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Nest, the “learning thermostat” maker founded by former Apple’s senior vice president of its iPod division, is reportedly working on a smart smoke detector, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin.
Kara Swisher of AllThingsD adds that it will be called Protect, and be part of a series of smart devices, including the original thermostat.
Nest’s thermostat does more than turn your furnace and your air conditioning on and off. Nest’s product learns your schedule – when you’re home, when you’re away, how you like the temperature set when you’re there – and figures out how to set itself. It also takes commands from a smartphone, and connects to the household Wi-Fi. A built-in LCD display shows you temperature and current operations, all built into a rotary interface that’s familiar to most people who have used dial-based thermostats.
Lessin says that the smoke detector – like the learning thermostat – will sport an array of unique features, like the ability to communicate with a Nest thermostat, or silence with a hand wave (handy if all that smoke is something you left on the stove for too long instead of an actual fire).
So far Nest is mum on the details, and hasn’t admitted that it is working on a smoke detector, so time will tell if Lessin’s rumor proves to be true. But the company has stated its intention to replace “unloved whited plastic crap” in the house, so a smoke detector would be a logical next step.
Do you use a Nest thermostat? Are you interested in wirelessly connecting replacements for all that “unloved white plastic crap” in your house with your smartphone? Or does that seem like a problem waiting to happen? Tell me what you think in the comments.
Source: Jessica Lessin
