Director of Energy Products at Nest Labs Ben Bixby speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit 7.0 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on September 4, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will be led by longtime Google executive Hiroshi Lockheimer, who now serves as senior vice president of Android and who recently assumed more responsibility for “living room” products. Google Home was announced without any partnerships and apparently would have to rely on Google smarts alone, while Amazon Echo has built its feature set through third-parties hooking in to the device. The responsibility of third-party integrations for Google Home speaker will evidently be shouldered by the Nest engineers who have been shifted to Google. Therefore, it would make sense for Google to use the experience of its colleagues at Nest in order to help with Google Home’s development. Apparently, the entire platform team from Nest will be moving over to Google, though it is unclear how many people that is exactly, and be led by Hiroshi Lockheimer, current senior vice president of Android and also the Google exec in charge of the company’s smart home products.
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Fortune describes the move as a part of Alphabet’s efforts to cut costs at Nest. By moving Nest software developers over to Google payroll, Nest’s financial situation would improve dramatically (so long as new Nest-branded products continue to be developed). According to a report from Fortune, a few dozen employees of Nest are heading over to Google, another Alphabet-owned company, to help bolster Google’s smart home offerings.
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Nest co-founder Tony Fadell resigned earlier this summer, amid reports of tensions with Alphabet management and disappointing sales figures.
