Google acquired Nest Labs in 2014 for about $3.2 billion, including its connected-home products.
Nest Labs was founded in 2010 by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, former Apple engineers who worked on the iPod. Its first major product was a learning thermostat designed to study household routines and adjust heating and cooling automatically. Nest later expanded into smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms and connected security products.
Google announced the acquisition in January 2014 and completed it later that year. Nest initially operated as a separate business led by Tony Fadell. In 2015, Google placed Nest under the Alphabet structure created when Google reorganized. The Nest brand was later folded into Google’s smart-home product organization, and Google Home and Nest product lines became more closely integrated. A common mix-up is to confuse this transaction with Google’s later acquisition of Fitbit, which focused on wearable health and fitness devices and closed in 2021.