Nest expands into Europe, reveals new parterships
From the end of September, Nest products will go on sale officially in more European countries.
BERLIN -- Nest today announced it is expanding further into Europe. Its Thermostat and Protect products will be available to buy from official channels at the end of the September in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland.
Nest says that people use its products in 120 different countries already, having bought them online, even though they are not set up properly for that country's heating system. After the UK, where Nest products are already on sale, the new countries announced today are some of the most popular countries for imported Nest usage in Europe.
Nest says it has made sure its Thermostat will work with the heating systems the new countries use and that it has a support structure to deal with installation. It has recorded new voices for its Protect alarm using the local dialect.
Deals have been signed with energy providers in some of its new regions to help get the Thermostat into homes by bundling it with certain tariffs. The companies are Direct Energie in France, Lampiris in Belgium and Essent in The Netherlands. No partnerships have been announced for Ireland. Prices haven't been announced yet, although I am told there will be one price across Europe.
Despite announcing this at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany is not one of the new countries Nest's products goes on sale. Lionel Paillet, Nest's general manager for Europe, told me in a briefing ahead of the announcement that it's not because of the obvious assumption: that the data the Thermostat collects violates Germany's famously strong privacy laws.
Instead, it's more about the time it takes in each country to work with local manufacturers to make sure they are happy Nest products will function with the heating infrastructure there. In Germany, that process isn't finished yet.
Nest's expansion comes off the back of the news on Thursday that the company is upgrading the software that runs on its carbon monoxide/smoke detector, the Nest Protect. The update adds the ability to see more information about its safety alerts, including an alert history and a measurement of carbon monoxide detected.
It does not, however, restore the feature Nest was most excited about when it launched: waving at the device to halt a false alarm. That feature was disabled in May after fears surfaced that people could accidentally turn their smoke alarms off in an emergency.