Interpreting Google’s Purchase of Nest

Were you surprised to hear of Google’s acquisition of Nest? Probably not; nor was I. Google has long been interested in energy monitoring technologies and the effect that access to energy information can have on individual consumption decisions. In 2009 they introduced Power Meter, which was an energy monitoring and visualization tool; I wrote about it a few times, including it on my list of devices for creating intelligence at the edge of the electric power network. Google discontinued it in 2011 (and I think Martin LaMonica is right that its demise showed the difficulty of competition and innovation in residential retail electricity), but it pointed the way toward transactive energy and what we have come to know as the Internet of things.

In his usual trenchant manner, Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic gets at what I think is the real value opportunity that Google sees in Nest: automation and machine-to-machine communication to carry out our desires. He couches it in terms of robotics:

Nest always thought of itself as a robotics company; the robot is just hidden inside this sleek Appleish case.

Look at who the company brought in as its VP of technology: Yoky Matsuoka, a roboticist and artificial intelligence expert from the University of Washington.

In an interview I did with her in 2012, Matsuoka explained why that made sense. She saw Nest positioned right in a place where it could help machine and human intelligence work together: “The intersection of neuroscience and robotics is about how the human brain learns to do things and how machine learning comes in to augment that.”

I agree that it is an acquisition to expand their capabilities to do distributed sensing and automation. Thus far Nest’s concept of sensing has been behavioral — when do you use your space and how do you use it — and not transactive. Perhaps that can be a next step.

The Economist also writes this week about the acquisition, and compares Google’s acquisitions and evolution to GE’s in the 20th century. The Economist article touches on the three most important aspects of this acquisition: the robotics that Alexis analyzed, the data generated and accessible to Google for advertising purposes, and the design talent at Nest to contribute to the growing interest in the Internet-of-things technologies that make the connected home increasingly feasible and attractive to consumers (and that some of us have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting to see develop):

Packed with sensors and software that can, say, detect that the house is empty and turn down the heating, Nest’s connected thermostats generate plenty of data, which the firm captures. Tony Fadell, Nest’s boss, has often talked about how Nest is well-positioned to profit from “the internet of things”—a world in which all kinds of devices use a combination of software, sensors and wireless connectivity to talk to their owners and one another.

Other big technology firms are also joining the battle to dominate the connected home. This month Samsung announced a new smart-home computing platform that will let people control washing machines, televisions and other devices it makes from a single app. Microsoft, Apple and Amazon were also tipped to take a lead there, but Google was until now seen as something of a laggard. “I don’t think Google realised how fast the internet of things would develop,” says Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consultancy.

Buying Nest will allow it to leapfrog much of the opposition. It also brings Google some stellar talent. Mr Fadell, who led the team that created the iPod while at Apple, has a knack for breathing new life into stale products. His skills and those of fellow Apple alumni at Nest could be helpful in other Google hardware businesses, such as Motorola Mobility.

Are we finally about to enter a period of energy consumption automation and transactive energy? This acquisition is a step in that direction.