谷歌推出新款入门级Nest恒温器,旨在吸引想搭上智能家居“潮流列车”的人群。
10月12日,搜索引擎巨头谷歌发布新款Nest恒温器,为其不断扩大的联网设备产品矩阵再添新丁,谷歌已经发布的联网设备还包括Nest音频智能音箱与多种联网安全摄像头。
Nest恒温器标价129.99 美元,共有雪白、沙褐、炭灰、雾绿四种不同颜色。
与售价249美元的高端产品——Nest Learning恒温器相比,新款恒温器的配置显然更加基础。
Nest Learning恒温器支持更复杂的机器学习技术,能够通过监测、学习用户日常活动习惯对室内温度进行自动调节,而新款设备则不支持这种技术。不过用户在使用新款Nest恒温器时可以自行创建时间表,设置自己出门时的室内温度。如果不想花太多时间考虑自己日程的话,用户也能够直接从系统预设的时间表中挑选。
谷歌希望将最新款Nest恒温器作为一种能源开支节省方案推向消费者,该设备配备有所谓的“省钱大师”(Savings Finder)功能,可以通过一些微小调整来帮助用户节省开支,比如夜间在用户可能睡着的情况下适当降低室内温度,在确保用户不被冻醒的情况下,降低室内供热所需消耗的能源。
谷歌负责Nest恒温器项目的产品主管鲁奇•德赛表示,对大多数不熟悉智能家居设备概念的人而言,成本、操作简易性是其在做出购买选择时最关心的问题。
考虑到这一点,谷歌新款Nest恒温器在设计时便致力于将产品做得尽可能简单,新款设备上配有一块显示屏,能够用大号字体显示用户家中的温度,还可以显示室内的暖气、通风或空调系统是在进行供热还是制冷。
新款Nest恒温器还配备有距离传感器,“当用户靠近时会神奇地自动唤醒。”德赛说。
为了说明这款设备操作简便、新手也能够轻松驾驭,德赛还以Google Home应用程序为例介绍了其温度设定及设置修改方法。她表示,现在大家都想通过应用程序来控制自己的恒温器。
不过Nest用户可能也会感到困惑,为什么新款Nest恒温器即便使用了Nest品牌,却还是不可以使用Nest手机应用程序进行控制,而必须使用Google Home。这也从一个侧面体现了谷歌营销和品牌战略中更大问题,从该公司最近将商用软件套件更名为Google Workspace、Hangouts Chat更名为Google Chat可以看出,这一问题似乎影响到了公司的方方面面。
对于有报道称,新款恒温器将配备手势控制功能,允许用户通过手势修改设置,德赛回应说,新款设备“并未配备手势控制功能”。谷歌发言人拒绝就手势控制在未来恒温器中出现的可能性予以置评。
新款Nest恒温器还支持Google Assistant语音助理,用户可以通过语音设置自己想要的室内温度。与售价更高的旧款Nest恒温器一样,新设备同样支持亚马逊Alexa语音助理,这也使其成为近期为数不多的支持竞争对手语音技术的谷歌联网设备之一。
尽管Nest恒温器配备了不同的功能,但谷歌似乎寄望较低的售价成为消费者购买该设备的主要原因,售价与其相似的联网恒温器产品还包括艾默生Sensi触摸式智能恒温器(128.62美元)与Ecobee3 Lite恒温器(169美元)。
德赛说:“价格是阻碍消费者购买智能恒温器的首要障碍。”(财富中文网)
译者:梁宇
审校:夏林
谷歌推出新款入门级Nest恒温器,旨在吸引想搭上智能家居“潮流列车”的人群。
10月12日,搜索引擎巨头谷歌发布新款Nest恒温器,为其不断扩大的联网设备产品矩阵再添新丁,谷歌已经发布的联网设备还包括Nest音频智能音箱与多种联网安全摄像头。
Nest恒温器标价129.99 美元,共有雪白、沙褐、炭灰、雾绿四种不同颜色。
与售价249美元的高端产品——Nest Learning恒温器相比,新款恒温器的配置显然更加基础。
Nest Learning恒温器支持更复杂的机器学习技术,能够通过监测、学习用户日常活动习惯对室内温度进行自动调节,而新款设备则不支持这种技术。不过用户在使用新款Nest恒温器时可以自行创建时间表,设置自己出门时的室内温度。如果不想花太多时间考虑自己日程的话,用户也能够直接从系统预设的时间表中挑选。
谷歌希望将最新款Nest恒温器作为一种能源开支节省方案推向消费者,该设备配备有所谓的“省钱大师”(Savings Finder)功能,可以通过一些微小调整来帮助用户节省开支,比如夜间在用户可能睡着的情况下适当降低室内温度,在确保用户不被冻醒的情况下,降低室内供热所需消耗的能源。
谷歌负责Nest恒温器项目的产品主管鲁奇•德赛表示,对大多数不熟悉智能家居设备概念的人而言,成本、操作简易性是其在做出购买选择时最关心的问题。
考虑到这一点,谷歌新款Nest恒温器在设计时便致力于将产品做得尽可能简单,新款设备上配有一块显示屏,能够用大号字体显示用户家中的温度,还可以显示室内的暖气、通风或空调系统是在进行供热还是制冷。
新款Nest恒温器还配备有距离传感器,“当用户靠近时会神奇地自动唤醒。”德赛说。
为了说明这款设备操作简便、新手也能够轻松驾驭,德赛还以Google Home应用程序为例介绍了其温度设定及设置修改方法。她表示,现在大家都想通过应用程序来控制自己的恒温器。
不过Nest用户可能也会感到困惑,为什么新款Nest恒温器即便使用了Nest品牌,却还是不可以使用Nest手机应用程序进行控制,而必须使用Google Home。这也从一个侧面体现了谷歌营销和品牌战略中更大问题,从该公司最近将商用软件套件更名为Google Workspace、Hangouts Chat更名为Google Chat可以看出,这一问题似乎影响到了公司的方方面面。
对于有报道称,新款恒温器将配备手势控制功能,允许用户通过手势修改设置,德赛回应说,新款设备“并未配备手势控制功能”。谷歌发言人拒绝就手势控制在未来恒温器中出现的可能性予以置评。
新款Nest恒温器还支持Google Assistant语音助理,用户可以通过语音设置自己想要的室内温度。与售价更高的旧款Nest恒温器一样,新设备同样支持亚马逊Alexa语音助理,这也使其成为近期为数不多的支持竞争对手语音技术的谷歌联网设备之一。
尽管Nest恒温器配备了不同的功能,但谷歌似乎寄望较低的售价成为消费者购买该设备的主要原因,售价与其相似的联网恒温器产品还包括艾默生Sensi触摸式智能恒温器(128.62美元)与Ecobee3 Lite恒温器(169美元)。
德赛说:“价格是阻碍消费者购买智能恒温器的首要障碍。”(财富中文网)
译者:梁宇
审校:夏林
Google is pitching its newest Nest Thermostat as an entry-level gadget intended for people curious to jump aboard the so-called smart-home bandwagon.
The search giant debuted its new Nest Thermostat on October 12, the latest edition to the company’s growing portfolio of Internet-connected devices, like the Nest Audio smart speaker and various web-connected security cameras.
The Nest Thermostat costs $129.99 and comes in four different colors—snow (white), sand (pinkish tan), charcoal (dark grey), and fog (green).
Compared to the company’s high-end Nest Learning Thermostat, which costs $249, the new thermostat is significantly more barebones.
