Google Nest: welcome to the helpful home

Since Nest joined Google’s hardware team last year, we’ve been working to make the smart home a little less complicated, and well, more helpful. It’s a home where products work together to help you feel comfortable and safe, keep an eye on things when you’re away, and connect you to friends and family. Today, we’re committing to that goal by bringing the Home products under the Nest brand. Our first step as Google Nest is to go beyond the idea of a “smart home,” and to focus instead on creating a “helpful home.”

As part of that, we’re adding to our lineup of Nest devices, privacy commitments, accounts and platforms.

Our commitment to privacy in the home

To give you a better understanding of how our connected home devices and services will work in your home, we’ve outlined a set of privacy commitments that apply when these devices and services are used with Google Accounts:

• We’ll explain our sensors and how they work. The technical specifications for our connected home devices will list all audio, video, and environmental and activity sensors—whether enabled or not. And you can find the types of data these sensors collect and how that data is used in various features in our dedicated help center page.
• We’ll explain how your video footage, audio recordings, and home environment sensor readings are used to offer helpful features and services (including using your sensor readings to promote our connected home services such as energy savings programs) and our commitment for how we’ll keep this data separate from advertising and ad personalization.  
• We’ll explain how you can control and manage your data, such as providing you with the ability to access, review, and delete audio and video stored with your Google Account at any time.

Our goal is simple: earn and keep your trust by clearly explaining how our products work and how we’ll uphold our commitment to respect your privacy. To learn more, please check out our commitment to privacy in the home.

One secure account

Another step we’re taking to help keep your Nest devices secure is making Google Accounts available to anyone using existing Nest devices and services. Google has a long history of providing billions of people with industry-leading automatic security protections when accessing products like Gmail, Photos, Maps and Drive with their Google Account.

Beginning this summer, you’ll have the option to migrate your Nest Account to a Google Account, which comes with the added benefits of tools and automatic security protections:

• Suspicious activity detection sends you notifications whenever we detect unusual or potentially dangerous activity, such as suspicious sign-ins to your account.
• Security Checkup provides personalized guidance to help you secure your account and manage your online security.
• 2-Step Verification strengthens your account security by adding an advanced second verification step whenever you sign in, including additional features like a prompt from a trusted device or the use of a physical security key.

If you already have a Google Account for Gmail and other Google products, you can migrate your Nest Account to that account. New Nest users will automatically start with a Google Account at the same time that existing users are invited to migrate to Google Accounts. You’ll be able to use your Google Account across both the Nest app and the Google Home app, and with all of Google’s other products. Having a single account will also enable our devices and services to work better together—for example, Nest Hub shows the live video from Nest Hello, so you can see who's at the front door, without any additional setup.

One home developer platform

And finally, we’re unifying our efforts around third-party connected home devices under a single platform for developers to build features and apps for a more helpful home. To accomplish this, we’re winding down the Works with Nest developer program on August 31, 2019, and delivering a single consumer and developer experience through the Works with Google Assistant program—which works with more than 30,000 devices from over 3,500 home automation brands.

For more details about all the changes, check out the What’s Happening with Google Nest FAQ, where you can learn more.

As technology becomes a bigger part of our lives—especially when we're at home—privacy and security are more important than ever. We recognize that we’re a guest in your home, and we respect and appreciate that invitation—and these updates are among the many ways we hope to continue to earn your trust.