Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff dot com. Hei everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, And you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to build a nice little comfy section in
Speaker 1: this room, just a little a little comfy area that
Speaker 1: I can just snuggle up in and go to sleep.
Speaker 1: I'm going to cull it my nest. And then we
Speaker 1: got some requests for people that they wanted me to
Speaker 1: cover the nest technology. It's really just a bunch of
Speaker 1: pillows and blankets. I don't know what the big deal is. Well,
Speaker 1: it's really pretty advanced. It's true what it is, it's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. Not structurally speaking, it is not the most
Speaker 1: sound of actual buildings. And we have had a collapse,
Speaker 1: but fortunately everyone was just cuddled, so it's perfectly Oh wait, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's an other nest, right, there's there's We're on
Speaker 1: the show called text Stuff. That's why there was all
Speaker 1: that stuff on Twitter. Right. Yeah, Google has not actually
Speaker 1: offered to buy your pillow fort for three point two
Speaker 1: billion dollars. I need to retract an email I just sent. Alright, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk today about the Nest Labs company
Speaker 1: and uh and the products they make, And I, like
Speaker 1: Lauren was saying, Google has made a really incredible move
Speaker 1: in offering to purchase Nest for a what some might
Speaker 1: call a ridiculous sum of money. I think that three
Speaker 1: point two billion accounts as pretty ridiculous. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a company that makes two things so far. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it's only existed since yea, and they've only been
Speaker 1: having stuff that they could sell since eleven. So anyway,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about this. If you had told me
Speaker 1: ten years ago that I'd be sitting down and talking
Speaker 1: into a microphone to record a show about a company
Speaker 1: that's big product is a thermostat, first I would say
Speaker 1: who are you and why are you in this consulting firm,
Speaker 1: because that's where I was ten years ago. But moreover
Speaker 1: I just said no, I wouldn't who who would want
Speaker 1: to listen to that? Well? Okay, that there has been
Speaker 1: a lot of buzz about Nest over the past couple
Speaker 1: of years that it has existed, because they make these
Speaker 1: these smart devices, smart thermostats and smart smoke detectors, carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide exactly. Um, and and you know, with the Internet
Speaker 1: of things becoming more of a real thing people have
Speaker 1: been excited about. This is one of the leading companies
Speaker 1: that's creating the kind of hardware that you can use
Speaker 1: to to make your home and Internet of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also the design aesthetic right, gorgeous it is and
Speaker 1: and and it works with your smartphone and that's all terrific.
Speaker 1: And I did want to mention that for the record,
Speaker 1: thermostats are kind of a big business. There's some ten
Speaker 1: million sold in the US every year, and they control
Speaker 1: some half of the energy used in US homes, right,
Speaker 1: so this is not insignificant. Yeah. If you talk, if
Speaker 1: you look at your energy bill and you divide it
Speaker 1: by two, that amount of money is going straight to
Speaker 1: your Yeah. So if you are able to make an
Speaker 1: impact on that, it will reflect in the amount of
Speaker 1: money you have to spend on energy bills, particularly if
Speaker 1: you live in a place where you have a fairly
Speaker 1: extreme climate, so that your HVAC system has to work
Speaker 1: extra hard to make sure your living space is a
Speaker 1: comfortable one. And uh, and in fact, what this all
Speaker 1: comes back to a guy named Tony Fidel, who once
Speaker 1: upon a time worked for a little company called Apple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: By work, do we mean that he kind of lad
Speaker 1: the iPod and kind of that the iPhone teams for
Speaker 1: a while, for multiple generations for iPod and I think
Speaker 1: three generations of iPhone he was overseeing that. He was
Speaker 1: senior vice president of those departments and uh. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about someone who definitely you about designing for
Speaker 1: a particular aesthetic, uh, and to create something that is
Speaker 1: attractive for consumers. Because it's easy for us to forget this,
Speaker 1: and I know we say it on tech stuff all
Speaker 1: the time, so maybe it's not easy for you to
Speaker 1: forget because we say it so frequently. But before the iPod,
Speaker 1: you know, MP three players existed, there were, but no
Speaker 1: one had really designed one that really caught the public's
Speaker 1: attention like there were there was no one that was
Speaker 1: a dominant player at the time. And then the iPods
Speaker 1: design really started to kind of dominate to the point
Speaker 1: where you started seeing other companies designs look more iPod ish.
Speaker 1: Not to try and stir up any patent you know,
Speaker 1: wars again, but but people realized that, I mean, previous
Speaker 1: to that, I think that most MP three players looked
Speaker 1: like they were functional, Yeah, like bricks. I had one,
Speaker 1: I mean I had one that I loved because it
Speaker 1: was probably about eight percent the price of an iPod,
Speaker 1: but it had twice the capacity. But it looked like
Speaker 1: a brick and it felt like one too. It was heavy.
Speaker 1: But the uh, you know, and the iPhone another great example.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that before too, about how in the
Speaker 1: United States smartphones were pretty much the realm of executives,
Speaker 1: right like BlackBerry was king in the US. Now in
Speaker 1: Europe and in Japan that was a different story, but
Speaker 1: not here in the US. It wasn't until the iPhone
Speaker 1: came out that you started seeing the consumer market move
Speaker 1: toward it. So this is a guy who was right
Speaker 1: there on the forefront. He knew a thing or two about,
Speaker 1: you know, making sure you had an attractive product. But
Speaker 1: that's not exactly what got him excited about this. First
Speaker 1: of all, he retired. He retired in two thousand eight
Speaker 1: from Apple. He was he was like, okay, I have
Speaker 1: made my mark. I I have helped bring to really
Speaker 1: influential products to the market. I may rest, but apparently
Speaker 1: things just weren't always you know, the most comfortable temperature
Speaker 1: at the Fidel house. Maybe he just got up to
Speaker 1: change the thermostat one too many times, And he started
Speaker 1: thinking about this fact, the fact that half of your
Speaker 1: energy is spent controlling the climate of your home, and that,
Speaker 1: according to at least some study that he was aware of,
Speaker 1: because it's in a blog post on the nest uh
Speaker 1: web page, that the average person adjusts his or her
Speaker 1: thermostat hundred times a year, and so and and and furthermore,
Speaker 1: he was, you know, he was trying to update his
Speaker 1: home to he he was like, we've got these gorgeous
Speaker 1: products for our music and for communication. Why can't we
Speaker 1: have that kind of thing for everything at our house?
