By now you have probably heard the rumors and gossip on social media about Google announcing the end of its “Works With Nest” integration and how the sky is falling in the smart home world!
Before we go too deep, we just want to reassure you that everything will be ok….
Google purchased Nest Labs (Nest as we know it) back in January of 2014 for $3.2 Billion with a firm strategy of developing its brand in every day households. (You may remember Google’s Smart TV launch that did not go over so well)
Since purchasing Nest, we have seen a huge increase in smart products being released that all integrated seamlessly together and allowed integration with third party manufacturers such as Lutron, Smart Things, IFTTT all through the Works With Nest portal…
You could have a complete smart home, but there was still something missing… something to make everything work perfectly… something that would make these simple to install smart products compete with the much more expensive Control 4 type automation systems…
You could sync Nest with Lutron lighting and shades, link Lutron with Sonos and Spotify, pair Google Home with Spotify but not with Sonos, and integrate Lutron with Mysa Thermostats, and Nest only with NuHeat but integrate with Lutron through Nest…Confusing right!?
In order to have your complete smart home, you would end up with 5 or 6 different apps for different products, integrating all the devices was done through the individual apps and not through a central main application that spoke to everything. The Lutron Smart Bridge PRO allows integration with most products, but when it came to viewing your doorbell on your TV, you need Google Assistant and Chromecast to take advantage of that feature.
There was no centralized system that would seamlessly integrate your lighting, shades, music, cameras, furnace, air conditioning, electric heating, doorbells, TV and smoke detectors all through the use of one single and seamless app… But that is now changing!
Google will be re branding the entire Nest line of products to now be Google Nest. For any new installations (After August 2019), set up will be done through the Google Home app rather then the Nest app that integrates with Google Home. You will still be able to control your Lutron lighting and other accessories through the Google Home app, but you will not be able to control your Google (Nest) products through third party apps.
Here is the best part! Google Nest has started taking pre-orders on its Home Hub, and at half the price of the Alexa Hub is sure to ruffle some feathers in the market! The Google Nest Hub offers you a heads-up display built into a virtual assistant. It will be a centralized point where you can control your lighting, temperature, audio, stream cameras and have all the features of your Smart Home and Virtual Assistant all in one place!
Finally! We are getting our centralized control of everything Smart Home and at a fraction of the cost!
For those few people that bought into the Nest line of products and stopped there, we heard from our local Google Rep that the original Nest app will continue to function as it did in the past and no upgrades are required! If you decide to upgrade in the future, migrating from the Nest account to a Google account will be painless and your existing functionality will seamlessly cross over.
All in all, the sky is not falling and our Smart Homes are only getting smarter!
If you are interested in starting on your smart home adventure, you can read about how to Build The Ultimate Smart Home
