Nest have unveiled plans to expand their brand in Europe. Both of Nest’s signature products- Thermostat and Protect– will be on available in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland by the end of September. The announcement was made on Saturday, at the IFA 2014 tech conference here in Berlin, which interestingly does not happen to be on the list of the new countries in which Nest’s products goes on sale.
“While Nest products are currently sold in just three countries, there’s high demand for them around the world,” points out Lionel Paillet, General Manager of Europe, Nest. “In fact, Nest products have been installed by people in more than 120 countries and Nest Thermostats have already saved an estimated two billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy compared to what their owners would have spent on heating and cooling at a constant temperature. That’s enough energy to power 180,000 American homes for a year.”
In order to provide seamless service in these countries, Nest has customized their products with recordings from local actors for the voice of the Nest Protect alarm and marketing, packaging and the company’s online and retail presence as well. Nest is partnering with energy providers Direct Energie in France, Essent in The Netherlands and Lampiris in Belgium to bundle the Thermostat with certain energy tariffs.
Nest has been revolutionising home automation with every release. The Nest Thermostat for Europe doesn’t require programming- the user simply has to turn it up and down for a week as required, at which point Nest will learn your personalised energy usage schedule, which becomes more refined over time. Another facet of Nest’s incredibly advanced thermostat is an Auto-Away feature which automatically turns down the temperature when the house is empty. Nest Protect, an intuitive smoke alarm, can tell the difference between steam and smoke, and includes WiFi integration. It’s always good to see innovative products that are making our homes smarter hitting the European market- our fingers are crossed for a German release soon.
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(Image credit: Scott Crawley)