Speaker 1: Why does why does this control for my climate where
Speaker 1: apparently I'm getting up to do it multiple times a day?
Speaker 1: Because if it's fift hundred times a year, that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's a bunch. Why is it so boxy and ugly?
Speaker 1: And because the almost thermostats not really aesthetically pleasing, they're
Speaker 1: they're functional. So that's yeah. Yeah, According to another guy
Speaker 1: that we're going to be talking about in just a
Speaker 1: couple of seconds, the design, the basic design on thermostats
Speaker 1: has not really changed since the n Yeah, you either
Speaker 1: have the digital kind or you have the old kind
Speaker 1: that has sort of a coiled thermometer in it. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more, you can actually go back.
Speaker 1: We did a tech Stuff episode about how thermostats work
Speaker 1: back in the day where we talk about the actual
Speaker 1: the actual mechanics of a thermostat, both the I think
Speaker 1: we mainly focused on the old the old mercury switch kind,
Speaker 1: but there are various other types as well. Um And
Speaker 1: another thing that Fiddel was thinking about was the fact
Speaker 1: that he, you know, we we live in the incredible future.
Speaker 1: Why can't I control my thermostat from my smartphone? Right?
Speaker 1: And and and there were some products out there that
Speaker 1: would let you do that, but they cost like five
Speaker 1: dollars a unit, right and you had to you know,
Speaker 1: you you essentially had to go to some sort of
Speaker 1: home automation specialist and then have that installed for them.
Speaker 1: Wire why are these things in for you? It wasn't
Speaker 1: like something where you could go to a warehouse in
Speaker 1: or or is some major store people are alows or
Speaker 1: something like that and say show me where the automated
Speaker 1: or the remote thermostats are, because it was all packages
Speaker 1: that you had to go through contractors to get. So
Speaker 1: not the not the most accessible, certainly. And he also
Speaker 1: realized that we were getting to a point as far
Speaker 1: as computer software is concerned, where you could create very
Speaker 1: sophisticated algorithms that could have quote unquote learning behavior right.
Speaker 1: They could start to recognize patterns and then respond to
Speaker 1: those patterns in a predetermined way. So the big example
Speaker 1: that we would have with NEST is that if no
Speaker 1: one's in the house, there's no need to have the
Speaker 1: heat cranked up or the a C cranked up to
Speaker 1: keep the house at the regular comfortable temperature. And if
Speaker 1: you know when people are coming home, all right, if
Speaker 1: it notices that you come home at six thirty every night,
Speaker 1: then it can start working the house to words that
Speaker 1: temperature whenever it needs to in order to have it
Speaker 1: ready for you to get home. Yeah, so when you
Speaker 1: walk through the door, it feels as if your house
Speaker 1: has stayed that temperature all day long, whereas the reality
Speaker 1: is between the hours of whatever and whatever, it was
Speaker 1: not you know, either the system wasn't working at all,
Speaker 1: or it wasn't working nearly yet full capacity. It was
Speaker 1: working enough so that it wouldn't take too much work. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to I mean, obviously you don't want
Speaker 1: to shut everything down like, if it's if it's the
Speaker 1: the what was what do they call it the polar vortex? When? Uh,
Speaker 1: it was when I was at ce S, so I
Speaker 1: missed it. I wasn't here in Atlanta. That's what they
Speaker 1: call nine degrees here. There's some kind of science about
Speaker 1: it that I think that we have actually written stuff
Speaker 1: about on how stuff works at this point, But I
Speaker 1: have no idea. I just saw tweets that said polar vortitext.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what it is. It
Speaker 1: the day after tomorrow back in Atlanta, I don't know
Speaker 1: nine degrees. It was basically, yeah, in that case, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want the house to get all the way down
Speaker 1: to you know, below freezing. Obviously may not, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, you wouldn't want it to be at
Speaker 1: you know, seventy five degrees because you'd be using a
Speaker 1: lot of energy while you're not actually there. So it
Speaker 1: needed He saw the problem that it was an engineering problem.
Speaker 1: You had to build a device that could monitor the temperature,
Speaker 1: keep it within a certain range, and then be flexible
Speaker 1: enough so that that range changes based upon the parameters
Speaker 1: that are present. And also if you happen to like it,
Speaker 1: warm in the morning but cold at night. Then if
Speaker 1: you had a thermostat that could learn these patterns, it
Speaker 1: could start to anticipate it and change them for you proactively,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to be the one to go
Speaker 1: up there and say like, oh, you know, I like
Speaker 1: it cold when I go to bed, but when I
Speaker 1: wake up it's it's my body temperature so low. I
Speaker 1: need to get my temperature up. I need it to
Speaker 1: be warmer. So this was a great opportunity he saw.
Speaker 1: So he ended up contacting a couple of other folks
Speaker 1: and uh working on an idea for a learning thermostat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these were mostly other ex Apple folks or perhaps
Speaker 1: folks that were maybe at the time still working for Apple.
Speaker 1: Exactly the date lines of these they're certainly ex Apple
Speaker 1: folks now yes, um and and one of them, Mr
Speaker 1: Matt Rogers, he would wind up co founding this company,
Speaker 1: Nest with yep so t is when Nest Labs officially
Speaker 1: forms may specifically, and they their strategy was to be
Speaker 1: kind of quiet about what they were doing. They didn't
Speaker 1: talk about their products, they didn't talk about their lines
Speaker 1: of research really, and so it kind of took the
Speaker 1: world by surprise when in October of twenty eleven, Fidel
Speaker 1: essentially announces, Hey, here's this thing we've been working on.
