Google Will Pay $3.2 Billion to Acquire Nest

Nest, a company well-known for its smart thermostat product of the same name and, more recently, the Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector, will be acquired by Google for a sum of $3.2 billion. This news comes courtesy of a release published on Google’s investor site.

Nest CEO Tony Fadell had this to say:

“We’re thrilled to join Google. With their support, Nest will be even better placed to build simple, thoughtful devices that make life easier at home, and that have a positive impact on the world.”

Google’s Sundar Pichai issued this welcome on Twitter:

Welcome @tfadell and team, really excited to have you all part of Google. Love using your products http://t.co/rofgHVUJ1h

— sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) January 13, 2014

And of course, we got the inevitable jokes about the Google / Nest combination.

I don’t know what the Nest acquisition is to Google at this point. Is the company acquiring the popular Nest product line and the talent, which consists of several former Apple employees? Does the company see the Nest and the Protect as two devices that can offer some additional data points on Google users? Perhaps Nest fits into a larger connected home play for Google that has yet to really take shape.

According to Reuters, not much will change for Nest. The company will still be led by Fadell and will operate independently of Google.

.@Nest will operate under leadership of CEO Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive, with own distinct brand identity, @lexnfx reports.

— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) January 13, 2014

I’m sure we’ll hear more about the reasons for the acquisition in due time. We’ll update if we receive any new info on this story.