Google's IoT Home Connects

JUN 20, 2016

At the recent Google I/O developer conference, the search giant unveiled its latest attempt to finally bring its vision of the connected home to consumers.

The promise of the Internet of Things is massive. Truly smart, connected appliances that we can control by just talking to them are the stuff of The Jetsons, the space-age future we were all promised.

That explains the hype cycle and wild estimates from consultants and analysts who should know. It also explains consumers’ disappointment with connected refrigerators and wine bottles that are just dumb.

Google (GOOG) has not helped. Its Android@Home platform debuted in 2012 and immediately failed because despite plenty of arm-twisting, Google couldn’t get any hardware manufacturers to adopt its standards. The $3.2 billion acquisition of smart appliance maker Nest in 2014 also slipped into the standards quagmire. Even under the stewardship of recently sacked Tony Fadell, the guy behind the iPod product development, Nest has disappointed. Its woes with competing standards culminated recently when it decided to “brick” devices running a platform it acquired to move its brand forward a year ago.

With its new premier device, called Home, the company is taking a different approach. It’s playing to our inner-child delight and to the surprising success of Amazon.com’sEcho. Home is controlled by voice, and it leverages the things Google does really well. Ask it to play music, a podcast or even to watch something on your television and Home performs like a champ because it uses the protocols of the wildly popular Chromecast devices.

Those same standards also allow the seamless coordination of multiple Home devices and connected speakers. Ask about the weather, about a change on your calendar or commute or about a trivia question and Home can do these things too because it’s built on Google Search and your personal Google services. So it knows that you have a dentist appointment Thursday or that there’s a traffic jam on your morning commute so you better leave earlier. And Home can turn off the lights in Billy’s room, adjust the thermostat in the basement and the security cameras outside based on the standards Nest has been able nail down.

Ironically that might be the only obvious flaw of Home. As a controller for the connected home, it’s still reliant on Nest’s progress. As a result, Google is taking a cautious approach. Unlike Echo, which has become a free-for-all with developers, Google did not announce any open application-program interfaces, or APIs. The company says it wants to wait until it has a chance to iron out all of the little wrinkles that plagued its previous connected home offerings.

The lack of open APIs means developers won’t be able to get Home to order Dominos pizzas or an Uber. And it may not work with appliances on competing platforms like Samsung’s SmartThings. Google says it will eventually have open APIs, but for now it is just a “works with Google” device.

That’s not necessarily a terrible thing. It’s still quite early in the connected home segment and despite the promise of the Internet of Things, many platforms are islands onto themselves. Even Echo, for all its high praise, does very few things. In fact, navigating that very narrowly defined skill set is Echo’s most appealing trait.

On the other hand, Alphabet is bundling tightly integrated Chromecast, Nest, Search and its best-in-class machine learning capabilities. That’s a compelling and much larger package. If Home comes anywhere close to fulfilling its promise, it’s going to be a big winner. Just wish they had chosen a sexier name. To take advantage, GOOG is the pick.

Jon Markman is president of Markman Capital Insight. Click here to sign up for his free VIP newsletter on the intersection of technology, business and culture

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2016/06/20/googles-iot-home-connects/2/#3a6f4d4b5907