Speaker 1: It's this little, round, gorgeous looking device. It's actually a
Speaker 1: thermostat and it's smart and it can connect to WiFi
Speaker 1: and you can adjust it with your phone and it
Speaker 1: learns what you like. And people were just thinking you
Speaker 1: are saying too many things, Mr Man, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you what's going on. I think they owe so
Speaker 1: much of their um, just general corporate feel from Apple. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, Matt Matt Rogers strikes me as kind of
Speaker 1: an Apple fanboy who who became eventually one of the
Speaker 1: iPod software developers there. Um, but he has said that
Speaker 1: his first computer when he was like three years old
Speaker 1: was a Macintosh Plus and that, um, a lot of
Speaker 1: the you know, design, sensibility and just just concepts of
Speaker 1: how to run a business are definitely deeply owed to
Speaker 1: Apple in general and Steve Jobs very particularly sure, and
Speaker 1: you can certainly see elements of that when you look
Speaker 1: at both the company and its products. So Fidel wrote
Speaker 1: a blog post that went up on the Nest website
Speaker 1: on October and kind of explained why a thermostat because
Speaker 1: that was you know that that you had two big
Speaker 1: reactions from people when this was first announced. People would
Speaker 1: say uh huh, like what what's what's your game? Why
Speaker 1: would you even do this? And the other where like
Speaker 1: where when and where can I buy one of these?
Speaker 1: Because it looks beautiful? And I mean, I remember when
Speaker 1: this came out because I remember, you know, I was
Speaker 1: a big fan of shows like c Nets buzz Out Loud,
Speaker 1: and I remember people like Tom Merritt and Molly would going, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of bonkers over this thing. They were
Speaker 1: they were like this, yeah. And at the same time
Speaker 1: when I started looking into it and like, gosh, I
Speaker 1: kind of want one of those two. Well, he in
Speaker 1: that blog post laid out what it was they wanted
Speaker 1: the thermostat to be able to do. He said he
Speaker 1: wanted to design the thermostat to learn your preferred temperature
Speaker 1: and schedule since when you left the house or when
Speaker 1: you came home, to give you tips and feedback on
Speaker 1: your energy use. To be able to connect to WiFi
Speaker 1: so you could control it from anywhere, for it to
Speaker 1: look beautiful, and for you to feel proud to actually
Speaker 1: be an owner of it, which it's very Steve jobs
Speaker 1: ish kind of thing, right, and also to have a
Speaker 1: positive impact on the world. And you know, I honestly
Speaker 1: think based upon the work that this company has done,
Speaker 1: they're being they're being sincere about that. It's not that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's obviously it's a business, but it's not
Speaker 1: something where I don't think that's just lip service, like
Speaker 1: let's make the world a better place. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: any numbers from outside sources, but according to the company
Speaker 1: UM as of as of only February often they had
Speaker 1: already helped UM energy efficiency to the tune of saving
Speaker 1: like two five million kill a lot hours of energy,
Speaker 1: so I'm like twenty nine million dollars worth and in
Speaker 1: US yeah, conversion, So you're saving money and you're also
Speaker 1: by by taking down some of that demand, we don't
Speaker 1: have to produce as much energy. We're not wasting it
Speaker 1: on on heating an empty house, or we're not burning
Speaker 1: we're not burning even more coal or or using up
Speaker 1: more natural gas or whatever it happens to be that
Speaker 1: has provided the heat and or a c for those homes.
Speaker 1: And UM it's interesting they started taking pre orders for
Speaker 1: the Nest thermostat and I think that was at a
Speaker 1: price point of two, which I believe is what still
Speaker 1: is today. So you know, not a small amount of
Speaker 1: money for something like that, but still cheaper than any
Speaker 1: of I mean by half, cheaper than any relatively similar
Speaker 1: products in the market. Yeah. Yeah, and also it would
Speaker 1: ultimately save you money, assuming that you're using it properly.
Speaker 1: So pre orders within three days of of them talking
Speaker 1: about this, that within that blog post going up, they
Speaker 1: had sold out of all of their stock that they
Speaker 1: had planned on producing in the short term. So after
Speaker 1: three days of the store being opened, they shut it.
Speaker 1: They closed the store after three days with the explanation
Speaker 1: of guys, this had way more of a demand than
Speaker 1: we had anticipated. We knew that we had something potentially
Speaker 1: big on our hands, we didn't know that all of
Speaker 1: you would agree with us. And so they closed the
Speaker 1: store and they started working very hard on meeting the
Speaker 1: demands of the initial pre orders as well as figuring
Speaker 1: out how were they going to meet the expan into demand.
Speaker 1: And it wouldn't be until uh later in uh I
Speaker 1: think it was March two thousand twelve. So they shut
Speaker 1: the store down November two thousand eleven. It's not until
Speaker 1: March two thousand twelve that they're able to open the
Speaker 1: store back up again. I'm sure that most of that
Speaker 1: time was devoted to um to investment related issues and
Speaker 1: sure and maybe like uh, streamlining manufacturing processes, getting the
Speaker 1: supply chain in order, you know, lots of stuff that
Speaker 1: the background staff. Yeah, that's not terribly exciting to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's very important. It turns out that that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And so, starting in May two thou twelve, the Nest
Speaker 1: Thermostatic became available in other places besides their online store.
Speaker 1: You could get it at Lowe's hardware stores by June,
Speaker 1: you could get it on Amazon. By a little bit
Speaker 1: later in the year, I think by October that year,
Speaker 1: you could get it Best Buy. You can even get
Speaker 1: it at the Apple online store. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: there's obviously the relation. I don't know, I'll be right now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's to be the same now
Speaker 1: that Google has is acquiring Nest. Yeah, that's a compution.
Speaker 1: They have affirmed that they are going to um continue
Speaker 1: supporting ii OS product exactly. Yeah, It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: like suddenly your iPhone is unable to adjust the temperature
Speaker 1: of your home, right, that would be that would be
Speaker 1: a pretty ridiculously poor business decision. And I think I
Speaker 1: think the Google and Apple have both learned their lesson
Speaker 1: on that kind of I mean, you even had for
Speaker 1: a while, you had one person like you had the
Speaker 1: CEO of Google sitting on the board of directors of
Speaker 1: Apple for a while. Uh, that was Eric Schmidt. That
Speaker 1: that didn't last forever. He did a step down for
Speaker 1: the board of directors eventually. But the relationship between Google
Speaker 1: and Apple is not always contentious, even though they are
Speaker 1: direct competitors, at least in the mobile space and arguably
Speaker 1: in the computer space. But I don't think chromebooks are
Speaker 1: really that big of a competitor against at any rate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at any rate. Getting back to Nest, So by October,
Speaker 1: remember this is just one year, not even a full
Speaker 1: year since they had announced it, because they they announced
Speaker 1: it lay in October two eleven. But in October twelve,
Speaker 1: the second generation of Nest Thermostat debuted and um, this
Speaker 1: one was you know, a little sexier, even it was thinner,
Speaker 1: so they were able to miniaturize some of the components
Speaker 1: make it even more compact, which is kind of astounding
Speaker 1: because they even increased the capabilities of the second generation.
