Nest was created following the founder’s observations of the limitations of the home thermostat

The inventor of the iPod and iPad, Tony Faddell, observed that the UK and US spend 50-70% of home energy bills on heating and cooling, but that the controlling device was hard to program, inflexible, unresponsive, and ugly. He set out to create a smart thermostat for the ipod generation.

The Nest thermostat not
only has excellent design credentials

After three days of use, adjusting the
temperature either on the device or via smartphone, it learns the user’s preferences.
It automatically detects when the house is
empty and adjusts the heating or cooling accordingly, and combines this with weather information and big data analysis to predict
when to heat or cool an owner’s home.
It tells users when their heating is at an energy-efficient level and provides personalized reports on their energy use, encouraging behavioral change. This in
itself leads to significant cost savings, but Nest is also working with utility partners
to encourage reduced usage at peak times.

Nest’s fresh application of technology to
the home led to a $3.2 billion buy out from Google.

By challenging the market’s expectations around a simple device, Nest has become the first true brand of the emerging smart home segment.