Mendoza School of Business

Google Builds a ‘Nest’ for Future of Smart Homes

Published: January 15, 2014 / Author: Michael Liedtke



The following is an excerpt from an Associated Press article that quotes Management Professor Brian Proffitt about Google’s capabilities with Nest products. To read the entire article visit: Google Builds a ‘Nest’ for Future of Smart Homes

When our Internet-connected gadgets and home appliances all learn to talk to each other, Google wants to be at the center of the conversation.

This imagined future is still a few years away, but Google is already preparing with its $3.2 billion acquisition of high-tech thermostat and smoke-detector maker Nest Labs.

The surprise deal announced earlier this week will provide Google Inc. with more tools to build a valuable hub for homes. It’s a world of network-tethered toasters and tea kettles, or a so-called “Internet of Things,” that is destined to reshape society, experts say, in the same way that smartphones have done in the seven years since Apple Inc. unveiled the iPhone.

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Google also could plug its digital mapping software into Nest products so it could learn the layout of a home, said Brian Proffitt, a technology analyst who is also a management instructor at the University of Notre Dame. That knowledge could then be deployed to delegate such household chores as vacuuming to a robot that would be able to rely on the interior maps to navigate its way through an entire home without human help, Proffitt said.

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Topics: Mendoza