Speaker 1: So the first generation worked with oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was something like fIF HVAC systems out there, UH,
Speaker 1: and you had to check to make sure before you know,
Speaker 1: they stressed check to make sure that the one that
Speaker 1: you have, the system you have is UH is compatible
Speaker 1: with the system. UH. Well, they they were able to
Speaker 1: open that up to a much larger percentage of the
Speaker 1: the market. UH. They also were able to create a
Speaker 1: device that could work with UH HVAC systems that had
Speaker 1: two different capacities for cooling down your house. So some
Speaker 1: of them would work at a sometime and then knock
Speaker 1: it down to UH for just maintaining a temperature, or
Speaker 1: if it didn't need to, like if you're getting starting
Speaker 1: to approach the typerature, then it might might power down
Speaker 1: a little bit, but not turn all the way off. Well,
Speaker 1: those systems have two dedicated wires for that. There's one
Speaker 1: dedicated for there's one dedicate And the original nest did
Speaker 1: not have the capability to work. Yeah, you couldn't. It
Speaker 1: didn't have a place to plug both of those in
Speaker 1: the second nest did so you could do that. It
Speaker 1: also works with multi stage heating systems that works with
Speaker 1: systems that have humidifiers or de humidifiers and and across
Speaker 1: all energy modes, I mean if you've got gas or
Speaker 1: propane or electricity or yeah. So it definitely opened up
Speaker 1: the market a lot wider than the initial Nest did.
Speaker 1: And again it was smaller too, so um or at
Speaker 1: least it was thinner. It didn't project out as far
Speaker 1: from the wall. So yeah. They say that three out
Speaker 1: of four of their Nest customers opt to install it themselves,
Speaker 1: and that it can be installed within thirty minutes. They
Speaker 1: also have the Nest Concierge service, So if you feel
Speaker 1: like you are one of those one of who would
Speaker 1: uh likely electrocute him or herself were you to attempt
Speaker 1: to install it, such as, I don't know yours truly,
Speaker 1: uh not that I haven't Nest, but if I did,
Speaker 1: I would totally. I'm tech savvy, which means I also
Speaker 1: know it can kill me. Um. But yeah, you can
Speaker 1: actually uh opt for an additional fee to have someone
Speaker 1: come out and help you. So. Then in May two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, Nest made its first acquisition. It was a
Speaker 1: company called my Energy, which specifically builds products that let
Speaker 1: users track energy usage and savings. So the ideas by
Speaker 1: getting some more analytic data and some more collective uh products,
Speaker 1: they can make the NEST even more effective and make
Speaker 1: products further down the line that are able to incorporate
Speaker 1: some of this analysis so that you get an even
Speaker 1: more granular idea of what's going on and how you
Speaker 1: can save energy. Now, as we've seen in the past,
Speaker 1: there's a huge market for stuff that collects data and
Speaker 1: then analyzes it and presents it to you in an
Speaker 1: understandable way. Oh sure, and and basically any time that
Speaker 1: you allow these days, um, you know nerds, which are
Speaker 1: most of us, let's be honest and um to to
Speaker 1: min max their surroundings. Yeah. Fitness trackers perfect example, right,
Speaker 1: being able to sit there and say, like, now I'm
Speaker 1: able to track every single calorie that I intake and burn.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to make you check your force while
Speaker 1: you're doing that, but it's a little bit over a
Speaker 1: thousand today, I'm gonna work out. Okay, that's good. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not wearing any of my accouchermal today,
Speaker 1: not even my pebble. I feel a little lost without it,
Speaker 1: to be honest, But anyway, so clearly there's a market there,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense to bring that in and incore
Speaker 1: braid that in the Nest family. But then, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we get over. Towards the end of two thirteen, they
Speaker 1: also introduced a brand new product, and that's the Nest Protect.
Speaker 1: That's their smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector. Now this
Speaker 1: was obviously a departure, and some people again we're thinking,
Speaker 1: why why would you? Why would I need one of
Speaker 1: those to be smart? Doesn't the thing on the ceiling
Speaker 1: that beeps do just as well. But this one, again
Speaker 1: is WiFi enabled. It can connect to an app so
Speaker 1: that that way you can get an alert on your
Speaker 1: phone if your smoke detector goes off, which obviously could
Speaker 1: be you know, that could be monumentally important. Oh sure,
Speaker 1: sure it can. It will wirelessly connect to other smoke
Speaker 1: detectors in your house, so that if, for example, there's
Speaker 1: a fire in the kitchen, then all of them when
Speaker 1: they go off, can say, hey, there's a fire in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Right it can specifically tell you where the
Speaker 1: alarm was triggered. A lot of smoke detector systems are
Speaker 1: wired together so that if one alarm is triggered trip.
Speaker 1: They all yeah, they all beep, but don't tell you
Speaker 1: which one it was that was set off. Right, So
Speaker 1: you have the information that you need in order to
Speaker 1: get out, but you might not have the information you
Speaker 1: need to maybe very safely, or or to or to
Speaker 1: actually diffuse a situation before it gets you know, unmanageable,
Speaker 1: because it may be that there's something smoking that you
Speaker 1: can actually take care of and minimize the damage. But
Speaker 1: if you don't know where in the house that's singing place,
Speaker 1: obviously the most important thing for you to do is
Speaker 1: to get out safely, right clearly. So this would give
Speaker 1: you more information about that. It also had, of course,
Speaker 1: the carbon monoxide monitor, which is also very important. Um.
