Google and Nest reunite in push to add AI to every gadget
Nest has shipped 11 million devices. The next stage: Get Google Assistant into more of Nest's smart gadgets as it battles Amazon's Echo and Alexa.
Alphabet is folding Nest, led by CEO Marwan Fawaz (right), into Google's hardware team, led by former Motorola executive Rick Osterloh (left).
Google is bringing gadget maker Nest back under its control as the search giant battles rivals Amazon and Apple in the rapidly expanding smart home market. A big part of the change: Making it easier to add Google's artificial intelligence technology and Assistant -- a digital helper that competes against Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri -- into new Nest products.
The world's largest search engine has staked its future on building Google smarts into devices beyond smartphones. On Wednesday, Google said Nest was part of its plans and would no longer operate as a separate division that lived in the outer orbit of parent company Alphabet's "Other Bets" group of projects.
Instead, Nest rejoins the Google mothership -- the part of Alphabet that houses search, YouTube, Android mobile software and other moneymakers. Nest, acquired by Google in 2014, had been operating outside of Google, the only profitable division of Alphabet, for the past three years.
Under the new org structure, Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz reports to Google's hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, a former Motorola executive who took charge of all Google's consumer devices in 2016. That includes Google Home smart speakers, Pixel smartphones and Chromecast streaming devices.
Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz says the company has shipped 11 million products to date.
"All of Google's investments in machine learning and AI, they can very clearly benefit Nest products. It just makes sense to be developing them together," Osterloh said in an interview Tuesday, which included Fawaz and took place in a meeting room designed to look like a home, complete with a kitchen and a washer-dryer setup. "It's the natural thing to evolve to."
Nest's brand, known for its 2011 internet-connected thermostat, isn't going anywhere, Osterloh and Fawaz said. In fact, the two drilled home the message that the reunion of the teams will "supercharge Nest's mission," as Fawaz put it. They used the word "supercharge" at least five times during our 40-minute interview at Nest headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Fawaz said Nest has shipped more than 11 million products since its first thermostat went on sale in 2011. Since it's been part of "Other Bets," Alphabet doesn't call out how much money Nest makes or loses.
The biggest change: Making Google's AI technology a staple in future Nest products. I asked if that means making every new Nest device an access point for the Google Assistant. That integration is "core to the strategy," said Fawaz, but nothing is set in stone. Nest has already begun building the Assistant into devices like its Nest Cam IQ indoor camera.
Nest and Google have already plotted out and finalized their hardware roadmaps for 2018, but in the next two years, they'll start co-developing products. Google also plans to offer more bundled packages for Nest and Google devices, like one deal last year that paired Nest products over $100 with a free Google Home Mini. Fawaz said people could also eventually use their Google accounts with their Nest app.
One thing that isn't changing: Nest, which won't say how many employees it has, will keep its offices in Palo Alto, instead of moving to the Googleplex in nearby Mountain View.
The decision to merge Nest with Google comes as tech's biggest companies work to infuse their software into every aspect of people's lives, from their cars to homes. People will spend $1 trillion on the so-called "internet of things" by 2020, according to Gartner. And they'll spend over $50 billion on smart home tech in 2022 -- up from $31 billion this year -- according to Statista.
But right now the gateway drug is smart speakers. Amazon dominates that world with its Echo devices, owning 69 percent of the market. Google is far behind with 31 percent, according to a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Apple, meanwhile, officially enters the market when its new HomePod speaker goes on sale Feb. 9.
Nest was previously a semi-independent unit of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
Nest's reunion with Google isn't a complete surprise. In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google was considering bringing Nest back into the fold. Osterloh and Fawaz said the merger has been in the works for the last few months. Since the two groups already partner on supply chain operations, packaging and event launches, it made sense for them to be one unit, they said.
Being under the same org chart also makes it easier for Nest to use Google's AI technology, the foundation for its Assistant and the key to new products like its Google Lens and Google Photos services.
"We've leveraged AI capabilities from Google in the past, especially in the computer vision space and facial recognition," Fawaz said. "Being part of the Google family, we get closer to that."
'The whole world is shifting'
A lot has changed since Google bought Nest for $3 billion nearly four years ago. That same year, Amazon introduced its Echo smart speaker, a surprise hit and a big slap to Google and Apple, which were already working on voice search. Google followed in 2016 with Home, a smart speaker that promised to put Google's leading search engine a few voice commands away. And this week, reviews went up for Apple's HomePod, a $350 Siri-enabled smart speaker that Apple touts as having better audio quality than its rivals.
