Google’s Nest now talks with Philips Hue LED lamps and to smart fridges too!

Nest, the Google-owned US company that says  ‘We take the unloved products in your home and make simple, beautiful, thoughtful things’, and which has designed IP-connected thermostats and alarms, has now added Philips advanced IP-controlled Hue LED lamps, plus LG smart fridges to its ‘Works with Nest’ programme.

Philips’ Hue allows homeowners to obtain full control over the light in their lives by setting the mood and changing the ambience using varying light output and colour. With tunable white light and a full spectrum of colour, all at the tap of a smartphone or tablet app, homeowners can set the perfect tone and enhance any moment – almost instantly.

Hue lamps can turn cerulean blue or sunset pink, and can dim or brighten wirelessly, and can even pulse along with speech rhythms – all at a smartphone or tablet command.

Nest provides thermostat and home automation devices that wirelessly connect to many household systems, such as boilers, doors, lighting, washing machines, smartphones, and now fridges, but there could be – and will be – a great many more.

Nest is, therefore, part of the still young but fast-growing ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) in which physical devices communicate with each other and people via wireless networks – locally or from around the world.

Nest already has major partners, including Pebble, Jawbone and surveillance firm Dropcam (also Google-owned), but new ones are joining and one of these is Philips.

Now, therefore, the Hue LED lamps can work together with Nest. For example, it’s possible to turn on the lights automatically if smoke is detected, or to change their color to red if carbon monoxide is found to be present – so the lamps can be made to flash to make it immediately clear if Nest Protect smoke or carbon monoxide detectors are set off.

Always one of the leaders in LED lighting technologies, Philips is now therefore moving still further into the future by partnering Hue with Google’s Nest. The move is also likely to provide Philips with new business models, which is important, as good LED lamps last so long that lighting firms are now struggling to find sustainable businesses.

For example, a possibility that Philips has been examining for some time, is how light colour and tone can affect perception of temperature – and potentially even lead to savings in HVAC costs. Clearly, any such successful technological outcomes could well result in new business for companies like Philips.

‘Works with Nest’ is essentially a hub for third-party IoT devices that can interact with the Google-owned Nest thermostat and other devices. ‘Works with Nest’ makes it possible for Nest devices to interact securely with the things that domestic users already use every day, both inside and outside their homes – such as thermostats and smoke / fire alarms – but potentially, many other devices as well. This allows behind the scenes operations to deliver personalised comfort, safety and energy savings.

Other possibilities include users being able to turn the home’s heat up or on (or off) when walking through the front door (or any door), to running the washing machine when they are away, by using smartphone apps – always assuming there’s a need for this, of course.

Potentially, this move could have really significant consequences, with such IP-connected LED lamps and lighting systems being able to improve health, sleep, sense of wellbeing – even happiness and life. And it’s possible too that they could even help ease pain.

The advent of affordable white light LEDs for general lighting has revolutionised the lighting industry across the world in little more than a decade. Now, with such excitement beginning to fade, there are now massive new possibilities for lighting in the burgeoning IoT realm.