Gadgetory

hey guys it's me live with a virgin here at CES 2013 obviously I'm here with Matt Rogers from nest you guys you're not showing anything new at the show but you are in many ways the talk of a huge story at the show which is home automation basically smart sensors of all kinds that connect to your iPhone in your Android device yes so yeah we introduced four months ago now yeah since then amazing Christmas lot lots of getting the word out people are buying it people buying for their parents and their grandparents so Christmas was amazing so this is the first year i think on record where thermostats were a popular christmas gift yes well so that's really should i want to talk about that you guys made a thermoset you've got this huge team you were on the iphone team uh Tony Fadell of the CEO your co-founder also famously in the ipod and ipod iphone teens at Apple you built the thermostat that it is basically a smartphone right yeah very looks very much like a smartphone but what's interesting to me is I once the Samsung booth it's like Samsung didn't build a thermostat this year none of the other big LG didn't build the thermostat this year I'm getting a lot of PR from little companies or doing thermostats but it's funny because there's a trend of home automation and it's all gone to light switches and power outlets and all this other weird stuff and no one's starting where you started so so we did service that's because it matters okay so half of whom energy is controlled by the you know by the thermostat and it's a big problem I'm amazed that no yeah no big companies have taken notice and I started doing this honey honey was it yeah yeah the old player mean I cry what new things are gonna do they're gonna add Wi-Fi right big deal right it's still a white plastic box with a horrible touchscreen I mean it's a little more of more of the old more the same right in terms of new players that you know there's I love all the new stuff I mean but I would there are new players for like making thermostats I think about awake in that space so you but I'm what I'm saying it's interesting that you know we do our sea has previews and we say things like home automation is going to be a story at this CES and it's kind of like when we say tablets are a big market and what we really mean is the ipad it's almost like when people say home automation what they mean is the nest proved a model for connected pieces of your home that's right but you have just one you have one little thing yes your one piece of it but we do it really well so that's all right that's our whole culture that's our strategy let's do it the best we possibly can sure and the reason why we've only done one thing is because we have to do it the best we absolutely can and be able to focus and do it build the best thermostat there is I looking at the kind of connected home I don't think people want to buy a connected home they want to build them I great stuff and they want to buy a great thermostat or they want to buy a great lighting product you know if you know if those all those products existed i think people might have a smart home but i don't think you want to buy a box full of white plastic things you know my kids see me yeah it doesn't make any sense well so lets me look the nest was announced i want to say a year ago but I feel like you guys announced a nest like the day we announced the bird things I just um so I'll even volume very closely you're here at CS you're seeing this ecosystem of smart products and you've got the one are you thinking about moving into that broader ecosystem I know Tony always says you don't put this team together if you're only gonna go the thermostat but then you're sitting here being like we gotta build a thermostat those we have to build the best nervous that out there and I've been a lot of time improving the software adding analytics these energy reports we send out every month email is describing how much are using and why now you're could save more of course we're looking at some new stuff yeah we're gonna do you know one or two things really really well i dinnae LaBranche on we do we'll add another thing it's like I think about Apple so Apple did iPods for five or six years or dangerous the iphone people like forget how long these time frames were they play wait you know I think three years before they introduced the ipad I mean these things are they take time you want to educate your customers about what this whole experience is about there's a reason why I know the smart home stuff is taken off yet it's because that's what's crap right not even chew on it i mean i agree with you must describe and it's the initial outlay that the cost of the adventure if you will right is extremely high it's 500 light switches right how do you solve that kind of problem when you when you I get why you started with the first era it's one thing you can get a tangible benefit from it right it's important right so that you can buy it but you can't you don't buy it a lot right you buy one like every 10 years I don't think you're gonna get upgrades every year I'm so we're not not expecting it so there's a few enabling technologies sure so there's connectivity and it's a lot easier and cheaper dad connectivity products now so that's one in a blur one is I take great algorithms great intelligence and that's something at me is kind of net secrets off that we spend a lot of time and what we hired my professor yo kedar to run that team because it's so important I think that's an enabling technology I don't think you