Nest Labs

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Nest Labs
Industry Home automation
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, United States
Area served United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Products Thermostats, Smoke/CO alarms
Employees 200 (2013)[1]
Parent Google Inc.
Website www.nest.com

Nest Labs is a home automation company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, that designs and manufactures sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors. Co-founded by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers in 2010, the start-up company quickly grew to have more than 130 employees by the end of 2012.[2]

The company introduced their first product, the Nest Learning Thermostat, in 2011. In October 2013, Nest Labs announced the Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector.[3]

On January 13, 2014, Google announced plans to acquire Nest Labs for US$3.2 billion and leaves Nest Labs to use its own brand.[4][5]

History

Nest Lab was founded in 2010 by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers.[6] On January 13, 2014, Google announced plans to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash. Google completed the acquisition the next day, on January 14, 2014.[7]

Earlier investors in Nest Labs included Shasta Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.[8][9][10][11]

Nest Learning Thermostat

The company's initial product, called the Nest Learning Thermostat, is an electronic, programmable, and self-learning Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat that optimizes heating and cooling of homes and businesses to conserve electricity.[12]

Specifications

Device
Photo 		Model
(Codename) 		Version Released Wi-Fi ZigBee 24V 120–
240V 		Multiple
Zones 		1 - 2
Stage
Cooling 		1 - 3
Stage
Heating 		Forced
Air 		Radiant Heat
Pump 		Oil Gas Electric Hybrid
Systems 		Humidistat
Diamond[13] 1.10 Q4
2011		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Single
Stage
Only		 1-2
stage
only		 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Diamond 1.12 Q1
2012		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Single
Stage
Only		 1-2
stage
only		 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Diamond 1.13 Q?
201?		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ?
Display 2.6 Q3
2012		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Both All Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Display 2.8 Q3
2013		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Both All Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Hardware

The Nest Thermostat's front screen

Nest is compatible with most standard HVAC systems that use central heating and cooling and uses industry standard connections to facilitate the control of these appliances. Systems that use 120–240V current are not compatible with Nest and without new hardware, will not be able to support this voltage.[14]

Nest consists of two primary pieces of hardware. The display contains the main printed circuit board (PCB) and rotating ring, and the base (pictured) houses the connection terminals, bubble level, and holes for wall anchors. Neither can function independently; if separated, the display becomes inactive until reconnected to the base.[15]

Software

The Nest Thermostat is built around an operating system that allows interaction with the thermostat via spinning and clicking of its control wheel, which brings up option menus for switching from heating to cooling, access to device settings, energy history, and scheduling. Users can control Nest without a touch screen or other input device. As the thermostat is connected to the Internet, the company can push updates to fix bugs, improve performance and add additional features. For updates to occur automatically, the thermostat must be connected to Wi‑Fi and the battery must have at least a 3.7V charge to give enough power to complete the download and installation of the update.[16]

The Nest Thermostat has had a number of software updates.[17]

Availability

Nest is not currently available for sale outside the United States and Canada.[18] It is, however, compatible with many heating and cooling systems in other countries.[19] Nest Labs have surveyed existing users known to be outside the areas where it is officially available. Use of the thermostat outside the United States and Canada is complicated by the software setting time and other functions based on the ZIP code. For international users this means they must either disable Wi‑Fi to set the time correctly or use the nearest U.S. zipcode which may result in erratic behaviour as the thermostat makes faulty assumptions about inactivity corresponding with either sleep or the home's occupants being away.[20]

Recently a man-in-the-middle hack allows worldwide users to set up their timezone and local weather.[21]

Nest is incompatible with some ZIP codes and time zones in the United States such as Guam.

Nest Protect

In October 2013, Nest announced its second product, the Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector. It is available for sale in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Litigation

In February 2012 Honeywell filed a lawsuit claiming that some of its patents had been infringed by Nest; Nest has said that it will fight the lawsuit.

