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Tony Fadell talks to the Sunday Times about Nest, the Google acquisition, and more

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Photo via the Sunday Times

Last week it was Apple Design VP Jonathan Ive. This week, the Sunday Times is talking to Google’s Tony Fadell (paywall) about his work at Nest, which was acquired by Google earlier this year, the future of his career, and more.

A few choice quotes have been highlighted by Rob Richman. In one, Fadell refutes the idea that money ($3.2 billion to be exact) was the driving force behind the Google buyout, saying that both companies working together can produce much bigger results than they could alone:

This was not a financially driven transaction. When you marry for money, it almost never works. We both believe we have something special and we know what it takes to make it happen around the world.

Regarding privacy and whether Nest would turn over its user data to Google, Fadell said:


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Google completes Nest acquisition, promises more innovative home devices to follow

Google has confirmed in a regulatory filing with the SEC that it has completed its $3.2B acquisition of Nest Labs after the deal was officially cleared by the FTC. The company revealed that it had previously held a 12 percent stake in Nest.

It has been rumored that the Nest team will form Google’s core hardware design group, with an unlimited budget. Google has issued only a brief statement on the reason for the buy-out, promising more home devices to follow.

We expect that the acquisition will enhance Google’s suite of products and services and allow Nest to continue to innovate upon devices in the home, making them more useful, intuitive, and thoughtful, and to reach more users in more countries.

Nest team to become Google’s new money-no-object hardware designers

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Google CEO Larry Page (centre) with Nest co-founders Matt Rogers amd Tony Fadell (photo: technologyreview.com)

Tony Fadell and the rest of the Nest team will become Google’s “core hardware group,” working on a variety of hardware projects and given access to “as many resources as it needs,” according to an unnamed source cited by TechCrunch.

The new division will still work on hardware devices, but not necessarily thermostats or smoke detectors. In fact, Google would like Fadell to work on gadgets that make more sense for the company. Will it be a phone or a tablet? It’s unclear for now […]

When it comes to budget, Google is willing to let the Nest team use as many resources as it needs. In other words, the company is getting serious about consumer hardware, and Motorola was just a false start … 
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Any data gathered by Google-owned Nest devices will be “transparent and opt-in,” says Tony Fadell

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Photo: websummit.net

Nest CEO Tony Fadell has responded to data privacy concerns expressed after the company was acquired by Google, stating that there have not yet been any changes to the data collected by the smart thermostat and smoke detector, and that any future changes would be both transparent and opt-in.

At this point, there are no changes. The data that we collect is all about our products and improving them.

If there were ever any changes whatsoever, we would be sure to be transparent about it, number one, and number two for you to opt-in to it … 
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Apple built Google Glass-like prototypes, says former Senior VP of iPod division

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Tony Fadell, the Nest CEO who was Senior VP of Apple’s division from 2006 to 2008, says that Apple built prototypes of a similar device to Google Glass but “didn’t have time” to turn them into actual products.

Interviewed as part of Fast Company‘s Oral History of Apple Design series, Fadell said:

At Apple, we were always asking, What else can we revolutionize? We looked at video cameras and remote controls. The craziest thing we talked about was something like Google Glass. We said, “What if we make visors, so it’s like you’re sitting in a theater?” I built a bunch of those prototypes. But we had such success with the things we were already doing that we didn’t have time.

From the description, the prototypes sound rather more like virtual reality headsets than Google Glass, so there may be some exaggeration going on here. But it wouldn’t be a tremendous surprise to find that Apple has toyed with almost every tech idea under the sun: it has the resources needed to experiment at will.

The notion that Apple didn’t pursue the concept for lack of time seems rather more fanciful: it’s not like the company couldn’t have run out and hired a complete team for the project had it wished to do so.

Apple has always had a philosophy of focusing all its efforts on a very small number of products. Back in 2011, iPod, iPhone and iOS product marketing head Greg Joswiak described “saying no” as one of Apple’s four keys to success.

It means saying no, not saying yes. We do very few things at Apple. We are $100bn in revenue with very few products. There are only so many grade A players. If you spread yourself out over too many things, none of them will be great.

Tim Cook said in May of this year that broad range appeal for Google Glass was “tough to see.”
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You will soon control the color of your energy-efficient LED light bulbs with your iPhone/Android [Video]

[protected-iframe id=”daad12569d07f2c915d6d3399237d9a5-22754319-20587613″ info=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light-bulb-reinvented/widget/video.html” width=”640″ height=”495″ frameborder=”0″]

Oh, Kickstarter. It is a primary place where tech lovers’ dreams have an opportunity to become reality; it not only promotes some of the most innovative ideas, but it also makes those of us in the real world more anxious for a gadget-filled tomorrow. Enter LIFX.

LIFX’s, well, life on Kickstarter is only nearing the 48-hour mark, but the reinvented light bulb already surpassed its set goal and hit $402,707 (as of press time) worth of pledges. In a nutshell: LIFX is a “Wi-Fi-enabled, multi-color, energy efficient LED light bulb that you control with your iPhone or Android.”

Just watch the video above for the full effect. A few of the more notable integrated uses include changing indoor light color to match any mood, visualizing music, security measures for while away, or even just enabling couch potatoes. Those who pledge at least $69 will get a handy-dandy LIFX “smartbulb” to try, with an estimated delivery pegged around March 2013.

Check it out: LIFX: The Light Bulb Reinvented

Home-automation technology is a huge hit among startups, such as former Apple Senior Vice President Tony Fadell’s popular Nest Learning Thermostat, and even carriers are trying to get on board by developing services that streamline life and home processes.

AT&T, for instance, produced a consumer home automation and security suite of services that began trials earlier this summer. The services, which exist under the “AT&T Digital Life” naming umbrella, control home functions and implement security features. With Nest and others creating a buzz in the mobile home-automation space, expect to see LIFX flying off retailers’ shelves this time next year.

This article is cross-posted on 9to5Mac.


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