Google’s final acquisition of Nest, the ever-popular smart thermostat, is finally complete as of this morning. In a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Google finalized the purchase of Nest for $3.2 billion in cash, which is impressive by any standards. The purchase was approved by the Federal Trade Commission just last week, and now that it also has the SEC’s signoff it’s good to go, meaning Nest is now officially part of the Google fold. The acquisition of Nest is part of a larger plan by Google to get into your life as much as possible, providing services for nearly everything you could think of (and probably some you didn’t). While Nest currently just makes smart thermostats, carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, they are all wirelessly active devices meaning that they connect to your home WiFi network and can be controlled by anywhere you’d like to control them. Nest also has an incredible auto programming feature that will decide the temperature of your house based on your personal schedule, always trying to keep a good balance between a comfortable house and a comfortable utilities bill. After the acquisition we surmised about a number of things Google could do with this newfound technology and how it could connect its current products and services with future ones that help you run your house better.
The acquisition of Nest isn’t just about product lines though, it’s also about talent. The same team that heads up Nest including Tony Fadell, who was Apple’s former iPod head, is made up of around 300 incredibly talented individuals all dedicated to making technology make a difference in the lives of everyday people. This also comes after the deal Google made with Lenovo to sell Motorola’s hardware division off, taking away the tensions from other manufacturers that were created when Google purchased Motorola. Moving into a growing market is a smart move for Google now that it’s slowly moving away from the smartphone hardware market again, and the uptake of smart devices in the home will only be growing from here on out, and this is likely a brilliant move on Google’s part to get on your good side before the market is saturated with competition. There has been some concern for privacy given that the thermostat tracks your daily patterns and bases a schedule on that, but it’s seen been downplayed both by Google and Nest. Likely we’ll see some sort of integration with Google Now in the near future, as that service already helps track your location and give you real-time commute updates and suggestions based on your search and activity history. Some pretty sweet products and services could be coming to your home very soon thanks to this new purchase by Google, and I for one can’t wait to jump on this train.