Quote from JB3:
If you thought Google bought NEST for their thermostats, you must be living under a rock or do not understand technology. Google is buying them to take over the home technology / monitoring space. If NEST can monitor and "connect" to your thermostat, just think of how Google can use that technology to infiltrate every appliance, electronics and data mine the daily activities of its customers. They are also buying the team at NEST, which is the Apple team. $3.2 billion dollars will seem like steal when Google is done with that technology.
Datamine my energy usage? What possible good would that do? There is zero potential to sell competitve intel that NV Power doesn't already have on my usage. The data isn't of value. Online shopping and search data has made GOOG. That's valuable intel as it's 100% discretionary spending. The utility mkt offers zero utility for GOOG. This is a market in search of a customer.
GOOG is essentially in the direct ad business and it will not translate into the home, beyond the networked PC and phone, which they already own. As was stated by Ash, the java toaster bullshit was just that. In 14 years it is just as immaterial. They fucking blew it and they will write that shit off their books within two years.