The Nest thermostat: How it came to be

Some objects are such a part of our everyday lives that no matter how intrusive they are, they go unnoticed. Take e.g. Your home nest thermostat e installation; you would hardly say it adds a bunch of imagination to your home design, would you? Yet, despite various melts since the invention in 1883, the electric thermostat has been pretty much as ugly as the day it was conceived. Not only that, it has not undergone any real innovation in the last three decades despite the technological design revolution driven by people like Steve Jobs.

This is quite astonishing when you consider that these devices control half of our household's energy consumption. It's even more surprising when you realize that they are sold in the millions every year, and that there are only a quarter of a billion of them in the United States. In fact, the ugly little device has become so much a part of modern life's eyes that none of the planet's creative minds bother to pay attention to it, it was just there, like a wart on a toe.

That is, until Tony Fadell, former senior vice president of the iPod division at Apple, one day began building his own house. With some research, he very quickly realized that this ugly duckling could become something very beautiful. He also saw that a completely new technical approach was needed to make use of new technology that enabled it to learn and adapt to people's heating habits, thus saving them enormous amounts of energy.

The idea germinated and developed in 2010 into Nest Lab, the Palo Alto company founded by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, where the latter is another disciple of Steve Jobs. What did they go up with? What was the secret project they were building? Over the next eighteen months, the idea was formed behind closed doors, The Next Generation Thermostat was announced in October 2011. This thermostat is able to learn your heating habits and work out your schedule thanks to a smart combination of sensors, algorithms and transmitted data . from your home across the web sphere.

The second generation of the Nest Learning thermostat was launched a year later in the fall of 2012 and has quickly become an Amazon top seller. In fact, the elegant round devices go like hot cookies, so much so that an increase in account connections briefly brought the company's servers down over the course of the following Christmas.

The ugly thermostat has then grown into a beautifully designed home appliance that blends well into your home decor thanks to its steel ring that reflects the surrounding colors. It's easy to install, easy to use, and its Wi-Fi connection means it can be updated like any online video game or smartphone application. You can control it remotely with your laptop, smartphone app or tablet, and it helps you save money on average 20 percent of your energy bill.

Nest Lab will definitely hatch more ideas; meanwhile, their sweet and smart brain child will soon be nestled in homes across Europe. In fact, Tony Fadell announced at LeWeb Paris, held in December 2012, that they will first ship to France and the UK as soon as possible.