
Nest is acquiring Dropcam - ipince
https://nest.com/blog/2014/06/20/the-nest-family-is-growing/
======
jakozaur
Google has acquired Nest... so now Google has also acquired Dropcam. I wonder
why they call it Nest acquistion, to downplay privacy concerns?

~~~
gress
Yup, the want to avoid the headline: "Google buys network of in-home cameras."

~~~
privong
They did make a point of explicitly saying none of the data is shared with
Google. But, yeah, probably best for fit PR to differentiate.

~~~
dbarlett
Dropcam runs on AWS [1], "ingest[ing] more video per minute than YouTube" [2]
into S3. Presumably the cost savings from switching to Google infrastructure
will be compelling enough to change that. They'll probably torture the
semantics and say "the data is there but Google can't access it".

[1] [http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-
studies/dropcam/](http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropcam/)

[2] [http://gigaom.com/2013/07/31/dropcam-gets-30m-for-
expansion-...](http://gigaom.com/2013/07/31/dropcam-gets-30m-for-expansion-
plans-and-computer-vision-rd/)

~~~
lotu
Naturally what what they mean is not, this data will never exist on a
computer/network owned by Google. What they mean is we aren't going use video
from your security camera for general Google projects, like street view,
collecting large amounts of speech databases for voice recognition, figuring
out what products you and enjoy using and tailoring advertising to fit that,
or tracking epidemics in real time by monitoring how many people in your house
are sick.

~~~
gress
Or providing video to law enforcement on demand.

~~~
pgeorgi
I guess it doesn't make much of a difference if Google or Amazon is doing it.

~~~
gress
Amazon isn't in a position to build a law enforcement portal to this service.
Google now is.

------
raldi
From the January 3 "What's your prediction for 2014?" thread:

 _> The next Nest product will be a home security system. If you already own
Nest thermostats or smoke detectors, their motion sensors will do double-duty
as security alarms._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7008786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7008786)

------
steven2012
I had a Dropcam and was excited for its remote monitoring capabilities. As a
camera it is excellent and the cloud recording is really well done. I set it
up and left for vacation for 3 weeks. During this time, I got so many
notifications of activity (at least 20 per day) that it rendered it completely
useless. It's an interesting idea but when I got my first notification of
activity I got so scared someone had broken into my house I was freaking out.
By the end of my vacation I just turned off the notification altogether and
returned it when I came home.

------
marvin
I don't want to spread any unwarranted negativity here, but does anyone know
how this fits into Nest's business model? I get Dropcam's business model of
letting people check in on their home when they are on the road, on vacation
etc, but hasn't Nest's business model been data mining from the very
beginning? How does placing cameras in customers' homes fit into this model?

I also wonder about the privacy policy question. Okay, so they won't share
data with Google, but what are the restrictions of Nest employees to check out
your cameras? At the very least, there are no technical limitations here and
it's all a matter of policy.

Again, not intending to spread negativity but it would be interesting to see
some discussion around these potential issues. Although I do hand over
ridiculous amounts of private information to web companies (in reality, most
of what's going on inside my head; there's plenty in my web-hosted diary that
I've never told anyone), there is somewhere I would draw the line. And I think
that line would go at uploading to the cloud what is going on inside my home,
regardless of what the privacy policy says.

~~~
tsumnia
I think it falls into a sort of "home automation/monitoring" model. As we move
further into the "Internet of Things" spectrum, Google and Nest are just
securing their place. Think about how Microsoft and Sony's gaming platforms
continue to build on the idea of being the only device you need for your TV. I
wouldn't be surprised if Nest sought to acquire someone like Fitbit for the
same thing, monitoring health/fitness via the bracelet or weight scale; or an
automated garage door opener company (if they did monitoring/diagnostic work
when the car is in the garage).

~~~
Corrado
I think Apple is in this battle as well. With the new iOS 8 / Yosemite
releases, they are targeting the home automation & health monitoring markets.
Google & Microsoft had better have something to offer because Apple is getting
ready to eat their lunch.

------
martin_
The deal went through for $555 million in cash.
[http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-
for-5...](http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-
for-555-million/)

~~~
dokem
Funny how (relatively) little companies with actual business models are
acquired for.

~~~
lumens
Once you make it real (with an actual working model), the fantasy top-end
projections of vapor-models disappear. Anchoring projections in realities of
the market can be a real downer.

------
domlebo70
I work for a startup providing a similar product to Dropcam. The difference
being we are free, and you can choose from a variety of supported cameras (we
have ~ 30 supported cameras).

What do you guys think? [http://www.cammy.com/](http://www.cammy.com/)

~~~
ARussell
How does Cammy make money? I wish that were in the FAQ, since Cammy is free.

------
devindotcom
$555m figure confirmed here:

[https://nest.com/press/nest-and-dropcam-sign-acquisition-
agr...](https://nest.com/press/nest-and-dropcam-sign-acquisition-agreement/)

------
aragot
I don't understand their pricing.

$9.99 a month or $99 a year for a rolling 7 days of video. I guess most of
that is a still, unattended image. Amazon cloud storage is cheap. It seems
very expensive to me.

For example. My flatmate has a child. His ex-partner is prone to make stories
in her head and go to the police with that. I'd be keen to host the kid until
the father comes back from work, but I'm afraid of the ex-partner's
accusations. I'm looking for a cloud storage service to store those hours for
a few years, not to serve as legal proof, but to reassure the ex- that nothing
weird happened. With Dropcam, that would cost me a few thousands dollars of
storage per year, or am I mistaken?

~~~
Corrado
I think you can export the video snippets and save them to local storage. This
would allow you to keep as much video as you want, basically for free. It
would be nice to have it linked in to Google Drive so that you can store
selected video snippets there.

------
minimaxir
Are high-profile announcements typically announced at 5pm on a Friday?