need a smart smart light bulbs more light switch the smarts can be somewhere else but right as long as that product is connected a kid you know it it could participate in all these kind of ecosystems so if you have a you know it so you're saying there's like a product this is like a Trojan horse so you're you putting up this draw processor on the wall and everything else gonna connect so in that thing however it means this thing is a smartphone I mean it has you know 800 megahertz CPU it's you know it is like a smartphone it's a lot like a kind of iphone four era right product and there's a we are able to deliver great new products and new new algorithms new software through updates so in the last 15 months like we've delivered 13 software updates to our customers for free so there are things we haven't even cooked up yet things we haven't even thought of that we can then go push out to people and they have all this new features now right it's a you know that's cool well here's my big question you've got one smart phone in your pocket yes you've got another smartphone caliber thing yes on the wall if you look around you know belkin's got a bunch of stuff and it's like the smartphone is the brain for those things right some of the other home automation it's more let's put an even bigger bring on the wall what's other pc do it where should that live is it still in one place any place any yes many lives a little bit of everywhere so there's some things that you want to have in your palm of your hand like things like control and make sense to do in the palm of your hand like you pick out your phone you want to change your temperature you could do that there are things that you want the home to be all due on its own so like when you arrive home you want the home to wake up for you or when you're going home I mean you're on your way home you want to wake up for you there's latent technology that needs to exist in the home and you actually want these things to be distributed like much like there there's no one central server that runs the entire internet right like it should be yeah it doesn't go down right so that's one of things we think about is you know as we have more of these products we want to have them exist and work well in a disconnected world right so if your internet goes down or if your Wi-Fi fails your thermostat still performs great and all the intelligence is still there that's one of the reasons what we did that way so that actually brings me to kind of another big trend here at CES which is and it's disconnected but I think it's actually directly related which all the body monitors right the Fitbit if the nike stuff the pebble smartwatch in a way is one of these things where it's an external device to a central processor but you're sending data back and forth do you see those as being complementary to what you're doing because I see I see a world of people with smartphones in their hands and they're just buying sensors all over the place and the nest is a sensor in many ways that does some other control the fitbit's a sensor and I just see basically we're making the world around us smarter so i can send data to a smartphone yes well so i think all these new health applications are amazing so you think health is kind of where we were a few years ago I mean industry in the dark ages you have to go to a doctor to get you know get your temperature taken my god no like the attack you have to go to see someone interrupting doctors well I'm not but you know others are I mean why should you have to go drive somewhere for them to take her temperature and your blood pressure why can't the ritual with the wristwatch you have do that for you and alert you when there's a problem like same time analytics we're providing on the energy side why couldn't somebody do the same thing or apply similar technology on the outside enormous benefits mean it's an industry just drop there right so do you see it you see connection between what you're doing and those things because to me it's just a bunch of sensors right there's their sensors there's connectivity there's intelligence and we're all those things live they can live all in one place they can live in different places I they're all actually it's very similar someone could make a nest for home health yeah and we could work together I mean who knows right well so the work together stuff right now you guys I mean I know that I have my family members we have big home automation systems right they've controlled for a restaurant and I'm like I'd love to get a nest but they that thing doesn't talk to me so so we we have an integrated yet uh and there's a reason why is one there's a lot of privacy people trust us yeah we have a lot of very private data we know in their home when they're not we wanna make sure they're okay the way she was like you know how hot my house is no like in terms of private data that's like way low on the list yes though photos of my children yeah in my house is 72 degrees yeah occupancy is the main thing right so we don't we want to make sure we're doing the right got my community that is super top-secret a away from that don't let this together I don't want anybody know might take a jungle yeah it's weird okay so uh me eventually you know of course there's a whole industry that we could enable and it's about focus for us and you eat right do a few things well so eventually when it makes sense and there's enough kind of I'd say momentum behind some of these things we'll do it right but right now come home automation as it stands