Speaker 1: It also will work wirelessly with Nest thermostats, so if
Speaker 1: the carbon monoxide A sensor picks up a concentration, it'll
Speaker 1: send a message to the Nest thermostat to say, hey,
Speaker 1: shut off the furnace because we have a leak somewhere
Speaker 1: or something's going on. Yeah, it really need stuff and
Speaker 1: um these are less expensive than the Nest thermostats. The
Speaker 1: thermostats are to you fifty The smoke detectors are about
Speaker 1: I think one thirty to one fifty. As I recall,
Speaker 1: I didn't write it down in front of me, but
Speaker 1: I know it's right in that range because I was
Speaker 1: actually looking at it to um possibly replace my smoke detectors.
Speaker 1: But if I do that, I will have to buy
Speaker 1: five of them, because I have five smoke detectors in
Speaker 1: my house. Anyone who follows me on Twitter saw that
Speaker 1: that terrible day when I got home and one of
Speaker 1: them was chirping, and the way my house is laid out,
Speaker 1: I could not tell which one it was. So I
Speaker 1: had to go out and get new batteries for all
Speaker 1: of my smoke detectors. But you should do anyway, But well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this would actually tell me what's going on. Also,
Speaker 1: it's designed to be very uh very careful with power
Speaker 1: consumption and and the and it even says you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to replace the batteries every single year, but it
Speaker 1: would give you an alert when it has to. In fact,
Speaker 1: it would send you a message on your phone so
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have to sit there and listen to
Speaker 1: that chirp forever trying to figure out right, And if
Speaker 1: you're away from your house and you get that message,
Speaker 1: then you actually have the opportunity to go and buy
Speaker 1: a battery before you get back and realize that you
Speaker 1: need to go back out again. So very clever. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it looks like it's a pretty neat product. You
Speaker 1: do have to replace it every seven years or so,
Speaker 1: bad because the detectors will eventually wear out. It's a
Speaker 1: chemical based thing. I specifically the carbon monoxide sensors in particular,
Speaker 1: and that's that's that's typical. By the way, if you
Speaker 1: think that that's unusual, No, that's not unusual for carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide detectors. You do have to replace those regularly because
Speaker 1: the sensors do wear out over time. Um. Smoke detectors
Speaker 1: didn't last a little bit longer, but carbon monoxide. And
Speaker 1: I think it's still recommended to replace your your smoke
Speaker 1: detectors once every ten years or so. Yeah, I'm I
Speaker 1: don't have the number in front of me, but I
Speaker 1: feel I think you're right. Um. And all of these devices,
Speaker 1: by the way, do have activity detection, like like motion
Speaker 1: and light sensors on them so that they know when
Speaker 1: you're coming to and fro rooms, UM, so that they
Speaker 1: can all link up and decide, you know, figure out
Speaker 1: when someone is in there and whether or not they
Speaker 1: need to be activated for for the for the thermstat's sake,
Speaker 1: although the carbon monoxide and smoke detectors work together with
Speaker 1: the thermstats to help them cover more area, And they
Speaker 1: also have lights in them and will light up if
Speaker 1: you want them to so that when you you can
Speaker 1: set it so like if it's in bedroom mode, it
Speaker 1: won't do that. So if it detects motion, it won't
Speaker 1: light up and wake you up. But if it's in
Speaker 1: a hallway and you walk out, it will end up
Speaker 1: acting like a little nightlight, which I thought was kind
Speaker 1: of cute too. And and the light changes color and
Speaker 1: we'll give you a warning. This is probably the thing
Speaker 1: I like the most about the smoke detector. So let's
Speaker 1: say it starts detecting a little bit of smoke and
Speaker 1: it's not enough for it to trigger a full warning yet,
Speaker 1: but it wants to alert you to this fact. It
Speaker 1: will give you an actual human voice, uh warning saying
Speaker 1: that there is detecting some smoke, and the little blue
Speaker 1: ring of light on the device will turn to yellow.
Speaker 1: And then if you go to it, and let's say
Speaker 1: you are like me and you're attempting to roast some
Speaker 1: veggies and you did not realize that you had a
Speaker 1: little bit of minced garlic on the burner or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that's the only reason there's any smoke at all.
Speaker 1: Uh you can wave physically at the smoke detector and
Speaker 1: it will say, oh, false alarm. Well then never mind,
Speaker 1: it'll shut it self off. It'll never do the full
Speaker 1: blast alarm. So my dog would be so excited about that. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: my dog too. Yeah. So the idea of being able
Speaker 1: to uh not have the typical response in the Strickland
Speaker 1: household where the alarm goes off and then the other
Speaker 1: person in the house helpfully chimes out, dinner must be ready.
Speaker 1: That would be nice. That's my life, all right. So
Speaker 1: we've got a lot more to talk about with Nest,
Speaker 1: including of course, the big story with Google. But before
Speaker 1: we get into all of that, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. Okay, So it's and uh
Speaker 1: in there was some really big news, especially like we're
Speaker 1: recording this podcast on January, it was not very long
Speaker 1: ago at all when we heard the news that Google
Speaker 1: was acquiring Nest for the some of a round three
Speaker 1: depends upon who you ask some say three point two billions,
Speaker 1: some say three point one, some say three point five.
Speaker 1: But in excess of right, Yeah, and I think that
Speaker 1: the official news might have broken on the thirteenth of
Speaker 1: January's um yeah, not long at all. Right, And and
Speaker 1: the thing is, the thing is that Fidel had had
Speaker 1: a meeting with them before Nest even launched. Um and
Speaker 1: then at the eleven TED conference, Uh, he and Sir
Speaker 1: Gay Bryan had a big pow wow and they showed
Speaker 1: him a video and a prototype of the Nest and
Speaker 1: kind of got them pretty excited about it, like excited
Speaker 1: enough that in May of that year, Google led their
Speaker 1: first round of financing. I guess it was their second
Speaker 1: round of financing, but um and And would also lead
Speaker 1: their next round of financing the next year. So Google
Speaker 1: was involved early on and making sure that this company
Speaker 1: was going to get the funding it needed to do
Speaker 1: the work they were doing. And I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at some of Google's other stuff that they're doing
Speaker 1: with like the automas driving is probably the easiest example, right,
Speaker 1: you can you can see that this sort of these
Speaker 1: algorithms and these products fit very well into this kind
Speaker 1: of integrated uh you know, using information in an actual,
Speaker 1: real world, physical way. Yeah. And and it's been such
Speaker 1: a big year for Google in terms of hardware. Um,
Speaker 1: you know they they acquired Motorola for what like twelve
Speaker 1: point five billion dollars. Uh. They've been working so much
Speaker 1: with Chromebook. Uh. They they've been working with glass. They've
Speaker 1: got a rumored smart watch project that that could be
Speaker 1: coming out this year. But although although rumored smart watch
Speaker 1: projects are pretty bountiful, I've got three more watches on
Speaker 1: the way to me, so I'll get excited abou out that.