~~~
jakozaur
Likely the timing is because of stock exchange regulations. Google is publicly
traded company so announcing it on different time may gave someone "unfair
advantage".

Doing that 5pm Friday after market closes give everyone 2 days to process that
information.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There was no reason to down vote this comment, it is probably exactly right. A
lot of announcements for publicly traded companies are made at 5PM on a
Friday.

------
mkempe
Here is a more accurate description? Google acquires webcam-maker Dropcam for
$555 Million, to integrate with its Nest brand.

------
higherpurpose
You mean Google is. Remember when Schneier said no too long ago that "Google
is in the _surveillance_ business"? Even I didn't take it so literally back
then, but it turns out he was just slightly ahead of time with that
characterization.

~~~
tlrobinson
Misread that as "Schmidt said" and was surprised but not totally shocked (e.x.
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't
be doing it in the first place")

~~~
sitkack
Schmidt or Zuckerberg?

------
ojbyrne
It's interesting how google subsidiaries somehow announce acquisitions rather
than the parent company.

~~~
evan_
Youtube acquired Twitch last month:

[http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/18/report-youtube-acquires-
tw...](http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/18/report-youtube-acquires-twitch-
for-1-billion/)

so apparently this is a thing that happens now.

------
stevengg
so if google owns nest and nest nad owns dropcam if you have a dropcam and the
NSA wants to come blackbag your house can they delete the video off the
cloudhosting warnetlessly?

~~~
esbonsa
they can probably turn off your Internet connection/power warrantlessy so they
don't have to worry about that...

------
uptown
I'm surprised Nest (Google) hasn't bought Logitech's Alert division yet.
Logitech has been shopping it around - looking for a buyer - for awhile.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Perhaps they were concerned about leaving Dropcam as a/to a competitor and
taking on Logitech; whilst acquiring Dropcam they can take out 2 competitors
in one go as no-one else seems to want to take on Logitech? [Pure
speculation].

------
billwilliams
The reason for this acquisition is clear. Its why Nest was bought, its why
Dropcam was bought. For Eric Shmidt's whole life his brother would turn down
the thermostat and Eric would be too cold. He would accuse his brother and his
brother would play innocent. It was infuriating.

But now. Billions of dollars later. Finally, Eric will always know who is
screwing with his radiator.

------
esbonsa
Hopefully they will now allow to stream on the local network and the Dropcam
company will not disappear and render all these cameras useless...

------
gravity13
It is beginning.

------
lgas
Congrats, Greg!

------
jmduke
Some interesting quotes from Dropcam's CEO last year:

 _“Our business model is very straightforward. I think if your business model
is not straightforward, it veers into potentially being unethical, if you look
at things that are quote-unquote ‘free.’ None of the people who work here want
to work on something that works like that. They look at it as tricking the
user, when [a company is] turning around and using some part of the user’s
data to make revenue. "_

and

 _" He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the
free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get
employees to work 12- or 14-hour days."_

[http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/04/23/dropcam-
ceos...](http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/04/23/dropcam-ceos-beef-
with-brogramming-late-nights-and-free-dinners/?single_page=true)

~~~
npizzolato
Funny how quickly things change when someone offers to hand you a lot of
money. Granted, someone's opinions can change, but I feel like the first quote
especially describes a personal philosophical value that wouldn't change on a
whim.

~~~
enneff
The latter quote about the free food is just an ignorant comment. I'm sure
once the guy talked to some actual Googlers and saw how it really plays out,
his fears were assuaged.

(It's true that my free Google lunch keeps me at work around lunch time, but I
don't feel pressure for me to work beyond the 38 hours a week they pay me for.
In fact, Google has a lot of programs to help its employees maintain a good
work/life balance. Of course there are crunch times, but I feel free to spend
less time working at other times to balance it out.)

~~~
hueving
38 hours? Are you not salaried?

~~~
_delirium
Salaried Google employees, officially at least, work a full-time schedule
according to the local standard workweek, which varies by jurisdiction. That's
40 hours in the US/UK offices, 37 hours in the Denmark offices, 38 hours in
the Australian offices, etc. And enneff's profile indicates he's in Australia.

~~~
hueving
Interesting. I know several Googlers in the SV area and none of them work on a
40/hr schedule like that. They work like a regular salaried person where they
just do the appropriate amount of work to get their tasks completed on
schedule. Sometimes they will have a relaxed week where they only work ~20
hours and other times they will be in a code sprint and do 60-70 hours.

~~~
_delirium
I meant average, yeah, not necessarily that you work the _same_ hours every
week. However countries also vary a bit in how normal it is for people to work
outside of a standard daytime, M-F workweek.

I think even in the U.S., it's only really in the Valley (and maybe also in
NYC finance) where a _regular_ salaried job has wild week-to-week variations
in working hours. Occasional variations, yes, but in most industries it's
expected that you'll work standard hours most of the time (e.g. 8-5, M-F),
deviating only when there is some major issue. Every engineering company I've
heard of works like that, for example. The main exception is that people do do
quite a bit of email outside of work hours.

There are all sorts of practicalities that rely on a predictable work
schedule: scheduling your carpool, arranging childcare dropoff/pickup, etc.
How does that work in the tech industry? Do people at Google not have
carpools, kids, etc.?

