Google-owned Nest has acquired smart home hub startup company Revolv, allowing Google to take one more step to a complete domination of the smart home industry.
While the financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, the deal has already been reportedly closed.
Revolv, based in Colorado, created a hardware hub that featured several radios within. The radios allow several smart home devices to communicated with each other, and with the Revolv app, users are given the option to sync the interactions between the devices.
"Nest bought a team of people knowledgable in the interoperability of a wide variety of radio technology and software protocols in order to make integration easier for partners and customers," said Frank Gillett, an analyst for Forrester.
After the acquisition, sales for the Revolv hub will cease. The Revolv team will instead be working on the open API program of Nest called Works with Nest.
According to Matt Rogers, a co-founder of Nest, the development of Works with Nest is all about creating a platform that will allow other companies and startups to build their products based on it.
Nest's acquisition of Revolv is its second one since the company was acquired by Google back in January for a hefty sum of $3.2 billion in cash. Nest, which is known for its smart thermostat and smoke detector devices that can be controlled using a smartphone, was co-founded by Rogers and Tony Fadell, who is known as the godfather of the iPod.
In June, Nest purchased Dropcam, a manufacturer of a cloud-based home security camera, for $555 million. Dropcam devices allow users to monitor their homes even from a thousand miles away. A subscription service also allows users to record and store security camera footage on Dropcam servers.
In addition to the Revolv acquisition, Nest also introduced fire more partners in the development of the Works with Nest program. These partners are ivee, Pebble, Life360, SNUPI Technologies and Rachio.
The partnerships could allows users to check if family members are already at home or not with the Life360 app, or control the home thermostat using the Pebble smartwatch.
Revolv was drawing praise from reviews for its ease of use. However, the price of $300 for the hub could have been too much for customers, as the idea of cloud-based, Internet-connected home devices is still not mainstream.
However, with Revolv joining Google's Nest, the company no longer needs to worry about hardware sales and can just focus on product development, while Nest continues to grow to be the dominant player in the fledgling smart home industry.
