Friday, January 17, 2014

Google to buy smart home start-up Nest for $3.2B

Google has made a deal to buy Nest Labs, creators of smart home products, for $3.2 billion.

The move is seen as a push into home automation for the tech giant. Google Ventures was an early investor in Nest, known as the creators of the Nest learning thermostat and Nest Protect, a connected smoke detector. At one point, it was rumored that Google was developing a rival smart thermostat, but the product was never released.

Nest CEO Tony Fadell will continue to run the company as a separate division in Google.

On its website, Nest provides an FAQ about the acquisition, including a statement meant to quell the concerns of customers who want to protect their personal information from the all-seeing eye of Google: "Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest's products and services. We've always taken privacy seriously and this will not change."

For more of the Ars Technica story: arstechnica.com


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