today it's kind of geeky right yeah it's actually it's terribly geeky yes everybody know who has serious from automation systems in their home has hacked android phones yeah it's like they're like combined yeah you shouldn't need IT guy for your house right that's that's why we haven't done right right but all that stuff is here I mean that's what I'm saying it's there is if you when we were doing our previews and I looked at all the previous around the industry of CES 2013 it's there's gonna be a bunch of windows 8 stuff you know that every reason have a new phone yeah and home automation is I'm a big story at this ship and in what they were talking about is companies like nest but you don't do home automation you automate and even know I don't think you automate one thing right you so think of it as automated so I mean there's some elements of automation they you know we learn we learn and we act on your behalf like we don't really consider it solves a home on a mission product right mean there's so much stuff out there there's a lot of noise and say yes about home automation and internets of things and all these kind of things and you just you just walk around this like creeping around the show floor like seeing what people are doing it's always good to see what's going on part of part of our job is as technologists is to kind of be aware what the industry is doing right and sometimes will do will follow and sometimes we're no lead and sometimes where do the exact opposite will do something totally different right well let me ask you a totally different is what is what is totally different if you had to pick the wildest they need to do what would that be the well so doing a thermostat was pretty wild I mean old has a wrong I bet Samsung does have a thermos I shouldn't have one I'm sure they're working on it yeah yeah what's the wildest thing we could do we saw some interesting VR stuff the CES like you see oculus rifts we're gonna whole thing's amazing it's awesome I look like a moron that on camera yesterday is like pong it was actually a nice moment of peace like in the crazy CES like no you're literally in a different place yes it was kind of nice they've got a lot of give a lot of potential with it gotta deliver yeah and actually that brings me there's a trend here of hardware startups really interesting hardware startups yes uh and you guys are hardware startup you mean obviously you have a lot of experience you and Tony like did the iphone or team has a lot of experience team has a lot of experience um but you made the iphone like when you go out in the world and ask for money like make anything i'm sure they're like take take the money right the hardware startups here our kickstarter guys right the pebble watch the oculus rift there's another one today that i can't remember if it announced I mean there's just a lot of Kickstarter and we're actually thinking man Kickstarter's like kind of the story of CES but I know that you're kind of old-school you think these Ozil back so so when we do something we want to put it all we're going all in I mean we hire the best team you know we spend a lot of money to build lots of prototypes we break them they bash them in we do hundreds of field trials around the country if we r do something we're gonna do it really really well I mean there's a certain culture to kind of perfection and we are in every freakin detail out there and we're thinking about the whole product and that's something that you need a lot of money to do I mean we invest in packaging our retail channels doesn't Kickstarter provide you with that money I that's what I kind of don't understand its to do a product right in my opinion it takes multiple millions of dollars it's not something like it's a rare thing you're doing get some Kickstarter okay so you think the rise of hardware startups here is I mean that's a story right why don't want their hardware startups the way there are web startups and like I get that there's probably an order of magnitude because the web is so easy yeah I mean there's an enormous complexity involved it's more than just writing some code you need mechanical engineers electrical engineers you enders and supply chain you manufacturing embedded software there's a it takes an army to go do one of these guys right our initial team to do kind of the first verse numbers that at the end of the day was about 70 people those frames yeah you are to kick-start that like that that's a lot of money to run the contine right and you've got kind of a crazy team you've got people from you got a lot of people from Logitech you've got your professor is doing all the new year old stuff is so so most of our kind of hardware embedded engineering organizations are all from Apple most of our kind of cloud side stuff is Twitter dash oh really Microsoft you know guys guys who would have that kind of DNA I mean we we want to put these kind of two worlds together right well you know Apple that it's our story with Apple is they don't they're not good at the cloud stuff yet they're still working so they're learning I mean they've hired a lot of great guys of last couple years and there they've that entire organization has changed dramatically me Eddie's a solid guy right actually I'm curious about this what you were on them just give me the little background of what you did with your iPhone's so I started out you know way back in 2004 as an intern did some early ipod stuff on nano and then we were doing the first kind of first iphone prototype the ones that I mean I've shipped