Speaker 1: When I see a picture, I've got to watch problem, Okay,
Speaker 1: I And I imagine that CS did not help that
Speaker 1: at all. It was okay, Yeah, yeah, I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of watches, but I thought, no, I think I've
Speaker 1: got that one covered with one exception. But we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that and to see it. Well, we have already
Speaker 1: talked about that the ce S podcast. We just haven't
Speaker 1: recorded yet. Yes, they're publishing in opposite order. I think.
Speaker 1: So you guys out there have already heard me talk
Speaker 1: about it, but I have not will have already talked
Speaker 1: about it yet. I think I need a diagram that
Speaker 1: sentence go on? Yes, Um, okay, and so so both
Speaker 1: Google and Nest have have indicated that Nest is going
Speaker 1: to remain its own sort of independent thing, which you
Speaker 1: know that was that was one of the big concerns,
Speaker 1: right people where those knee jerk reactions as Google is
Speaker 1: going to purchase this company that does smoke detectors, does
Speaker 1: that mean that Google is going to change it in
Speaker 1: some way? Like is it going to no longer be
Speaker 1: the thing that we got excited about, right or are
Speaker 1: they going to make them work on some other projects
Speaker 1: instead of what they were originally created for? And they've
Speaker 1: said nope, that Google is mostly going to be providing
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of money and infrastructure and marketing
Speaker 1: teams and tech resources that will let Nest be more
Speaker 1: themselves than they ever have been before. And other concerns
Speaker 1: like the other big one is that you could conceive
Speaker 1: of Nest devices gathering lots of different information like well,
Speaker 1: I mean they do gather lots of different information, um
Speaker 1: and how that is going to be put to use
Speaker 1: is a pretty big and pretty fair, I think concern
Speaker 1: from a lot of sectors right now. And Nest has
Speaker 1: already come out and said that they don't they don't
Speaker 1: plan on changing their privacy uh statements. Well, they said,
Speaker 1: and I quote from their blog, our privacy policy clearly
Speaker 1: limits the use of customer information to providing and improving
Speaker 1: nests products and services. We've always taken privacy seriously and
Speaker 1: this will not change. Right, So the fact that they
Speaker 1: take privacy seriously won't change. They haven't said that their
Speaker 1: privacy policies won't change. K fair enough if you're going
Speaker 1: to parse it to that level. But I think I
Speaker 1: think the main concern people had was, all right, so
Speaker 1: does this mean You're gonna send Google all this information
Speaker 1: about when I'm home, when I'm not home, how active
Speaker 1: I am, what I you know, whether or not you
Speaker 1: know how many people tend to be in my house
Speaker 1: and rooms I spend the most time in. It's all
Speaker 1: the information is going to go to Google, and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to get directed advertising or worse because of this.
Speaker 1: And I think that was them saying like, that's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. You're not gonna You're not gonna have your
Speaker 1: your smoke detector and your thermostat tattling on you. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I could I could certainly see
Speaker 1: one of the concerns that I that I've read about
Speaker 1: was that, um, Google could sell your your energy usage
Speaker 1: data to providers to let them advertise to you more sadly. Um.
Speaker 1: And I can totally picture Google doing that. I mean maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of, I can see it happening. I mean, if
Speaker 1: let me put it to you this way, if that
Speaker 1: would mean at the end of the day that I
Speaker 1: actually had the opportunity to take advantage of genuinely good deals,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily be upset about that. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: to be fair, and Nest already does have partnerships with
Speaker 1: energy providers. Um, I mean they are opt in, and
Speaker 1: but it's for you know, either free or discounted equipment
Speaker 1: or rates on energies. And I would hope they would
Speaker 1: remain an opt in approach, that would I always prefer
Speaker 1: opt in to opt out, because when you know that
Speaker 1: you can take advantage of the stuff, but you don't
Speaker 1: feel like that's appropriate, then you don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1: I hate systems where it just assumes that you are
Speaker 1: in whole hog and then you have to hunt through
Speaker 1: this Labrenthian system to find the one checkbox two un
Speaker 1: check so that you are looking at you Facebook, so
Speaker 1: that you can so that you can get out of
Speaker 1: that system. So as long as it remains opt in,
Speaker 1: and of course that's a big if, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that's I like to wear rose colored glasses for this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But I am aware that sometimes companies
Speaker 1: make these changes. But as long as it remains opt in,
Speaker 1: I'm perfectly fine with this, sure, sure. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: any time you're talking about any kind of ice, it's
Speaker 1: collecting information in one way or another, how that data
Speaker 1: could eventually be used is always going to be a concern, exactly. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: One one other Google's Sway kind of concern is that
Speaker 1: it's going to is that it may become difficult to
Speaker 1: not have a Nest installed in your house if they
Speaker 1: get enough contracts with enough HVAC providers and which you
Speaker 1: know they certainly have the the money and the marketing
Speaker 1: power to do. Then um, you know, having having these providers, say,
Speaker 1: because you can buy a nest retail, but you can
Speaker 1: also get it through whatever company you use to to
Speaker 1: heat and cool your home. And so people have expressed
Speaker 1: a concern that that it will be harder and harder
Speaker 1: to have a non smart thermostat in your house once
Speaker 1: these things really catch on and people figure out how
Speaker 1: much money and equipment wear and tear can be saved
Speaker 1: by installing them. Sure, if you have a system that
Speaker 1: is dependent upon Nest thermostat. Not that there are such
Speaker 1: systems right now, because right now Nest is designed to
Speaker 1: work with the pre existing systems. But down the line,
Speaker 1: let's say we go down five ten years, I could
Speaker 1: see that being a real issue, especially you're talking several
Speaker 1: generations down in the Nest product line. You could end
Speaker 1: up with a system that was optimized for Nest and
Speaker 1: then yeah, you know, you might in theory, be able
Speaker 1: to disconnect it and then put in a generic thermostat,
Speaker 1: but it might not work very well, kind of like
Speaker 1: the way Nest wasn't always compatible with everything that existed.