Google has bulked up its hardware efforts in other areas too. Osterloh, former president of Motorola, was tapped two years ago by Google CEO Sundar Pichai to create a new consumer device effort. Though Google has always dabbled in hardware -- think the Nexus Q media player or Chromebook laptops -- Pichai wanted to prove the company was all-in this time around. Under Osterloh, Google unveiled its first branded phone, the Pixel, in October 2016 to rival Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy. It also added a virtual reality headset, a Wi-Fi router and new Chromecast video and audio streamers to its "Made by Google" product lineup.
Maybe the biggest sign that Google no longer considers hardware a hobby is its $1 billion investment in smartphone manufacturer HTC, which brings to Google over 2,000 HTC engineers -- many of whom already worked on the Pixel phone. The deal officially closed last week.
Google also put on a show last month in Las Vegas at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics conference. In past years, Google has typically laid low while its manufacturing partners, including Samsung and LG, made all the noise. But this year, the company set up a massive stage to showcase its gadgets and plastered the words "Hey Google" -- one of the trigger phrases for the Google Assistant -- over the Las Vegas Monorail. White-suited Google workers greeted showgoers in booths across the conference floor with the sole aim of telling them about how Google Assistant worked with various gadgets, from TVs to headphones.
Nest will be joining Google's hardware division, led by former Motorola executive Rick Osterloh.
Meanwhile, after a two-year slump in which it didn't enter new product categories, Nest in September added devices and services, including the Nest Hello smart doorbell and the Nest Secure alarm system.
"It's just a logical move," said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst with Technalysis. "The whole world is shifting. Amazon did a good job of recognizing an opportunity. Others are recognizing it and adjusting accordingly."
Hey, Alexa
When it comes to their smart home rivalry, Google and Amazon haven't been afraid to play hardball -- sometimes at the expense of customers.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, doesn't sell Google Home. Instead, searching for that product on Amazon brings results for other products, including the e-commerce giant's rival Echo speaker. Amazon sells some Nest products, like the smart thermostat and smoke detector, but not others, such as the Nest E, a cheaper $170 version of its thermostat, or the Nest Secure alarm system. Also, after banning sales of Google's Chromecast streamers two years ago, in December Amazon agreed to bring them back.
Google, meanwhile, cut off YouTube from working on Amazon's Echo Show video device and Fire TV. And at CES, Google tapped partners including Sony to introduce four new video devices with the Assistant built-in to compete with the Echo Show.
Google has made big investments in hardware with its Google Home line of products.
Google, Amazon and Apple know getting adoption for their voice assistants is the key to future riches. Over 5 billion devices that support digital assistants, including Alexa and Google Assistant, will be in use by consumers in 2018, according to IHS Markit, with nearly 3 billion more added by 2021. Of those devices, 39 million will be smart speakers, up from about 27 million units sold in 2017.
That all raises the question: Will Nest's closer relationship with Google mean Nest products stop working with Amazon Alexa?
"This announcement doesn't change that," Fawaz said. "If there are any changes in the future, we'll certainly make sure it's the right decision for consumers."
I pressed them again about the potential for this new arrangement to change the relationship with Amazon.
"I would call Amazon and ask them," Osterloh said. "We don't know. We want to work with Amazon in an open, transparent, symmetrical way. Hopefully they want to do the same. We're continuing discussions with them on that."
(We're checking with Amazon and will update this story when we get a response.)
A rocky tenure
When Nest appeared in 2011, it was a novel enterprise from a leader with a storied pedigree. Nest co-founder and former CEO Tony Fadell became known as the Godfather of the iPod after he played a key role, with Steve Jobs, in developing the seminal music player. Following Fadell's departure from Apple in 2010, he and Nest co-founder Matt Rogers focused on reinventing another market. The answer: a smart remake of home thermostats. The idea was to create a whole suite of forgotten household products that had been reimagined for the internet era. The startup announced its second product, the Nest Protect smoke detector, in 2013.
In 2014, Google bought Nest. That was, in part, to inject the search giant with some of the product magic Fadell brought with him from Apple. But Nest's tenure at Google has been rocky. There was public drama after Nest paid $555 million for Dropcam, maker of the security camera it eventually turned into the Nest Cam. After the buyout, Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy left the company and has since called the acquisition a "mistake." Under Nest, more than 50 Dropcam employees resigned. Duffy has said Dropcam's product roadmap was derailed.
When Google created Alphabet in August 2015, Nest became its own division, alongside other units including Google, the moonshot factory X and health tech company Verily.
It was Nest, though, with its own brand, team and offices, that was supposed to be the model for how the new Alphabet structure would work. But instead of becoming the Platonic ideal for an Alphabet company, Nest underwent more scrutiny. Meanwhile, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat tightened spending at the "Other Bets."
