Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz on why his company wants to fill your house with computers

The company is taking old products and making them smart

Eighteen months ago, Marwan Fawaz became CEO of Nest. He spoke exclusively to The Independent.

In a cool, almost antiseptic white office in Victoria, I’m talking to Marwan Fawaz, CEO of Nest. The company’s latest products, in a shimmery white finish that almost matches the walls, are on the table.

Nest is part of the Alphabet group – whose offices these are – which also includes Google. Fawaz had previously worked for another company in the group, Motorola Home.

The gleaming white gizmos include a suite of products called Nest Secure, announced in September and on sale in the UK soon. They look and feel appealing, part of Nest’s desire to make products which are elegant and approachable.

Nest’s first product, the learning thermostat, came about because the company recognised that people found it too complicated to set their heating system schedules, so they didn’t bother.

Now, it’s realised that the same applied to security systems. The company says that 75 per cent of US households lack a security system and of those that have one, 43 per cent don’t bother to turn them on.

“I spent some time in the security space a little bit as an advisor,” Fawaz tells me. “One of the biggest things for this product is its simplicity. It is not an intimidating security product where you have to remember codes (although it has codes).

“You can use a Nest tag to activate or deactivate an alarm. Our sensors are much simpler, and they act as a motion sensor as well as an open-and-close sensor for doors and windows. A button on the sensor also activates and deactivates that particular device if you want to just have one door open without turning the whole system off.”

There’s a night light, also found on the company’s smoke alarms which, thanks to a proximity sensor, comes on when you approach to guide you in the dark.

It even knows where you are, if you give it permission to do so, which has a clever benefit. It makes this happen through spotting whether your mobile phone is at home or elsewhere.

“If you leave the home and forgot to set your alarm, we will remind you as you are outside your home, sending a message saying, ‘We noticed you’re outside your home, would you like to arm your Nest security system?’”

The other thing about Nest is that it has always taken design seriously.

“I got introduced to Nest five or six years ago. At a trade show, I saw crowds gathered around a thermostat. I looked at it and it was the concept of the look and feel that was very impressive. But as important as the design was the concept. It was a thoughtful product: you don’t have to schedule it, it learns your schedule, your occupancies and does all of that on its own. That was really industry-leading.”

There’s a theme here, though, as the products themselves, smoke alarms, home security cameras, thermostats, and now a home security system are not the first of their kind.

Fawaz laughs: “You’re right, these are not new products. We reinvent the product wheel according to how people interact with them. And that’s the simplicity of it. And these products all talk to each other.

“It’s important to us that consumers don’t have to do something for these products to connect to each other. So, our Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector talks to the thermostat. Consumers don’t have to do any set up around that.

“So, in the unfortunate event that you have a smoke or a fire in your home the Nest Protect will automatically tell your thermostat to shut off the boiler or turn off the air conditioning because we want to stop air circulation in the home because air circulation enables the fire to move faster.”

The latest product is called Nest Hello, a video doorbell which, like the other products, is designed to be easily installed.

Fawaz explains its capabilities: “It’s not the typical doorbell. It’s got the Nest look and design. Before you even press the button, just as you move closer to it when it’s dark, it will light up. This is a wired product, so if consumers are not comfortable with the wires because it has power on it, they can have the comfort of a certified technician to connect the wires to it.

“And unlike other doorbells this particular product continuously streams video, meaning it records all the time whether there’s somebody there or not. So, you don’t miss an event. You could see the before and after of somebody showing up at your door whether he or she rings the doorbell or not.

“And this is one big differentiator. So it’s not just the motion detection. There are places where people may appear on camera and go but might not trigger the motion sensors. But we will still capture that.”

Throughout, Fawaz is considered, straightforward and effortlessly courteous, knowing his products with a surgical precision and in great depth.

He knows that one of the strengths of the Nest system is that its products can talk to each other to add extra functionality. Like in the case of a fire. Or how a security camera can tell your thermostat if you’re at home or not and adjust the temperature automatically.

Nest is no longer on its own in the smart home marketplace – there are plenty of other smart cameras, for instance, and Nest requires a subscription for some of its services, which some rivals don’t. Mind you, the extra features offered by the company include facial recognition, which is handy.

Nest must hope that its increased product range, feature-rich and closely integrated, will mean it is the go-to brand for the connected home.