“Fish gotta fly. Birds gotta swim. Google has to buy smaller companies and change their products’ privacy policies so they can now share data with Google,” Susie Ochs reports for TechHive. “It’s just the natural order of things, and now it’s happening with Nest.”
“Nest co-founder Matt Rogers posted to Nest’s official blog late Monday night to announce the company’s Nest Developer Program, a set of developer tools that will allow other products to securely integrate with Nest,” Ochs reports. “What Rogers didn’t say in his post, but did tell the Wall Street Journal, is that Google is connecting its apps to the Nest as part of that program. That will let you control your Nest with voice commands, or let Google Now take the reins since it can tell from your movements when you’re heading home.”
“Rogers did assure the Journal that users will have to opt in to this data sharing, and claimed, ‘We’re not becoming part of the greater Google machine,'” Ochs reports. “That statement is downright laughable: Your company was bought by Google for $3.2 billion, you’re now sharing with Google, and that makes you part of the greater Google machine. (Also your bosses probably don’t consider ‘Google machine’ to be the preferred nomenclature.)”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shocking (as dryly as we can type).
You don’t want a Nest thermostat. You want a Lyric smart thermostat from Apple HomeKit partner Honeywell.
Related articles:
With HomeKit and Honeywell’s Lyric, a Nest acquisition by Apple would have been foolish – June 18, 2014
Will Apple’s Internet of Things vision hurt a beautiful idea? With HomeKit, Apple promises easy home automation – June 6, 2014
Smart thermostat war heats up as Apple-partner Honeywell takes aim at Google’s Nest – June 13, 2014
Honeywell takes dead aim at Google’s Nest with new iPhone-compatible Lyric smart thermostat – June 10, 2014
Dead to me: Apple’s Schiller ‘unfollows’ Tony Fadell and Nest after Google acquisition – January 18, 2014