I was one of the first firmware guys on the ground to bring it up make the first call out in China you were in China was like a non shipping it was a giant board you know play you know wow two feet long we could we called home because we've actually called Tony on this giant breadboard that's really funny if it have it had the display and everything like the touch display or was not yet so this is yeah he had bare metal like it takes from that point pi took us 19 months to get to product Wow we have a first prototype so we asked you here we're here at CES the first I was aluminum right how'd you eat it and then you had the plastic antenna yes so it has to be plastic it doesn't run through middle oh but so it's funny cuz then you they went to the iphone I just asked you because this is a thing at CS that I think is hilarious then he went that you know you iterate iterated even if the iphone 4 through glass back which was I think a mistake it was beautiful uh but you know break scratches right and so then Apple one away from a now everyone here at CS is like sony has a phone that's bad everybody copies up a nexus 4 is a glass back there is well there's entire industry that just follows Apple that's what they do right that's what they do I mean maybe but do you walk around like seeing your old mistakes also we used to walk around CES and see kind of ipod knockoffs back in a day and you know it's it's a lot of fun I mean mimicry is is a great compliment right I mean I it's just funny cuz like the idea of Sony putting on a five I mean I will say I think industries way ahead of Apple in terms of screen size I think like 5-inch 1080p is like gorgeous you should go to something soothing look at their phone yeah and then it's like you turn it over and you're like why did you make this mistake but that specs so like apple doesn't compete on the specs war that's not what they do it's all about user experience right it's about building the absolute best product out there right it doesn't matter how many make sure this is a speck of how big your screen is is on pretty valuable spec people's hands are all about you know there's there's a size people's hands excise me serious hands you need a 5-inch screen play that's all i'm at about four hey you're five inch in for my eyes these are serious eyes I'll hold this mother for a little bit longer okay uh no let's talk about some of your favorite stuff so on the show floor so the Audi boof is really cool yeah those guys have done some amazing so I want a self-driving car I really really want one like if someone could make one and I can go buy it I'll do it today yeah I would do it have you played in one of Google's self-driving so Google Google Ventures winning yesterday yeah google ventures is one of our biggest investors full marathon our board and actually got a less board meeting last month he showed up in it self driving car guys yeah like I come to your next coordinator show up the check check out there how do you steal a self-driving car I don't think you steal it I think it comes to you and you know I think just check them out I mean they had a mushroom over at Google all right so audio what what else i like i like this oculus rift that's really cool honestly I the TVs are pretty cool like some of these like for isn't that just yes it is but it's freaking beautiful okay right and putting the super super high resolution ultra-thin it's it's nice I mean I'm sup gadget geek alright so I ask you this we have a bet and watch let you go but we have a bet josh says 4 k's like basically nothing happened no content yeah but I say people will buy them as a regular product within two to three years what's your take I think so too so I was an early adopter on 1080p I I bought one of the first 1080p it seems crazy to say now and okay so that's everything upon a 1080p TV in 2005 for like 5 grand it was they didn't make any sense there's no content another is yeah so there will be content they will be mainstream the prices will come down that's how this all works you know I was talking to uh somebody at Sony and they're like you know we have a chicken and egg problem the content do you think your TV is the chicken out of the egg and they literally just like shut down like walked away well this is like I'm not askin a question this is the irony so Sony they built TVs they control the content why couldn't they pull something off you're literally saying all the things that I say it why couldn't they pull this off they are complete vertically integrated they have so many different business units why they just all work together it's funny cuz you could you know that this is your this is a prototype for nest you're gonna build this you're gonna go back no cloud service and they're gonna work together I hope so right anything else to say about this time before you want we wrap up your freaking great I mean it's like honestly please picture products it's one of the best things I've ever built like a zit tne built the iphone and we both the iphone we built the ipod so so this is better than the iphone i think it's all say it's very useful it saves people money it saves energy like it's beautiful i mean we're really proud of it we put a lot of time and energy I think for us to quit a job at apple making the biggest products in consumer electronics history to make a thermostat it's gotta be freaking awesome or are you insane or we realize there was a distinct second boss we are a little bit of crazy I like it maybe a lot Matt I was gonna happen crates in here soon thanks Oh