Nest labs has been growing very quickly since its acquisition by Google back in February 2014. Founded by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers in 2010, the Palo Alto company is hard at work to become the core of your smart home.
Nest is continuing the battle for domination in the smart home market by adding 15 new partners to its "Works with Nest" developer program. The strategy is to turn the Nest thermostat and the Protect alarm into the central hub for all the smart devices in your home, including those made by big names like LG, Philips and Withings.
If you come home after a hard day of work, the Automatic"s driving assistant will be able to tell Nest to heat your home, and your LG fridge and Whirlpool washing machine would go into a quiet mode. Nest Protect could set the Philips Hue Lights to glow red when it needs to signal an emergency. If you have Zuli smart plugs, smart appliances will enter energy saving mode when you"re not around, and you"ll be able to track power usage around your home.
Nest says that one in 10 customers uses its Works with Nest platform to some degree, which is a sign that at least some people out there who want to have a more connected smart home. However, this technology needs to become safer and have better privacy protection in order to stimulate its adoption.
Source: Nest