Nest, the tech company that brought you the digital thermostat for home climate control, is now setting their sights on the smoke detector. With Nest Protect they are hoping to revolutionize a product that has long since remained the same.
The smoke detector hasn’t made a whole lot of progress, as far as updates go. Surprising, given the fact that every home and business is required to have one to remain up to safety codes.
CEO Tony Fadell, once an engineer at Apple who brought you the iPod, agrees. He has already tackled the thermostat, providing a digital dial that can be set for time away and monitored from your computer or mobile device. It even logs energy requirements based on user, finding ways to lessen the amount of energy used by each household.
Nest Protect smoke detector has the same lofty ambitions to provide something much more detailed and new in what is a standard, often ignored home device.
Not only will it keep watch for smoke, but also carbon dioxide. When there is a threat, a voice will alert you to what is being detected, and where. You can then check the device for more details, so you know exactly what the problem is. You can turn off the voice and all notifications of the issue with a wave of your hand in front of it — it is motion sensitive.
Nest Protect will cost $129. This is less than the Nest thermostat, which is currently being sold at $249. Perhaps because the features are more straight forward in the Protect.
“We’re about creating the conscious home,” Fadell said in an interview with Wired.
“To take a truly important device that has had no great innovation and make that device really, really great.”
People who have kept an eye on this company could have seen this coming. The Nest went from being a novelty device to a much sought out one very quickly. A new location for their customer service and technical support center opened up last month, giving further whispers to a product line expansion.
Full disclosure here, I have a spouse who works for Nest. As such, we were given a free Nest thermostat as a sign on bonus, and it is a pretty cool device. Our energy bill has gone down by about $40 a month, even through a very hot summer. It is also easy to use, and lock out from small children who like to play with the dial.
So, from a personal perspective, the idea of the same company innovating the smoke detector is pretty cool. It is a part of a home that most ignore, and so it is well due for an upgrade.
Source: The Verge