Fadell stepped down in 2016, and Fawaz, who had worked at Motorola with Osterloh, took his place. (Google briefly owned Motorola before selling it off to Lenovo for $3 billion in 2014.)
Today, all Fawaz will say about Nest's past is that the stories were "a bit exaggerated."
As for the way Alphabet is set up, Fawaz defended it. "Each bet is different. We have different journeys," he said. "In this particular case, Rick and I came together and said, '[Nest rejoining Google] makes sense.'"
"Other bets will have different journeys. They can have a different outcome," Fawaz added. "There's not one size that fits all in the model."
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How to Use ChatGPT to Summarize a Book, So You Don't Have to Read It
Got a huge TBR pile? Here's how AI could summarize the key points from a business productivity book. Whether you should do it is another question entirely.
I have a goal to read one book a month. On my weekends, I cozy up on the couch with my coffee, and my phone in another room. The point of this ritual is to create space in my schedule that's unbound by time and to-dos -- but as my reading list grows, I find myself trying to get through more pages and more books.
I wanted to see if I could use artificial intelligence to summarize the main concepts, lessons and wisdom of a book I knew I wouldn't get to for months, or even years. Keep the beautiful prose for the physical page, but use AI to summarize non-fiction business books, for example.
I picked Deep Work by Cal Newport to test run on ChatGPT. After using various AI tools, I thought ChatGPT, one of the best-known text prompt chat tools, would do the job best. I also have the $20 a month paid membership, so I wanted to make the most of it.
Ponder on the parameters
If I've learned anything about AI, it's that the preprompt thinking is just as important as the first prompt. I didn't just want a huge summary of the book. I wanted to learn Newport's big ideas, arguments, strategies and frameworks regarding deep work, so I could apply it in my work.
So, I started the chat with some expectation-setting.
- First, ask ChatGPT if it has access to the whole book.
- Tell ChatGPT that I want deep insights, not a superficial summary.
- Ask for suggestions on how to apply the key strategies to my freelance business.
- See if it can pull from reviews and reader commentary for more surprising and actionable takeaways.
Prompt 1: "Do you have access to Cal Newport's book, Deep Work?"
I learned that ChatGPT doesn't have access to full manuscripts -- due to avoiding plagiarism and respecting intellectual property rights -- and would just summarize from the existing information about it online.
Not ideal, but I had an idea. I found a 6-hour audiobook YouTube clip, so I asked if it could use that to summarize the book for me.
But no such luck. It told me to watch the video.
Watch a video for 6 hours? No thanks.
There are over 32,000 reviews of the book on Amazon, so I thought maybe there's enough commentary on the book to come up with an in-depth summary. So I started over from this angle.
Next prompt: "I haven't read Cal Newport's book, Deep Work. Highlight the key ideas, concepts, strategies and frameworks, so I can apply to my business as if I've read it. I don't just want a summary of the book."
ChatGPT had a hard time interpreting "comprehensive," spitting out a ton of suggestions. It also started to give advice without asking me about my line of work, like "educate your team on the importance of deep work and provide training on time management and focus techniques" and "allocate dedicated blocks of time for deep work on your calendar." It also gave generic suggestions like "focus on tasks that provide the most value and minimize time spent on low-value activities."
All pretty vanilla advice, if you ask me. Time to apply the pressure, one question at a time.
I still wasn't getting any breakthrough insights, so I kept pushing.
OK, ChatGPT, off to the Swiss countryside I go.
I wish.
I asked for an example of deep work in 2024, and we started to get somewhere. I liked one suggestion, about batching shallow work.
While I do this instinctively, it was a helpful reminder to batch tasks and watch context switching.
Getting Google involved to keep ChatGPT on track
At this point, I was using ChatGPT to ask random questions, like if there's a limit on deep work hours.
It said 4 hours max of deep work per day.
I remember a concept I like called the manager-maker schedule, which details the two main schedule types. As a writer, I'm on the maker schedule, meaning blocks of uninterrupted time are critical.
I had to do a quick Google search of the key lessons in the book so that I knew what insights to prod ChatGPT for. Apparently "productive meditation" was an important takeaway, so I asked for more details about that.
Finally, a new concept. Deep work isn't just head down at desk time.
This strategy was the unlock -- looking on Google for nuggets in summaries, then going back to ChatGPT to expand. When directed, it was great.
I scanned a second summary and found another concept that sounded interesting: keeping a compelling scoreboard. ChatGPT helped unpack the concept.
The TL;DR?
If you want to use ChatGPT to learn about a book, you'll have to spend at least 30 minutes browsing reader summaries yourself and use the most interesting ideas to frame your prompts. This inevitably takes a chunk of your potential deep work time. You can't just ask the AI tool to do it for you.
