Nest may have stayed out of the limelight at Google I/O so far this year, but that doesn’t mean that it’s on its way out. In fact, it seems as though a bunch of new smart-home companies are set to play nice with Nest in the near future.
Some newly crowned “Works with Nest” companies include the likes of August, Simplehuman, LIFX, Lutron, Misfit, and more. These firms could seriously expand the level of functionality of Nest and Google’s smart-home ecosystem in general.
So what could these companies offer the Nest ecosystem? Each company has something different to bring to the table. August, for example, is a doorbell company that will now specifically play nice with the Nest Cam. What this means is that you’ll be able to see everything from both August’s and Nest’s cameras from the August app.
Nest Cam will also work with the LIFX smart-home bulbs. When Nest Cam detects motion, the LIFX bulbs can be set to switch on.
Of course, the Nest Cam isn’t Nest’s only product, and there are a few devices that will work with Nest’s smart thermostat too. AT&T’s Digital Life app in particular could be handy for smart-home owners. By using the Digital Life app, you’ll now be able to control the Nest Thermostat, along with the other things that Digital Life can already control. This should be great for those who want to control all their smart-home products in one app.
There don’t seem to be many partners for the Nest smoke detector, except for SkyBell, which offers a button that glows red if the Nest smoke detector senses a high level of carbon dioxide.
While individually the announcements may not be that big, together they represent a change for Nest — the company hasn’t had tons of new partners lately, so it’s nice to see that other firms haven’t forgotten about it.