or whatever someone thinks is cool.
For example, Steven Jobs loved simple classy stylish beauty (let alone the quality and advance) of Mercedes. And, if he really wanted, Apple could buy Mercedes-Benz whole without issue.
Tesla is cool and fits Apple long long term.
Yet, the philosophy of Apple is that they do not make driving cars and creepy robots and fire and temperature sensors.
On the other hand, Google’s approach is totalitarian.
Wonder why Google would want to know what temperature you set your thermostat to and when you set it. Can’t see an advertising motive behind this. 🙂
Really, how about
Sweaters,
Aux heaters,
Window Treatments,
Glass Treatments,
heat pumps,
solar systems,
(just off the top of my head)
Uhh, miss sarcasm much?
Think the beginning of the Google connected home, all controlled through Google on the web or apps, Google knowing when you come and go, when anyone in your family comes and goes really, your habits, preferences, etc.
The thermostat has a motion detector.
You will get an ad every time you walk buy it. 😛
Nice.
The thermostat has a screen in the future to push ads.
It detects when you’re at home and when noone is. If you can’t see how useful internet-connected appliances connected to an untrustworthy steward (Google) can be, rest assured the NSA and anyone meaning harm to you or your posessions definitely will.
ah, you’re figuring it out. very good.
Precisely. Thieves will hack it and find when you are not at homme, they go in and help themselves.
Android is not secure.
Seems to me that Ive has a history of not getting along with anyone perceived to threaten his status as Steve’s little wonder boy, Der Wunderkind of Apple. His jousts with Scott Forstall being legendary. Now we’re left with a tepid iOS 7 as a result.
Getting back on topic, $3.2 billion is obviously over the odds for a thermostat company with limited sales potential in three countries: US, Canada & Britain. I can’t imagine turnover breaking $50 million a year (about 200,000 units of Nest at $250 each) so Google is paying 64 times turnover or 640 times profits, assuming profits of 10% of turnover.
That’s an ROI of 640 years.
Das Wunderkind
Idioten.
Knallköppe. hihi
Hey I didnt mean that. peace.
Not sure about your take on Ive, BLN. I have read a couple of things secondhand, but only insiders have a clue on the real situation. Besides, Forstall was also a favorite of SJ’s and he got the boot, not Jony, so the link to SJ is only part of the equation.
With respect to Google’s $3.2B acquisition of Nest, I agree. Google’s purpose must be to attempt to capture a piece of Apple’s mojo and inject it into its internal efforts. It certainly doesn’t seem to make much sense from a fiscal standpoint. Fancy thermostats and smoke detectors alone won’t provide an ROI in a reasonable amount of time. There just aren’t enough buyers. Perhaps Nest has a more lucrative product in the pipeline? No, the more likely explanation is that Google is just repeating its spending spree on Motorola Mobility. These big acquisitions are a disease – Skype, AOL, etc. The list of failed mega-acquisitions is long.
Google = Central Services!
(if you don’t understand, watch “Brazil”!)
Last night I heard that Google was already an investor in Nest. It is too bad. I did not know that. I liked the first Nest thermostat I paid way too much for. I was looking to get more and the new smoke detector. I will consider my other options now. I do not want Google involved with information about my house. Consider, if you go on vacation and set your house for it, you are easily flagged off the data. I trusted Apple and Nest. Google, not so much.
It is too bad. I would have stuck with a good product line. Just really unsure about the new baggage and it’s security with possible government ties to sharing it’s data.
Google Ventures led the first round or mezzanine financing of the Nest company to the tune of $80 million (25% stake). It was valued at $320 million at the time of the first financing round. Later Kleiner Perkins pumped in more money.
Not what I read. I read that GV and others, including KP, put in $80M for 10%, creating a paper value of $800M.
Google has been moving closer and closer to the creepy line. Or the creepy + abusive + dangerous line. But this .. this might be the tipping point into intolerable.
NB: For Nest devices to work properly they need your wifi password, thereby eliminating the inconvenience of penetrating to your network via Street View.
Not if you set up a WiFi network with a guest network and give it permission to host there – that will isolate the network from the rest of your network where your computers are connected.
Hmm. Use an Onion Pi?
Yea, right. Have you met the typical home user? They don’t know the difference between a router, cable modem or switch. And you expect them to have a clue configuring a router?
“…may well have been the reason behind Nest co-founder Tony Fadell going with Google.”
Is there *ANY* evidence that Apple made any kind of offer to Fadell? I haven’t heard of any. Just maybe that is the reason Fadell went with Google…and the $3.2 mil.
Do you know or have any idea how difficult it is for third party vendors to secure shelf space to display their products in an Apple Store? You have to literally jump through a ton of hoops, one of which is integration into the Apple ecosystem, another of which it should be a fairly high value item that occupies little shelf space.
The fact that Apple allowed them to display the Nest thermostat in an Apple Store is validation of their perceived value to selling Apple products.
“Wow, thermostat wasn’t good enough… you went and built it a brain.”
—Det. Spooner, I, ROBOT
“Productising”? Nothing else he says has any validity after he used that BS.
Fadell lost the iOS battle for the iPhone to Forstall’s group. In hindsight, that choice was correct. I doubt Fadell still believes he was right, given how successful the iPhone has been.
The reason why he sold Nest for $3.2B is because, he’d be crazy NOT to sell for that kind of money.
