Google has announced that it has acquired Nest Labs, a company that operates in the field of home automation, offering products such as thermostats and smoke detectors controllable via the Internet, for $3.2 billion in cash. According to the press release, the company will continue to operate under the direction of its co-founder Tony Fadell, who a few years ago was one of the creators of the iPod when he worked for Apple.

Nest Labs was founded in 2010 by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, who were determined to reinvent appliances already existing in the house to make it as automated as possible. In 2011 the company released the Nest Learning Thermostat, a smart thermostat that can be controlled remotely, even through a smartphone.

The Nest Learning Thermostat is so named because it records the settings that are made in the course of time and learns the needs of the homeowner. In this way, this device ends up being able to independently set the temperatures desired by the owner optimizing the use of heating and air conditioning in the various hours. This saves on the bills because this smart thermostat uses a saving mode when the owner is away from home.

A few months ago, Nest Labs announced another product, the Nest Protect, a smoke alarm system. It detects the presence of smoke but also carbon monoxide, a potentially lethal gas. This detector uses an application to provide information about air quality.

Nest Protect may warn the owners of the house in case of an alarm via their smartphone or tablet. A message is also sent in the case where the charge of the battery is falling at levels too low and require a change. In case of an alarm, it also uses voice messages to specify its nature in order to be able to communicate even if there’s no Internet connection.

Is all of that enough to spend $3.2 billion? Google is expanding its activities in the field of robotics, with acquisitions such as the recent one of Boston Dynamics, and created an alliance to bring Android to cars. The devices manufactured by Nest Labs are small robots, though far from humanoids, and there’s room for their integration with Android.

The home automation market is booming and the houses in the near future will be increasingly automated. So it seems a field in which it makes sense that Google invests, even so strongly.

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