I'm getting old. Wasn't even aware of Nest. However, 5% of Google seems like a large amount of money to acquire a startup. What did I miss?
More like 0.8% - $3.2B purchase on $375B market cap. Or it is around 10% of annual gross profit, or 6% of their cash reserve of $54B.
If I were Google, I'd blow a fat wad of those billions and buy Sony. There's a company that would really fill in a lot of Google's gaps - gaming, consumer hardware beyond the cellphone scale, a big library of media properties to integrate into the Play store.
A quick Googling puts Sony's market cap at $18B. A big chunk of Google's cash reserves, but imagine how terrified Microsoft would be of Android-powered PS5s.
I'm not sure I agree with this. According to this article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2013/01/20/sell-micr...
"Microsoft makes more than 75% of its profits from Windows and Office. Less than 25% comes from its vaunted servers and tools. And Microsoft makes nothing from its xBox/Kinect entertainment division, while losing vast sums in its on-line division (negative $350M-$750M/quarter)."
I realize they're trying to position the XBOX One as your home entertainment hub - but the bigger question is whether there's a future for home gaming consoles at all, or whether that functionality will just be folded into your TV, cast from your mobile devices, or handled by some other connected multi-purpose device.
Over a few years time, Nest quickly pays for itself, saves you money every month, and reduces your energy footprint.
It doesn't seem like a "massively over engineered pretty device that very few people need" to me.
I, for instance, run 3 separate computers 24/7 when I could probably get away with combining them into 1 or 2 if I wanted. I could also turn them off when I'm not home. I just don't really care.
I am sorry... yes having a higher temp setting means the heat will on for longer (or ac for less) but it DOES change the temperature of the air. The thermostat measures the temperature and turns the mahcine on and off accordingly.
If you never met one of those people that say "hey, it's too hot here, let me lower the thermostat" just after they turn the AC on, you are a very lucky guy.
The controller controls the input. The state changes, because the control input is changed.
The thermostat is not a timer.
My point was, for any reasonable, non-autistic reader, it was perfectly clear that the GP knows how a thermostat works and that his point was that many people think the thermostat changes the temperature that the burner generates, or at least whatever is output by that burner/installation (be it water or air). Now I don't have an opinion on that matter, but I'm annoyed by your littering of the conversation over a slight sloppiness in expression in a context that doesn't call for the level of correctness you, from your high horse, are calling for.
There might be many such people but that is not what he said. I apologize that my comment clashes with your aesthetic preference of what a discussion should look like.
You can probably get most of the savings with what the US apparently call setback thermostats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_thermostat
(that page cites Consumer Reports as these will save you $180 per year, edit: and interestingly lower down it says that in actual deployments they may slightly increase bills/energy usage, main culprit? the horrible UI)
But a) even to get the basics they have a UI like programming VCRs, and so can't be what you refer to as "simple" and b) they have obvious failure modes that need babysitting and manual intervention like it taking longer to heat your house up during cold winters (or just an unusually cold day) so the time it comes on in the morning should be slightly earlier.
It's a real UI challenge, that if solved will save money and energy (which seems to be a thing Google is interested in generally).
There are already products that simply shift the UI into a smartphone app (like British Gas's Hive https://www.hivehome.com/) and otherwise are mostly just programmable thermostats but they mostly still have a box (for manual overrides) and cost as much as Nest, without looking as nice or having such clever software.
That isn't as fancy as responding to the weather, but the feature is pretty common.
Nest Thermostat has various concrete benefits, such as energy savings, general ease-of-use, and aesthetics, but more importantly it signals the beginning of other thoughtfully designed hardware experiences for the household from the company.