Apple is a technology and a design company. Google is not. It keeps buying and trying to develop “cool” tech gear so that they can maintain the conceit that they are anything but a media and advertising company that litters the landscape with cheap ugly advertising. That’s all they are. Remember they bought Android too. Also, the idea that many analysts thought Apple would buy Nest just shows how absolutely clueless they are about Apple. Why would Apple buy a company and a product they could very well just develop themselves as part of a broader and deeper ecosystem of home entertainment and automation? It would also muddle the Apple brand, which is one of the strongest if not the strongest brand in the world. What would they do, have a Nest sub-brand? Honestly, I’m truly sick of all this bogus tech reporting that instead of being insightful, is simply trying to create a bogus narrative that will garner clicks.
personally, I think Jony Ive might believe his shit doesn’t stink. Clearly he kinda sucks at software design. iTunes has been turned into a train wreck. New iOS looks worse than before.
You’re right – Johnny Ive designed his shit elegantly so that it doesn’t stink.
So carry on using your PoS Android phone then. No-one’s holding a gun to your head to make you use iOS.
It works fine, my only issue is the colours could be toned down slightly, which the next update should remedy. Faux leather and other attempts to make app icons look like real-world objects is just so tired; this is the 21st century, not the 19th.
Or maybe you like Steampunk stuff…
At first blush yesterday, I thought Apple had made a big error in not picking up Nest. But sometimes I need to take a deep breath. After reading some very thoughtful post from others and MDN’s point somewhere about it being time to look at Honeywell products, I feel that Apple did the right thing in letting this go to Google. I am still returning the unboxed Nest I bought as i do not trust Google’s intent. And after reading numerous articles and blogs, it seems that the Honeywell offerings may be more reliable while offering almost identical features. Long run, as numerous people have noted, Google will screw this up and the only people who have won are the investors in Nest who now get a nice ROI.
Nest doesn’t sell a billion dollars worth of thermostats. Google has something in their mind about collecting information about what goes on in people’s houses.
Making gadgets for the house isn’t Apple’s business. Even the Apple TV product would be a stretch if Apple didn’t have the iTunes store. An appropriate iWatch product married to an iPhone would probably be good, but a “stand alone” “smart watch” isn’t Apple’s business.
Still can’t understand the appeal at the current state of the wired home. The Nest thermostat was *way* too expensive compared to an admittedly ugly regular programmable thermostat and being able to monitor my own smoke detector doesn’t add any value compared to having, say, my alarm company do the monitoring. They’ll respond much more quickly without me having to do anything.
There is an opportunity here and I do think the technologies are coming together (via perhaps low energy bluetooth) but it’ll take Apple to show the way. I’m sure that in the next year or two, the road forward will be clear. And it won’t be via Google.
1) you don’t have to pay another company a gazillion bucks a month to ‘monitor’ your smoke detector
2) You can’t control your existing thermostat with your phone/iPad.
BTW, I own *neither* and think they’re ridiculously expensive… I do see the “appeal”, however.
Google is buying the team/talent, not the product line.
Or maybe they are a front for the NSA?
Having the talent is only good if you know what you’re going to do with it.
I think Google does already know what they plan to do with its acquisition, ie., Fadell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fadell as a VP at Google within a few years, for better or worse.
Within a few weeks of Google purchase being consummated.
The Nest discussion forums are filled with angry Nest owners distraught over this brain-dead decision by Fadell. Now we know why Apple let him go. He’s a greedy opportunist with absolutely no insight into the core values of his customer base.
And now he’d all over the the tech world giving interviews. Ego much?
All I want to know is where is Google going to put the cameras in the t’stats and smokes?
Fadell a.k.a. The PodFather was involved in the iPod, the 1st 3 generations of the iPhone and the original iPad development the preceded the iPhone. BTW- he also had about 300 patents related to smart home automation and the Internet of things through Nest.
Google was not buying a ‘Thermostat company’ they were buying a patent portfolio that will prove to be quite valuable and a very smart team of people who are even more valuable. Michigan Grad Fadell is but one of a talented group of people at Nest.
http://www.cfe.umich.edu/ehour/tony-fadell
http://innovate.umich.edu/2012/09/larry-page-co-founder-of-google/
So he has 300 patents, how many of them a worth $3B? And I’m sure Forstall would take issue with Fadell claiming he lead the team that developed the iPhone. Fadell led a team that developed a phone Apple never built.
Btw, Nest products are actually designed by a 3rd party firm called Bould.
Googles hardware profit ability is dismal.
If Apple thought this was a good business to get into now then they would do so. I doubt that there is anything spectacularly unique about the technology involved here, and Apple has no shortage of design expertise.
In short, Apple doesn’t need Nest, especially at this price, and if home automation is on the radar for Apple then they are no doubt working on a game-changing strategy.
However, I suspect Apple has bigger fish to fry at this juncture, namely TV which remains a problem waiting to be solved. As ever, Apple work quietly behind closed doors on the “next big things”. A pretty thermostat is not really the game changer Apple is looking for.
Google, on the other hand, has no design skills to speak of. If the Google culture doesn’t oppress the Nest team then future Google products might be a little more stylish.
I was going to buy a Nest device, but I won’t do it now because you don’t know how long it will be until Google trashes it.. like they do with other Google services that are popular.
what ITProPortal article misses:
the reason Tony Fadell left Apple in 2008-11-03 and why Apple did not acquire Nest (fitting it more than any other firm) is not as much that Tony had feuds with other genius Bri Jony Ive, but that Tony wanted to be able to tell his grand children that he invented and/or changed the world with more than just iPod or Apple products! • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Fadell