Google to Acquire Nest • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#361

Post by dundun » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 10:58 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #240

nikhizzle wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the money back heating my house in the bay area in 5 months. The Nest is just much better at using energy efficiently.

That's a savings of $60 on heating per month, for five months. The laws of thermodynamics continue to be enforced regardless of bubble or not, so I think it quite impossible to save more than 10%. So you're averaging $600 or more to heat. Averaging... I live in Wisconsin where I would be hard pressed to spend $300/month during the worst imaginable weather (and this is five months... the worst imaginable weather is ..…

They have a widget on the Nest store (https://widgets.nest.com/en/calculator/widget) that estimates energy savings. According to that, a $250/year savings is possible in SF with electric heating and a house over 2000 square feet. Though, the range they provide probably means:

a) It is a historically cold year for a prolonged period of time

b) You set your heat to 80F all the time

With gas heating, it looks almost impossible to save $250... unless you're heating an NBA arena.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#362

Post by aragot » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 10:58 PM UTC

stock_toaster wrote: post #190

MrZongle2 wrote: post #11

Am I the only one who thought "well, good for the Nest guys" followed by "too bad, it looked like a good product"?

You are not alone. I wonder how long it will be until Google+ is required to change the temperature in your house.

Yeah that's where the +1 button is.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#363

Post by VLM » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 10:58 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #196

VLM wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut and paste from the nest website: "Activity sensors Nest’s activity sensors have a 150° wide-angle view. That range enables Nest to activate Auto-Away in 90% of homes." Don't know if its just a 0-D light level sensor or a PIR motion detector or a camera. But it does have a 150 degree FoV which vaguely implied optics. It has certain architectural implications, my thermostat is on a lightly traveled inside hallway b…

Conveniently enough, they sell a device to help with that. "In addition, the Nest Protect activity sensors improve the Auto-Away feature of your Nest Thermostat." (Nest Protect is their smoke detector.)

Yes. I'm not a huge fan of the product in general or the financial deal BUT I will say this aspect of the product is genius in that you want an auxiliary sensor aka the smoke detector right where people spend most of their time, bedrooms and offices and such. There are serious problems with the overall situation, but no sarcasm, the specific situation of this product pairing is a work of genius. I don't think that one idea makes up for the other problems, but credit it due them for this.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#364

Post by njharman » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

91bananas wrote: post #353

eridius wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Voice is effectively a dead product, isn't it? Doesn't seem that favorable to me.

Dead in the sense that there has not been feature addition one for several years, yes.

That is probably best acquisition outcome. Most companies buy something good then change it until it sucks.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#365

Post by Sanddancer » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #93

I'm happy for Nest but sad for myself, given the smoke detector was my Christmas gift last year. Previously I would look to YouTube as an acquisition done right. But after the kerfuffle around G+ integration, I no longer feel that way. If I have to sign in with my G+ account to manage my smoke alarm, it's going directly into the rubbish bin. If Apple had bought Nest, on the other hand, I'd feel very differently.

Had Apple bought nest, you'd have to log into your icloud account to manage it, via your idevice, with no other management abilities available. Apple is absolutely horrible at playing well with others.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#366

Post by michalu » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

Yes, now we can have even more relevant ads!!

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#367

Post by larrys » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

weixiyen wrote: post #22

bradly wrote: post #10

Seriously not trying to troll, but could someone help explain where Google might see 3.2 billion dollars of value in a company that pretty much just sells a successful thermostat?

Yeah I feel like 3b of that 3.2b was for their product designers. Google could probably make these products from an engineering standpoint.

How many product designers do they have?

Would seem to me that if you wanted to simply get at the product designers you could do that for less than 3.2b. The designers are good but they aren't that good. And throw enough money at people and loyalty goes out the window.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#368

Post by kibibu » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:04 PM UTC

psbp wrote: post #358

cabbeer wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, no more sarcasm. you've filled this thread with confusion.

Sorry, I thought for those in the know, every point would be remarkably false. 1) http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/19/hell-freezes-over-th... 2) http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/13/motorola-droid-razr-... 3) https://www.abiresearch.com/press/googlemotorola-mobilitys-m... 4) http://www.anandtech.com/show/7586/motorola-moto-g-review/8

Not everybody follows the details of OS version updates on Motorola phones.

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#369

Post by gwern » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:04 PM UTC

cloudwalking wrote: post #282

jader201 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to think of a tech acquisition that was favorable, or at the very least not unfavorable for the consumer. It seems like tech (maybe all ) acquisitions almost always favor the buyer and not the consumer. Does anybody have any good examples?

Here are just a few examples: - Keyhole (now Google Maps) - Android Inc. - Motorola Mobility - GrandCentral (now Google Voice) - NeXT - Siri In general, an acquired company initially became successful by bringing value to consumers. When that company is acquired, it gets more resources to bring more value to customers.

Don't forget Translate. It actually early on was an out-of-house service, but they kept buying companies and hiring people to work on it, and it got massively better. (So a lot like Keyhole/Maps: they took something it would cost you thousands of dollars a month for (literally, for Keyhole access), made it free, and made it better.)

Re: Google to Acquire Nest

#370

Post by aragot » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

gdilla wrote: post #293

nate_meurer wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price makes me choke as well. But I think Nest's real value is as a market distruptor, the evidence being Honeywell's lawsuit and furious attempts to update their own products with comparable features.

Everyone who's complaining about how much Nests costs have obviously not graduated from college tastes into the world of interior decorating. There is a huge market for nice looking stuff to go in your house. Not everyone buys Ikea for their whole lives. Maybe they host parties, run in upper middle class social circles, etc. There's $10K kitchen ranges out there, $50 beer mugs. etc. Design can carry premiums in this…

Agreed. That's where it feels dissonant to me: Google addresses mega-mass markets rather than luxury, to the point it degrades their products. Look at email: Yahoo! has practically delivered "Gmail without the inconveniences"...