On April 12, 2012, Nest publicly announced they will see Honeywell all the way to court as they believe that none of the seven allegedly infringed patents were actually violated. Honeywell is claiming that Nest has infringed on patents pertaining to remotely controlling a thermostat, power-stealing thermostats, and thermostats designed around a circular, interactive design, similar to the popular Honeywell T87. However, Honeywell held patents that were almost identical to those that expired in 2004. Nest has taken the stance that they will see this through to a patent court as they suspect Honeywell is trying to harass them litigiously and financially out of business.[22]

On May 14, 2013, Allure Energy, Inc. ("Allure") was issued a patent by the USPTO titled "Auto-Adaptable Energy Management Apparatus." The very same day, Allure filed a lawsuit against Nest and two other defendants in the Eastern District of Texas alleging Nest was infringing their newly issued patent; the lawsuit is ongoing.[23]

On September 11, 2013, Nest announced that it entered into a patent license agreement with Intellectual Ventures. Additionally, Nest announced that it was acquiring several of Intellectual Venture's patents that will help Nest to better defend their products from patent infringement claims. [24] It is unclear how many patents Nest licensed and purchased from Intellectual Ventures.

On November 4, 2013, BRK Brands, Inc. ("BRK"), maker of the First Alert brand of smoke detectors, filed a lawsuit against Nest in the Illinois Northern District Court alleging Nest's newly released Nest Protect product infringes claims from six of its patents. [25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Anderson, Derek (May 11, 2013). "From The Garage To 200 Employees In 3 Years: How Nest Thermostats Were Born". TechCrunch. 
  2. ↑ Levy, Steven (October 8, 2013). "Nest Gives the Lowly Smoke Detector a Brain — And a Voice". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved October 9, 2013. 
  3. ↑ Patel, Nilay (October 8, 2013). "Fire drill: can Tony Fadell and Nest build a better smoke detector?". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on October 8, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2013. 
  4. ↑ "Google to Acquire Nest". Google. 2014-01-13. Retrieved 2014-01-13. 
  5. ↑ Dana Wollman (January 13, 2014). "Google acquires Nest's line of home automation products for $3.2 billion, pledges continued support for iOS". Engadget. 
  6. ↑ Winkler, Rolfe; Wakabayashi, Daisuke (January 14, 2014). "Google Pays $3.2 Billion for Nest Labs". The Wall Street Journal. p. B1. 
  7. ↑ http://investor.google.com/releases/2014/0113.html
  8. ↑ Constine, Josh (January 13, 2014). "Who Gets Rich From Google Buying Nest? Kleiner Returns 20X On $20M, Shasta Nets ~$200M". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 22, 2014. 
  9. ↑ Oreskovic, Alexei; Gupta, Poornima (January 14, 2014). "Kleiner Perkins, Shasta Ventures make about 20x their money on Nest Labs – Reuters". PEHub. Retrieved January 22, 2014. 
  10. ↑ "For Nest Investor Shasta Ventures, Persistence Pays". StrictlyVC. January 13, 2014. Retrieved January 22, 2014. 
  11. ↑ "Nest (company profile)". Shasta Ventures. Retrieved January 22, 2014. 
  12. ↑ Pogue, David (November 30, 2011). "A Thermostat That’s Clever, Not Clunky". New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2013. 
  13. ↑ "How do I know if my heating and cooling system works with Nest?". Support.nest.com. Retrieved February 4, 2014. 
  14. ↑ "Power Specifications for the Nest Learning Thermostat". Support.nest.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  15. ↑ "The Nest Learning Thermostat will not turn on after installation". Support.nest.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  16. ↑ "How do I update the software on my Nest Learning Thermostat?". Support.nest.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  17. ↑ "Nest Learning Thermostat software update history". Support.nest.com. Retrieved November 4, 2012. 
  18. ↑ "Nest thermostat is coming to Canada". Nest.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  19. ↑
  20. ↑ "Using the Nest Smart Thermostat in Europe [NOT] | Björn's Blog". Bjornquint.tumblr.com. 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  21. ↑ "Nest thermostat in Europe Hacks". Motote.blogspot.com.es. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  22. ↑ Brinks, Kate (April 12, 2012). "Nest Counters Honeywell Allegations of Patent Infringement". Nest.com. Retrieved May 18, 2012. 
  23. ↑ "Allure Energy Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit against Nest Labs". Business Wire. 2013-05-15. Retrieved 2013-10-17. 
  24. ↑ "Nest Enters Into Patent Sale Agreement and License Agreement with Intellectual Ventures". Intellectual Ventures. 2013-09-11. Retrieved 2013-10-27. 
  25. ↑ "First Alert sues Nest over smoke detector patents on voice alerts and vetns". The Verge. 2013-11-19. Retrieved 2014-01-14. 

External links

Media related to Nest Labs at Wikimedia Commons

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