Google Is Taking Dozens of Nest Engineers to Work on the Smart Home
Google parent company Alphabet is moving some developers from its Nest subsidiary over to Google as the latter ramps up its efforts in the smart home, The Verge has learned. These engineers are mainly responsible for the Nest platform, and they will now be working with Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer to help bolster Google’s ambitions in the living room. Fortune originally reported the news earlier today.
The engineering resource shift happens just as Google is preparing to launch its Amazon Echo competitor, a speaker called Google Home. The product was announced at the I/O developer conference in May without any strategic partnerships with third-party products. Nest, with its “Works with Nest” platform, already has these partnerships in place, with companies like Belkin, Philips, and smart lock maker August. So it makes sense Google would enlist its colleagues at Nest to help with this process.
Nest’s platform team will now work closely with Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer
This is just the latest in a series of organizational changes at Nest. The company, founded in 2010, was a celebrated smart home appliance maker when Google purchased it for $3.1 billion in 2014. Yet after Google’s big reshuffle as Alphabet in August of last year, Nest became a separate entity distinct from Google. That created a lot of pressure on Nest to turn a profit and produce new products, something it struggled with under co-founder Tony Fadell, who departed in June. Following Fadell’s departure, co-founder Matt Rogers assumed the role of chief product officer, The Verge has learned. Prior to July, Rogers was the vice president of engineering.
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