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Google to acquire Nest Labs for £2 billion

Google is to buy smart thermostat maker Nest Labs for  $3.2bn (£2bn).

The cash deal is expected to go through in the next few weeks. Nest was founded by a couple of former Apple employees.

Among the firms products are; a smart thermostat that learns the behaviours of people in their homes and adjusts the temperature accordingly, saving money and carbon footprint, and a talking smoke detector.

The company will continue to run by chief executive Tony Fadell, Google said in a statement.

“Nest’s founders, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family,” said Google chief executive Larry Page.

Fadell is known as the “Father of the iPod” and worked on the early versions of the music player. He left Apple in 2008 and set up Nest in 2011.

In a blog post Fadell said that the deal meant that Nest would continue to operate as usual.

“We will continue to reimagine and reinvent the unloved products that proliferate in our homes, just as we have since we started. We are simply going to get our products into the hands of people around the world – faster.”

He added that joining with Google would help “fully realise our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone. We’ve had great momentum, but this is a rocket ship.”

The company also confirmed that the acquisition would not affect integration with Apple products in the future.

Image: Nest

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