Why Google’s Nest Acquiring Dropcam Is A Perfect Step in The Right Direction

Google has always harbored a dream of extending its reach within home automation. Hence it germinated the Nest department; a section dedicated wholly to the development of products that intelligently assist occupants to enhance the intelligence of their homes. Recently the Nest division appeared quite keen to acquire Dropcam, a company that make networked cameras and other home-security enhancement products.

Now the rumors about buying Dropcam have been confirmed. Nest is acquiring video monitoring company Dropcam for $555 million. The all-cash deal is expected to go down in the near future and should help Google’s Nest accelerate the company’s penetration in the home-security market.

Nest isn’t a small sub-division, but it is rather a very serious vision by the creators of the search giant. Dropcam makes a $150 camera. Hence it might seem a bit odd as to why; the company that can design and develop autonomous robots buys a camera-maker like Dropcam.

The answer lies not in the hardware that Dropcam can offer, but in the technology and software that go within the cameras. Dropcam sells a $150 and $200 camera for home monitoring as well as an optional cloud recording service for $99 a year. With the cloud service, users can receive activity notifications straight to their smartphones. Google’s Nest is vying hard to break into the increasingly competitive ‘smart homes’ and ‘internet connected devices’ market and Dropcam can help significantly.

Nest currently makes smart thermostats and smoke detectors that are state-of-the-art, but certainly lack a feel of being comprehensive, reported Forbes. Home automation goes well beyond controlling your home’s temperature remotely and impressing your friends. It involves monitoring homes intelligently and collating, processing as well as making the house more ‘self-aware’, shared Nest co-founder Matt Rogers,

“Eventually, the plan is for us to work together to reinvent products that will help shape the future of the conscious home and bring our shared vision to more and more people around the world.”

What Rogers was clearly implying that given Google’s wide-spread appeal and Dropcam’s focused approach to making hyper-aware homes, the duo could certainly bring in fundamental changes in the way home-automation is perceived and deployed.

For example, Dropcam is presently working on closely monitoring the opening and closing of doors, reported The Wall Street Journal. This data can greatly enhance the efficiency of Nest’s intelligence about what is happening in the home.

Nest’s thermostats are actually pretty dumb right now. They have a single motion detector, so they only know if you’re home when you walk in front of the thermostat or if you tell it through the smartphone app. Similarly, Nest’s Nest Protect package that includes smoke and carbon monoxide detector has limited intelligence.

Couple Google Nest’s products with Dropcam’s and you get quite a potent offering that can be quickly introduced in the market.

[Image Credit | YourStory]