Once you get on the right track that way, you might discover one concept that changes your productivity or perspective -- but ChatGPT still isn't as good as just reading the book yourself.
You also have to consider that since ChatGPT doesn't have access to the actual book, and only summaries and reviews that are available online, you may not even be getting accurate key points.
And whether using an AI summary defeats the purpose of a book about deep work is still up for debate.
You Can Use Your iPhone Notes App to Send Secret Messages
There's a handy tool to facilitate private conversations, and it's built right into your iPhone.
Write secret messages straight from your iPhone's Notes app for conversations that require more discretion.
Have you ever wished you could send secret messages with your phone? It turns out you can do just that without resorting to a shady third-party app. If you have an iPhone, head straight to the built-in Notes app and get ready to pull off top secret chats with any of your contacts.
No matter the nature of your private conversation, you have plenty of options available to you. Apps like Signal and Whatsapp are popular for their focus on privacy. Why complicate things when you don't have to?
The built-in Notes app for iOS is a secret weapon for private conversations. It's always fun when you find a way to use an app outside of its intended use. It's almost like you're using it in a sneaky way that you shouldn't be, but all of the parts are there to make this a simple way to have private conversations with someone. We'll lay it all out for you below.
For more iOS tips, check out the new features in iOS 17.5 and how to easily view and copy Wi-Fi passwords on your iPhone or iPad.
Create a note in the Notes app
On your iPhone, launch the Notes app, and tap the Compose button on the bottom right to create a new note. Next, type anything into the note to keep it, or else it'll automatically be deleted when you exit from the note. You can also just go into an existing note, but it's better to start fresh with a new one.
First, create a new note or go into an existing one.
Adjust your note's share options to add collaborators
Once your note is up and ready to go, you can begin the process of adding another person as a collaborator, which means they can read and edit whatever is in the note. To start, tap the More button on the top right, and then hit Share Note.
Now tap Share Options and make sure the Can make changes option is selected under Permission. You should also toggle off Anyone can add people in case you want to be the only person who can add collaborators to your note. Go back to the last page when you're finished configuring these settings.
Second, manage what your collaborators can do.
Add people and share the link
Next, choose a method to share the note: You can send it via text message, email, social media and more. If you swipe on the share options, you can also select Copy Link, which copies the note link to your clipboard and allows you to paste it wherever you want.
For this example, I'll choose the Copy Link option to share the note.
At the top of the Copy Link page, enter the email address or phone number of the person you want to access the note. You can also tap the Add icon to search through your contacts. Adding a contact to the note is required. If you share the link without adding a contact, the other person won't be able to see or edit the note, even with the link.
Lastly, hit Copy Link to copy the note link to your clipboard and share it with your collaborator.
Next, add your collaborator(s).
Send secret messages using Notes
The person on the receiving end must now open the note link and accept the invitation. If they accept, they'll be redirected to the Notes app and to the collaborative note you just created.
To communicate, simply type something into the note, which the other person will be able to see in real-time without you having to hit send. They'll also receive a notification any time the note is altered.
Each person in the note will have a corresponding color appear (only for a moment) so that everyone else knows who typed what. You can also swipe right from the middle of the note to see the name of who wrote the message, as well as a time stamp for when the message was written and any corresponding colors.
Now you can secretly communicate with your friends or family.
You can also tap the Share Note button (with the check mark icon), go to Manage Shared Note and then toggle on Highlight All Changes. That way, all messages will stay permanently highlighted in their corresponding color, making it easier to read the conversation.
If you want to keep your communications more low-key, delete your message or the other person's message to strike it from the note. That way your conversation is more like it would be on Snapchat, with ephemeral or short-lived messages that outsiders can't see if they snoop through your notes. You can do this with any text in the notes, as well as photos, videos, links, drawings or any other attachments you add to the note.
Delete your secret chat for good
Not all secret conversations can go on forever, so it's time now to end it.
If you're the owner of the note and want to keep the note intact for everyone but prevent them from editing it, you can easily do so. On the top right, tap the View Participants button and then hit Manage Shared Note. To remove a participant, you can either swipe left on their name and then hit Remove or you can tap on their name and then tap Remove Access.
To end the conversation, remove any collaborators or stop sharing the note.
Additionally, you can tap the Stop Sharing option, which will not only remove participants from the note but also delete the note from all of their devices.
If you're not the owner of the note, you can just delete the note from the Notes application.
For more tech tips, don't miss how to save money by borrowing an Airtag for travel and the two settings to change on your iPhone to go to sleep faster.