Speaker 1: Pregeneration too. And yeah, I think that that's another another
Speaker 1: area where people are like, well, what if I don't
Speaker 1: want that much data collected about me? And what if
Speaker 1: I want a dumb thermostat? And and and I don't
Speaker 1: think that. I mean, I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: at least a couple of minutes before anyone is forcing
Speaker 1: us all to have smart thermostats. But that when the
Speaker 1: day comes you'll be used to it, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. And by then all of your data will
Speaker 1: be out already from everything else that we interact with,
Speaker 1: so our thermostat will be it will mean nothing but that.
Speaker 1: Um So let's talk a little bit about what actually
Speaker 1: makes it tick, not that they take, they don't tick.
Speaker 1: If your nest is ticking, you might want to have
Speaker 1: that checked out. Now. The nest thermostat has multiple temperature
Speaker 1: sensors inside of it, and this is the idea of
Speaker 1: the multiple sensors is in order to get the most
Speaker 1: accurate reading on the temperature of the room, right. So
Speaker 1: these sensors are are designed so that they can very
Speaker 1: carefully calibrate the climate system so it meets exactly what
Speaker 1: it is that the thermostat has learned you like. So
Speaker 1: if it knows that I like the temperature of my house,
Speaker 1: especially say my bedroom to be right around seventy degrees
Speaker 1: when I go to bed, it can uh start that
Speaker 1: up when it gets close to bedtime, and the rest
Speaker 1: of the time it may just be you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a warmer temperature or colder depending upon what time
Speaker 1: of year it is. Um And then uh so that's
Speaker 1: the main sensor obviously for heat, but it also contains
Speaker 1: motion and light sensors so it can detect when people
Speaker 1: are home, because if no one's home, then it can
Speaker 1: go into away mode right and Ottawa Way, I think
Speaker 1: it's what they call it. But anyway, the the idea
Speaker 1: is that it can then start to ramp down the
Speaker 1: UH the system so they're not putting out some not
Speaker 1: consuming so much energy. And it used to be that
Speaker 1: it would wait I think it was it was more
Speaker 1: than an hour or an hour plus something to before
Speaker 1: it would go into Attawa Way. Now it's half an hour. Um,
Speaker 1: they did a software update, so I think even generation
Speaker 1: one will do it in half an hour now. So
Speaker 1: if it doesn't detect any movement, and if especially if
Speaker 1: you have a pattern of leaving at around a certain
Speaker 1: time each day, it will go ahead and get and
Speaker 1: go into that away mode so that it doesn't waste energy.
Speaker 1: And in UH, there are all these algorithms that has.
Speaker 1: It uses an onboard computer. It's actually got a microprocessor.
Speaker 1: It's an arm based microprocessor, so similar to what you
Speaker 1: would find in a mobile phone or a tablet UH,
Speaker 1: and it would run those algorithms to create those those
Speaker 1: patterns and the responses to the patterns, so that it
Speaker 1: would start to control the system and make sure it
Speaker 1: was the most comfortable whenever you happen to be coming home, um,
Speaker 1: and that would be And that's that learning behavior kind
Speaker 1: of thing that that that proactive change. And it has
Speaker 1: both RAM and ROM, so I mean it's it is
Speaker 1: like a little computer. It's like it's a tiny well
Speaker 1: mounted computer that knows what temperature you want it to be. Yep.
Speaker 1: It's got the Wi Fi chip obviously that allows it
Speaker 1: to connect to your home network. This is what allows
Speaker 1: you to operate it via an app right, although they
Speaker 1: also can connect wirelessly directly to each other without going
Speaker 1: through your home networks, so that if your power goes out,
Speaker 1: they can still talk to each other. Yeah, they're not obviously,
Speaker 1: if your power goes out, they are not going to
Speaker 1: be able to but it means that in the intern
Speaker 1: is at the carbon monoxide and smell detectors that they
Speaker 1: will still operate. Yes, exactly. Uh. One of the cool
Speaker 1: things I actually looked at tear down of a Nest thermostat,
Speaker 1: and there was they showed the battery inside the thermostat
Speaker 1: and a couple of cool things about it. One, the
Speaker 1: battery is there sort of to act kind of in
Speaker 1: the place of a capacitor. Now, a capacitor is designed
Speaker 1: to store up energy and then release it all at once.
Speaker 1: The battery is not releasing it all at once. What's
Speaker 1: there to do is to supplement the electricity that the
Speaker 1: Nest thermostat gets from your home. So you hardwire it
Speaker 1: to your home, right, so it's connected to your HVAC
Speaker 1: system that way, and it draws power that way. But
Speaker 1: that power is not sufficient enough for it to do
Speaker 1: some of the ultra cool things the Nest does, like
Speaker 1: broadcast over WiFi or have that beautiful LCD screen which
Speaker 1: is I think four bit and three twenty by three
Speaker 1: twenty resolution. So you know, most thermostats don't have that,
Speaker 1: they don't need that much power, but this one does,
Speaker 1: so the battery provides that extra power. The cool thing
Speaker 1: about the tear down was they showed that not only
Speaker 1: is it a replaceable battery, but the directions on how
Speaker 1: to replace it are actually on the various cables that
Speaker 1: attached to the battery itself. It says pull this, push this,
Speaker 1: and so uh they they it was, I fix it.
Speaker 1: That's a great website for anyone who likes tear downs,
Speaker 1: you should go check that out, but specifically to show
Speaker 1: how easy or difficult it is to take apart various
Speaker 1: pieces of equipment if you ever have to repair it.
Speaker 1: So it's really meant for repair folks. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily meant for the average person. But they said
Speaker 1: this is remarkable because not only is it easy to do,
Speaker 1: but they even include instructions on how to do it.
Speaker 1: It's very it's very repair friendly, which if you think
Speaker 1: back to the fact this guy's from Apple might shock you.
Speaker 1: That's some commentary. But they also have sensors that are
Speaker 1: humidity sensors, so that it can control a humidifier or
Speaker 1: de humidifier if that's part of your climate control system.
