After last week’s resignation by Nest CEO Tony Faddell, questions were raised about what would be next for Nest. Faddell is going to serve as an adviser for Nest parent company Alphabet, Inc. — you know, it used to be called Google.
While Faddell will also be looking for other industries to disrupt, as he said in his resignation blog post last week, newly appointed Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz assured Nest employees that “Nest is categorically not for sale,” in a memo to employees obtained and published by The Verge.
We now have an idea of what the first signs of Nest’s growth will look like. Nest is planning an outdoor version of the Nest Cam and more colors for the Nest thermostat, according to Tech Insider and confirmed by Nest sources to The Verge.
The Nest Cam, is an updated version of the Dropcam, which has been “redesigned inside and out,” Nest wrote in an email to Digital Trends earlier this week. The Nest Cam streams video to the internet. The outdoor version will have a power cable rather than run on batteries, and will be available in a white, more rugged, and weather resistant case, sources told The Verge. As for the new colors for the Nest thermostat, the same sources said the colors would be “tasteful,” with color trim accents.
Nest products have strong brand recognition, wide support among other smart home products, and are available in a growing list of thousands of retail locations. While the new thermostat and camera are not new product categories, they extend the current products to broader applications and markets, which translates to greater profit for the division in the near term while Nest works on something truly new.
There is no confirmed news about what new products are in the works at Nest, though it might be the home alarm code-named “Flintstone” that was in development for three years but never made it to market. When Tech Insider asked if an alarm was the next product, it was told “that’s a good guess” that “would make a lot of sense.” So we won’t be shocked if a Nest Alarm is next.
