‘Nest Thermostat E + Goodman’ is Google’s first co-branded HVAC product

The Nest Thermostat is Google’s cheapest offering in that smart home category partly because the Thermostat E is no longer available for regular consumers to buy. Now limited to Nest Pro installers, Google late last month announced the “Nest Thermostat E + Goodman.”

Goodman Manufacturing makes heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. For Google, the “Nest Thermostat E + Goodman” is its first co-branded HVAC product (via BusinessWire, CEPro), with the company previously partnering on the Nest x Yale Lock.

First and foremost, it’s a Nest Thermostat E in new packaging. This falls in line with Google’s plan to make the 2017 model only available for Nest Pro installers. Shortly after the new Nest Thermostat was announced in October, the E was removed from the Google Store. It was $169, but often discounted to $139 and therefore only $10 more expensive than the new offering. Feature-wise, the previous entry model was much closer to the Learning Thermostat than its replacement.

The Nest Thermostat E + Goodman is also a program that guarantees “easy installation with every new Goodman system” and a five-year limited warranty, while another integration sees service alerts include dealer contact information. It comes as Google launched HVAC monitoring and early warnings on Nest Thermostats last year.

“These provide exciting advantages for HVAC contractors,” says Gene LaNois, Google’s Head of Professional Industry Partnerships. “Both our organizations saw the opportunity to more deeply integrate the HVAC system into the vision of the helpful home, while giving Goodman brand dealers something special of their own. Our HVAC monitoring feature helps every system become more informative.”

This new offering will be available for dealers this month. Partnerships like these give Google another avenue to get their smart home products to customers, especially those that don’t want to buy direct as that would require setting up — though arguably simple — themselves.