“Nest Labs, the home hardware maker co-founded by two ex-Apple luminaries [Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers], is today unveiling its second product, Nest Protect, a $129 smart device that hopes to do for the smoke and carbon monoxide detection market what Nest’s Learning Thermostat did for home temperature control,” Ingrid Lunden reports for TechCrunch.
“That is, it wants to turn what has become for many a mundane, malfunctioning domestic necessity into a reliable and stylish must-have,” Lunden reports. “Artfully designed, connected up with your smartphone, and full of features that work better than what it wants to replace, Nest Protect is the startup’s biggest play yet to make a global name for itself and position itself as a serious player in the connected home.”
“Just as Apple has taken technology and managed to both make it slick/aspirational but at the same time human and personal, so too is Nest Labs hoping to do the same with the Nest Protect,” Lunden reports. “‘We didn’t just want to make a better one,’ Fadell says of the square-shaped device that comes in white and black (yes, even in aesthetics the Protect departs from the circular look of today’s detectors). ‘We wanted to create something really emotional. Something that people could really like and embrace in their home, not just buy because the government tells them they have to.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Nilay Patel reports for The Verge, “More than anything, I’m surprised it’s a square.”
“A square with rounded corners, Nest CEO Tony Fadell corrects me,” Patel reports. “Then the man responsible for the iPod and the Nest thermostat beams at me and delivers the line for his newest product. ‘Safety,’ he says, ‘shouldn’t be annoying.'”
Read more in the full article here.