Google announced the merger of smart home and smart speakers to compete for market competitiveness

Smart speakers based on voice assistants have become the most popular field on the Internet today. By quickly imitating rival Amazon, Google has gained a place in this market. According to the latest news from foreign media, in order to compete for the competitiveness in the field of smart hardware, Google recently announced that it will merge the smart home department and the smart speaker department.

Google Smart Home is part of Nest, an independent company whose business will be integrated into Google ’s hardware team in the future.

According to reports, on Wednesday, Google's senior vice president in charge of hardware business, Rick Osterloh, announced the news.

It is reported that in the past year, the number of products of Google's smart home business (Nest) has doubled, and product sales have also increased significantly.

Oslo said that by combining the smart home and smart speaker business, it can help to accomplish Nest's original dream, which is to create a smarter residence. Through the business merger, the two teams will gradually integrate related hardware, software and services in the future to create a safer, more friendly and environmentally friendly family residence, and rely on Google's artificial intelligence and voice assistants to become more intelligent .

In an interview with the media, Oslo said that after the merger, Google ’s past research and development in the field of artificial intelligence will also be able to be applied to smart home products.

Google also said that the smart speaker and smart home teams have had some cooperation in the past, so this merger will not cause too much interference.

Nest is a smart home company founded by Apple ’s executives and the father of iPod. It mainly produces thermostats and smoke detectors. After the product came out, it was once supported by Apple. Apple also sells these products in official stores.

In early 2014, Google spent 3.2 billion US dollars to acquire Nest, preparing to enter the smart home market. Google also believes that Android-led smartphones will become the core device for smart home control in the future.

As Nest fell into the hands of competitors, Apple soon stopped selling its smart home products. Apple has also launched its own smart home platform, HomeKit, which allows consumers to control their home electrical appliances and home products through Apple mobile phones.

However, in the past period of time, Nest has experienced management confusion. Faddell has been accused of rough management style, which has caused dissatisfaction among employees. In addition, the company ’s new product launch has bounced back, and some products have also experienced serious quality problems. In the midst of the turmoil, Fadel was forced to resign, and in the subsequent adjustments, Nest's business began to get on track.

Google's merger of Nest and smart speaker business also shows its ambition for the hardware business. Although Google sold Motorola Mobile four years ago, Google ’s interest in hardware is higher than ever. The smart speaker Echo invented by Amazon has been a huge success, triggering a crazy imitation of global technology companies. Google imitated Amazon to launch a large number of products with different designs and different price points. Institutional statistics show that in the US Christmas shopping season market, Google ’s share of smart speakers has increased to 40%, and the rest is taken by Amazon.

Smart speakers have a wealth of functions, one of which is to control household appliances and smart home equipment. For example, consumers can open and close electric curtains and set the temperature of air conditioners by way of shouting.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Google merged the smart home business with the smart speaker business.

It is reported that after the business merger is completed, the head of Nest business Marwan Fawaz will report to the above executive Oslo in the future.

Recently, Google completed the acquisition of HTC's mobile phone OEM business. Google spent $ 1.1 billion to acquire 2,000 engineers. In the future, it will further expand hardware research and development. In addition to smartphones, Google's team in Taipei City will also design Various innovative hardware products.

The above is the relevant introduction about the merger between Nest and Google smart speaker business in Security Electronics. If you want to know more related information, please pay more attention to eeworld, eeworld electronic engineering will provide you with more complete, detailed and updated information.