Nest Labs, a Google-owned maker of Internet-enabled thermostats and a smoke and carbon monoxide detector, announced on June 23 that it will give more than 5,000 third-party developers access to its application programming interfaces (APIs) through a new platform that aims to grow the company’s share of the smart home–products market.
Called the Nest Developer Program, the platform relies on data from installed devices such as product Home and Away modes, smoke and carbon monoxide alerts, and peak energy events. Initial partners vary in size and market sector and include parent Google, Whirlpool, Mercedes Benz, and Web startup IFTTT, which lets users set up conditional triggers among their Web-based social platforms and smart devices.
Among the apps and other capabilities currently or soon to be available through the program’s initial partners are the voice-command of Nest thermostats through integration with Google Now; LIFX lamps that flash red when high levels of carbon monoxide are detected; and the ability to include Nest products in a string of IFTTT conditions.
In a press statement, Nest commented on security concerns, writing that a “customer must authorize a connection before any data is shared,” and that it will limit the amount of data a developer can retain at one time to that generated from 10 or fewer consecutive days or. Users can disconnect a device from the network at any time, the statement continues, and by deleting a Nest account they will will also delete its related data.
On June 20, Nest emerged from a period of relative quiet following Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition in January to announce that it will buy home-surveillance systems maker Dropcam for $555 million in cash. Dropcam is a wireless video monitoring system that streams live footage to a user’s smartphone—but it could soon use its audio-visual technology to track such occurrences as the opening and closing of doors in a home, the Wall Street Journalreports.
In a blog post announcing the deal, Nest co-founder and vice president of engineering Matt Rogers addresses continued consumer security concerns with Nest—and now, Google—feeding their data streams to developers. The purchase of Dropcam extends the concern to video taken inside their homes. “Like Nest customer data, Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission,” he writes.