It lacks some of the more complex machine learning technologies of the Nest Learning Thermostat that enable that device to do feats like automatically adjusting the temperature of a home based on monitoring a person’s schedule, thus learning the patterns of daily routines. Instead, people can create schedules via the new Nest Thermostat to determine what the temperature should be when they leave their home, for instance. People can also choose from several preset schedules if they don’t want to spend too much time deliberating.
Google is still promoting the latest Nest Thermostat as a way people can save money on their energy bill. It contains a so-called Savings Finder feature, for instance, that may suggest little changes like decreasing the temperature at night when people are likely to be asleep—presumably, the suggestion wouldn’t cause someone to wake up at night from being too cold, but it would reduce the amount of energy spent heating up a home.
Ruchi Desai, a Google product lead for the Nest Thermostat, said that for most people unfamiliar with the concept of smart-home devices, cost and simplicity are their number one choices when deciding to buy a gadget.
With that in mind, Google’s new Nest Thermostat was designed to be as simple as possible, with a screen that displays in a large font the temperature in a person’s home and whether the home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system is heating things up or cooling things down.
The thermostat also contains sensors that tell it when a person is near, so that it “will magically wake up when you approach it,” Desai said.
Desai described how people can set the thermostat’s temperature or adjust settings via the Google Home app as an example of how simple it is for laypeople to operate the device. People want to be able to control their thermostats with an app, she said.
Still, users may get confused by the fact that they can’t use the existing Nest smartphone app to control the Nest Thermostat’s settings—they must use the Google Home app, even though the new Nest Thermostat contains the Nest branding. It’s part of a larger problem with Google’s marketing and branding strategy that seems to carry over to all aspects of the company, from it’s recently renamed business software suite (now known as Google Workspace) to its recent rebranding of Hangouts Chat to Google Chat.
As for reports that the new thermostat would contain gesture controls that would allow people to change settings by moving their hands, Desai said “there is no gesture control” on the new device. A Google spokesperson declined to comment about the possibility that gesture controls would come to future thermostats.
The new Nest Thermostat also supports the Google Assistant voice technology so people can set their home temperature by speaking. Like the more expensive and older Nest thermostats, the newest gadget also supports Amazon’s Alexa voice technology, making it one of the few recent Google Internet connected devices that support a rival voice technology.
Despite the Nest Thermostat’s different features, it seems Google is banking that it’s low-price will be the main reason people buy the gadget. Other Internet-connected thermostats that cost around the same price include the Emerson Sensi Touch Smart Thermostat ($128.62) and Ecobee3 Lite ($169).
“The number one barrier and why people don’t purchase smart thermostats is price,” Desai said.