OK Google, crank the A/C: Nest announces new smart home API

The Nest thermostat will soon be able to communicate with other smart devices in your home.

Jacqui Cheng

Google officially closed a deal to buy Nest Labs for $3.2 billion back in February of 2014. Since then, both companies have been mostly quiet about their plans other than to respond to questions about privacy mattersand butt into the related business of home security bybuying Dropcam for $555 million. Today, in advance of Google I/O, Nest has officially announced a new developer program and API that will allow other companies' smart devices to communicate with Nest's Protect smoke alarm and Learning Thermostat.

Among the companies that Nest is partnering with for this initial publicity push are IFTTT, Jawbone, LIFX, Logitech, Mercedes-Benz, Whirlpool, Chamberlain, and Google itselfthe latter two companies will release Nest-compatible features this fall, while the others are all available today.

All of the companies' "Works with Nest experiences" focus on making Nest devices more useful when used together with other smart home gadgetsif the Nest Protect smoke alarm goes off, than LIFX's lights can flash red to make it more obvious to the hearing impaired. AChamberlain garage door opener can tell the Nest thermostat to enter and leave Away mode depending on whether the owner isentering or leaving thegarage. And Google Now will let users control their thermostats with their voices and set proximity-based rules that will adjust theirthermostats before theyget home.

"It's not just integration for integration's sake, or connectivity just to connect," Matt Rogers, Nest co-founder and engineering head, told Ars. "It's 'what are great user benefits we could do?' Those are the kinds of things we're going to highlight. That said, it's a developer program that's opened up very widely. So whoever wants to build stuff can build stuff."

Early Nest investors Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers are both partnering with Nest to fund startupsthat want to get their own Nest-related projects off the ground. For now, though,Nestisfocused on partnerships withestablished companies.

Nest's tools are entirely Web-based, and there is no cost to developers who want to begin developing for Nest.

While the developer program's goal of connecting Nest gadgets to other devices sounds pretty Google-y, Rogers told us that Nest had been working on the developer program "behind the scenes for about a year," well before the Google acquisition happened. Nest is taking advantage of Google I/O and of Google's sheer size to amplify the announcement and attract more interest, but at least, as of this writing, the program is being driven by Nest's team and not by its parent company.

"Before Google, we would have to build our own event, and having an event like I/O is a really big deal," Rogers said. "Tens of thousands of people come to these kinds of things, so this is a really good platform for us to work on."

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OK Google, crank the A/C: Nest announces new smart home API