Google Makes Foray into Home Security and Home Automation

Google’s Nest subsidiary has announced plans to buy Dropcam, which manufactures cameras that stream video into PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Worth a prospective $555m, the acquisition of San Francisco-based Dropcam will give Google a significant foothold in the home security arena and nascent ‘smart’ home automation market (a trend also known as the internet of things or internet of everything)

Streaming video via the cloud into people’s phones Dropcam offers DIY digital surveillance of homes, children, pets or business.

A report by New York investment bank Imperial Capital noted the difference between corporate security and home security markets. “Security companies generally are not participants in the do-it-yourself (DIY) market and do not target particular groups that may be interested in such products (e.g., college students, young professionals living in high-rises),” said the report, which was written by Jeff Kessler, Imperial Capital’s MD of institutional research.

After the announcement Dropbox sought to assuage concerns about its impending marriage with a company that makes much of its money by sharing personal data for marketing purposes.

Speaking to Security Systems News Navin Rajendra, an analyst at TechNavio, a market research company specialising in tech, said: “I feel that consumers will always be wary of any such product that collects so much data about the house and transmits that data wirelessly. So yes, although Nest did come out with a statement, I still feel privacy issues are a huge concern.”

Google bought Nest Labs, which manufactures thermostats and smoke alarms that connect to smartphones, in a $3.2bn deal in January.

Nest Labs launched its first product in 2011, the Nest learning Thermostat, a Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat that optimises temperature to conserve energy. In October the company announced its second product, the Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector.

Appliances that conventionally aren’t internet-enabled – from toasters and microwaves to bicycles and cars – are expected to increasingly communicate online with each other, with research firm Gartner projecting an increase in such internet-enabled devices to 26 billion units by 2020 – a 30-fold increase from 2009.

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