Speaker 1: I do not have one of those. Um Also, it
Speaker 1: can work with you know, have you ever seen the
Speaker 1: systems that have UH heating elements underneath floors, so it
Speaker 1: can actually do radiant heating. It will heat the floor
Speaker 1: system they have. They will work with the nest too.
Speaker 1: They have sensors that will work with that as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome and UH and it's also important because
Speaker 1: one of the drawbacks to those those systems. One thing
Speaker 1: is that they are really efficient and they're very quiet,
Speaker 1: but it takes a while for it to warm up
Speaker 1: a room, and they tend to kind of muck with
Speaker 1: regular thermostats. Thermostats really have trouble being able to detect
Speaker 1: when a room is a comfortable temperature using this radiant
Speaker 1: heat technology. But the Nest one has a mode in
Speaker 1: it when you if you have that kind of system
Speaker 1: and you hook it up into the Nest, it can
Speaker 1: take that into consideration and thus not be confused, so
Speaker 1: you don't end up with floors that are too warm
Speaker 1: to walk on, which would be bad. The floor is
Speaker 1: literally lava. Yeah, so it also is you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's got all the elements of your basic computer. Is
Speaker 1: really what is it? And it's a circular circuit board.
Speaker 1: So if you look at those tear downs, it is
Speaker 1: a thing of beauty. And in fact, I think on
Speaker 1: the I fix at one in particular, they say, you
Speaker 1: don't seem any circular circuit boards. This is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That's that's really cute. That's that I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: an optimization of the space, which is wonderful, But just
Speaker 1: that kind of design detail is wonderful. Yep, yep. So
Speaker 1: it's really an interesting product. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: where maybe eventually I will I will go whole hog
Speaker 1: and and save up the money to refit my house
Speaker 1: because I would need to share, I would need it's
Speaker 1: it would be a significant investment. You know, you're talking
Speaker 1: at that point for for me to replace the thermostats
Speaker 1: and the smoke detectors in my house. We're talking more
Speaker 1: than a thousand dollars. So that's not a small amount
Speaker 1: of money. It's certainly not. But um, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the cool stuff I talked about what some of
Speaker 1: those naysayers are talking about with with this entire Google deal,
Speaker 1: But some of the cool stuff that could go on,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, nest could potentially collaborate with your Google
Speaker 1: apps to automatically detect when you're on vacation or how
Speaker 1: long it takes you to get home from work and
Speaker 1: uh and an update its temperature preferences based on that,
Speaker 1: and it's temperature warm up and cool down. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: didn't even mention that the WiFi connectivity allows it to
Speaker 1: even figure out what the temperature is in your region,
Speaker 1: so that it can anticipate how hard it's going to
Speaker 1: have to work, or how hard your HVAC system will
Speaker 1: have to work to camera act whatever the outside temperature
Speaker 1: happens to be so here in Atlanta, for example, and
Speaker 1: say I don't know July, it would know that the
Speaker 1: temperature outside is surface of the sun. And therefore, if
Speaker 1: you are going to be home in forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: it might as well start cranking up the A C now,
Speaker 1: because that's how long it's going to take it for
Speaker 1: your house to be habitable by the time you get there.
Speaker 1: Also some commentary um Also, Nest employees could potentially start
Speaker 1: collaborating with with other Google departments and and working on
Speaker 1: on hardware, maybe maybe that elusive smart watch that we've
Speaker 1: been hearing about, or some of those automated cars or
Speaker 1: our personal robots that Google X has been talking. If
Speaker 1: I find out that the Google automated car gets a
Speaker 1: Nest climate control system in it, I'm just like, just
Speaker 1: just just sell it, just let me buy one, or
Speaker 1: not even climate control. I mean, these are clearly incredibly
Speaker 1: um smart savvy people who are working for Nest. They
Speaker 1: could they could work on any number of projects, and
Speaker 1: they could they could be I mean, like could Nest
Speaker 1: be Google's new smart home division. Yeah, no, it totally
Speaker 1: could be that. Now, you know, before we get all
Speaker 1: excited about that, let's keep in mind that Motorola has
Speaker 1: not exactly become Google's you know, mobile division. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there's some talk of Motorola spinning off and becoming its own, uh,
Speaker 1: independent subcompany again, so you know, there's we're not we're
Speaker 1: not ready to prognosticate fully yet. It's too bad. I
Speaker 1: didn't make this one of my two thousand fourteen predictions
Speaker 1: that Google was going to buy Nest. I did not
Speaker 1: see that coming, and I don't think anybody saw this
Speaker 1: one coming, aside from maybe like Larry Page. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I did make the joke on Twitter that if Google wanted,
Speaker 1: they could pay me three point one billion and I'd
Speaker 1: be happy to manually change everyone's thermostatic for them whenever
Speaker 1: they liked. But they did not take me up on that,
Speaker 1: which is too bad because then I could have afforded
Speaker 1: to get the Nest once put in my house. All right, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: that wraps up our our discussion about Nest the company,
Speaker 1: the fact that it has entered into this new era. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, we don't really know what that means yet.
Speaker 1: It could very well mean that we're going into an
Speaker 1: era where privacy becomes even a larger concern and that
Speaker 1: you know this, this could mean some dark stuff in
Speaker 1: the future. I'm hoping that that's not the case. I'm
Speaker 1: cautiously optimistic that we're going to see some really cool
Speaker 1: collaborations between Nest and Google come out of this, and
Speaker 1: hopefully the kind that will benefit us as consumers more
Speaker 1: so than say, any kind of advertiser. I mean, that
Speaker 1: might be a little you know, the pie in the sky,
Speaker 1: but I'm still hoping. I think it could benefit all
Speaker 1: of us equally. All Right, there we go. Everyone can
Speaker 1: give everyone else a hug, so a giant pillow forth hug.
Speaker 1: You know it's it looks it looks so comfy. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go right back over there in a second. So
Speaker 1: let me wrap this up. Guys, if you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future topics of tech stuff, here is what
Speaker 1: I would like you to do. I would like you
Speaker 1: to send an email Text stuff at Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter
Speaker 1: or Tumbler. You can find us there. We have the
Speaker 1: handle text stuff HS w and Lauren and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this
Speaker 1: and bathands of other topics because it has staff works
Speaker 1: dot com